TROY DOUGLAS would have us believe he's the Rodney Dangerfield of local athletics.

On a rare return from Holland, his adopted home, the three-time Olympian sprinter bemoaned last week the fact that he and the Island's two other track and field stars of the 1990s, Brian Wellman and Clarance (Nicky) Saunders, rarely got the respect they deserved.

Given the success of that trio - Wellman won gold at the World Indoor Championships and silver at the outdoor Worlds, Saunders gold at the Commonwealth Games while Douglas himself reached three successive Olympic semi-finals in either the 200 or 400 metres - then the veteran runner probably has a point.

The same might be said of a few of our other sporting greats.

Clyde Best, a pioneer among black players in the top flight of English football, was f?ted far more on the other side of the Atlantic than he ever was here. Randy Horton, voted Most Valuable Player in the North American Soccer League at a time when that league boasted some of the world's most gifted players, could likely say the same.

It's a sad fact that some of Bermuda's finest athletes have never been given the recognition they deserve, either at the time of competing or after retirement.

Yet many might have lent a more sympathetic ear to Douglas' protestations last week had he not tried to compare his own accomplishments with those of Shaun Goater.

As a letter writer pointed out the next day, that was a fatal error.

Trying to bring attention to one's own achievements by decrying those of another rarely has the desired effect.

In fact, more often than not it has the opposite.

Instead of rallying sports fans to his cause, Douglas most likely turned them against him.

No matter what his argument, it's difficult to convince anyone that Goater doesn't deserve every one of the rewards that have come his way - the almost cult figure status in and around Manchester, the VIP treatment and the mega-bucks salary.

From a very good footballer at North Village, he's become the very best at Manchester City, one of the biggest clubs in England. Besides a sensational goalscoring record - he's topped the goal charts for every club he's ever played for - Goater has earned the respect of his fellow players as a model pro on the pitch and and gentleman off it.

For that reason he represents all the City players on the Professional Footballers' Association and recently has been handed the skipper's armband.

For similar reasons he was recently chosen by Manchester City Council, along with Manchester United star Roy Keane, to help promote next summer's Commonwealth Games.

And throughout all of these off-field distractions, Goater never forgets his roots. He's always careful to inform anyone who cares to listen that he's a Bermudian, and a proud Bermudian at that.

As we've said before, a better ambassador we couldn't imagine.

Douglas, on the other hand, has abandoned his home country to wear the colours of Holland, a move which he says was purely in the interests of furthering his own professional career.

That might be true, but his 'defection' along with a two-year ban for the alleged use of nandrolone may have cost him the respect from Bermudians which he so desperately yearns.

On the track and in full flow, Douglas was a sight to behold, a real athletic warrior who continually defied the odds and silenced his critics.

Off it, he's been outspoken and controversial.

That's fine. But to borrow another phrase from our letter-writer, athletes 'should command respect, not demand it' - an axiom some within the BTFA also might do well to remember .

Shaun Goater learned that lesson many years ago.