Twisted priorities
IN ONE of the many spirited debates on the morning radiosports discussion show The Sports Explosion on HITZ 92 FM, my co-host Earl ‘The Bald Eagle’ Bailey proposed that the Government should take the responsibility for building at least one synthetic running track in the central region of the island. The case was vehemently made by my erudite colleague that the current situation, where six of the seven synthetic running tracks in Jamaica are located within a twenty to twenty five mile radius encompassing Kingston, St Andrew, and St Catherine, is unacceptable and must be addressed. The only synthetic surface outside of that general geographical area is located over a hundred miles away at the Montego Bay Sports Complex.
During t hat discussion, I suggested to my co-host that the Government has its hands full with providing adequate security, health, housing and basic amenities for the majority of its citizens. In that context, I expressed some reservations about expecting the Government to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to install a running track. I went on to make the point that approximately half of the tracks already installed – the one at Calabar High School, the one at Kingston College, and the one at the University of the West Indies – were built predominantly by private, and not public-sector funding, and it was therefore up to those private individuals to build those tracks where they saw fit.
Immediately after getting off the air, a call came from an official of the Sports Development Foundation (SDF), who i nformed me that the government, via the SDF, actually did contribute approximately $30 million to the construction of the track at Calabar, with a smaller portion allocated for the construction of the Kingston College track.
Suffice to say that with that new information, my moment of epiphany had arrived, and with it, an i mmediate change of opinion on the issue. Finding out that the Government, which is supposed to take care of the wider good of the people, had actually spent over $30 million on helping to build running tracks for a couple of prominent high schools, it is now clear that the State’s priorities in this regard are twisted and misplaced.
There is no longer a moral, ethical, or even an economic dilemma. If the Government spent over $30 million on a high school track, then it goes without saying that, nepotism and myopia aside, the will and the way should have been found to at least begin the process of the laying of a synthetic running surface in the contextually neglected central area of the island, which would be of much more benefit to the wider good.
I am now in full agreement with my co-host that the Government absolutely should lead the way, with the private sector in close attendance, in ensuring at least one proper running track is built in that general Clarendon-ManchesterSt Ann-St Elizabeth zone. Central Jamaica has been the hotbed of track and field for several years, with the likes of Vere Technical, Holmwood Technical, Edwin Allen High, Manchester High and St Elizabeth Technical as consistently dominant forces at the annual ISSA GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships.
SHAME AND DISGRACE
These are schools with the most traditionally power ful programmes for girls, producing huge numbers of world beaters. The likes of Elaine Thompson, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Sherone Simpson, Omar McLeod, Nesta Carter, and even the great Usain Bolt had their origins in a parish immediately neighbouring this central zone. It is a downright shame and disgrace that it is even necessary to be still having this conversation in 2018.
The Government should not spend another dollar on developing another track and field facility unless it is in central Jamaica. The plains of Clarendon, Kirkvine Spor ts Club, the Manchester High School grounds, and as far as the St Elizabeth Technical High School complex provide suitable location options. All that are needed are the will and the conviction to get it done. The same Government, in tandem with the heavy hitters in the private sec tor, who are generally first in line to laud and exploit the photo opportunities with the athletes i n their moment of glory, cannot sit idly by and allow this kind of myopic inequity to continue. If they do, it will continue to feed into the notion that Jamaica is a nation of short-sighted ‘wagonists’ who continue to have their priorities twisted.