Riley transfers Wolmer’s 100 glory tactic to Excelsior
Focus on individual quality reaping big dividends
NEARLY A decade after having reached the pinnacle of Boys’ Champs success with Wolmer’s Boys’ School, David Riley has transferred his philosophy of focusing on coaching athletes as individuals, rather than as a group, and it is a philosophy that continues to reap the high-school athletics coach big dividends.
Riley, who is also a long and triple jump specialist, said “individualising” coaching has been a key to his success, and he said it is a job made easier with a smaller team. In 2010, when Wolmer’s Boys’ won the coveted Mortimer Geddes Trophy, the team had fewer than 50 members.
Riley has transferred that philosophy to Excelsior High School, whose track and field programme he now leads. The school will be competing at this year’s Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/ GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships with a squad comprising 60 girls and fewer than 50 boys.
“That’s the philosophy of how track and field ought to be done. It’s not my philosophy. I don’t think of them as a group. I don’t treat them as if everybody is the same, and when you do that, you are able to get optimal performance from the athletes,” Riley said.
Excelsior High surpassed its target of earning 100 points at the 2017 ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships. In 2018, the girls team finished sixth overall with 103.5 points, while the boys finished in eighth position with 35 points.
“(You are) developing the components of the individual based on their strengths and weaknesses,” he added.
Such a philosophy requires making very clinical decisions, such as cutting athletes who don’t make the grade at competition time, but it’s a decision that must be made, according to Riley.
“When the individual is unable to reach the performance level, you cut them because of what you’re trying to accomplish. I actually cut an athlete if I don’t think they’re going to reach the levels they need to be – being able to get into the finals,” he said, adding that every athlete knows at the beginning of the season, the standards he or she needs to make.
“You can’t make the Olympics unless you reach the qualifying standards,” he said, adding that his methods are very technical data- and analysis-driven.
“Athletes immerse themselves in the training programme. When they get there, they get there and if they don’t, they try again another year. That’s why you go to development meets and you have 100 people and you know they are trying to get there, and you try to facilitate it because in track and field everything is measurable. You can determine who is better than who,” he said.
Some of his athletes who have transitioned from the ISSA GraceKennedy Chamionships are Wolmerians Julian Forte and Ramone Bailey, who were members of the team that won the Champs 100 boys’ title. Both have since competed at the Olympics, with Bailey, the captain of that Wolmer’s Boys’ team, winning the long jump gold medal at the CAC Games in Barranquilla, Colombia, last year; and Forte, now competing as one of the nation’s sprinters.
Also, another of his current charges, Excelsior High School’s promising hurdler, Ackera Nugent, won silver at the Youth Olympics in Argentina last October.
The American tennis great, Arthur Ashe pointed to preparation as being one of the best keys to success. Adequate preparation time is also a philosophy shared by Riley.
“There’s no other sport locally where they get as much time in preparing the athletes. The preparation phase of the track and field team is longer than the competition phase, and that’s why we are able to get the athletes in the shape that they are in,” stated Riley, who was head coach of Jamaica’s team to the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Argentina.
Although Riley, who left Wolmer’s in 2012, is an in-demand coach, he said he enjoys the satisfaction of helping to build a team, which is why he chooses to remain at Excelsior.
“I am excited about just building something out of nothing. That’s the intriguing part of it, and the frustrations and everything just kind of blends together,” he said.