Cornwall College football coach, Dean Weatherly. - Contributed
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DESPITE CORNWALL College's football success over the past year, the driving force behind the victorious team, coach Dean Weatherly is as humble as ever. A past student of Cornwall and a successful paediatric dentist, Weatherly has coached the football team at his alma mater for the past nine years.
After graduating from Cornwall and Munro College, he attended Howard University for 10 years. He spent four years earning his undergrad chemistry degree, four more years completing his studies in dentistry and his final two focusing on paediatric dentistry.
One does not often link football with dentistry, but in Dean Weatherly's case it was simply combining two of the things he loves and integrating them into his life. In high school and in college, he played on the football team. When he graduated from University, he came back to Jamaica to start his practice in his hometown. "I always felt like I had to give back to my community. Jamaica is my home, forever," he said.
As a result of his reputation as a ball player, he found time to coach his neighbourhood football team in between developing his practice and working at Cornwall Regional Hospital.
Word of his work with the team got around and soon the sports master asked him if he would like to take up the challenge to coach the Cornwall College football team. Being a past student of the school and an avid lover of the game, he gladly took on the commitment of becoming coach.
"Football is my first love so of course I jumped at the chance to work with the team. We have a great team. We are doing well," Weatherly said. He even points out a few of his many outstanding players like Dean Richards, Garrick Gordon, DeShaun Woolery and Richard McCalla, who all help to make the team work.
Cornwall College players are scouted from they enter high school in first form. This, Weatherly says, is in order to identify and improve the skills of future players from an early stage.
When asked what his strategy was for leading the team to so many victories he said, "the boys already have the talent, I just help them along. We work as a unit."
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