By Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter
Green
WESTERN BUREAU:
FORMER GENERAL secretary of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) Freddie Green believes too much emphasis is being placed on high school sports in Jamaica.
In an interview with The Gleaner recently, Green, who served as ISSA's general secretary for 18 years between 1983 and last year when he stepped down, said that while Jamaica's future in track and field "was very bright" because of the system at the high school level, he thinks "there might be a little too much emphasis on high school sports".
Green, who was the patron at the 24th Milo Western Relays at Cornwall College, said "it will be difficult" for ISSA to put a brake on the amount of emphasis put on school sports, especially schoolboys football and track and field. While they cannot discourage the interest of the students, there must be a system in place, he said, to make sure the situation does not get out of hand.
The former national football and volleyball player said that sports in high school was a very important part of the matriculation of the students, as in addition to affording them lots of opportunities, it also keeps them off the streets and out of trouble.
However, success in sports should not be the "be all and end all", he said, and additional rules must be introduced to help curb what Green said was a growing trend where it appeared that academic pursuits were been marginalised.
"Academic excellence must go hand in hand with athletic excellence," said Green who played football and cricket and ran track for Kingston College.
He was however confident that Jamaica's dominance in track and field would continue, primarily because of the long-standing tradition of high school track and field.
He said the reason why Jamaica continued to excel at track and field was simple: Jamaica is one of few countries in the world that track and field is so important and the jobs of coaches is made that much easier as youngsters are willing to come out for the sport.
The fact that our best coaches are to be found in the high schools was another situation unique to Jamaica and was also one of the reasons why Jamaica is so dominant at the youth level. In other countries, he said, the best coaches are to be found in the universities and colleges.
Green, who also coached volleyball and basketball, said that a former Penn Relays meet director had visited Jamaica for Champs recently and was surprised at the level of intensity he saw among the athletes and the spectators.
Green also said that the twinning of the Boys and Girls Championships was a positive move by ISSA as despite the sustained brilliance of the girls over the years, their performance was largely ignored. This was largely because of our tradition of paying more attention to boys' sports, he said.
