Kelly I Love champs even though I've only been there twice; the rest I saw on television. Congrats to Calabar High School, who, after 10 years, finally won 'champs' again. Too bad to Kingston College, but with the systems and coaching, these teams have, (along with St. Jago, Jamaica College and others), they will be back with a new crop soon.
But as the euphoria of the whole thing was unfolding over the four days of competition, the ugly incidents of supporters wrecking the spectacle came up. Supporters of at least one all-boys institution went to an all-girls schools to 'drum up' support and basically tried to take the young ladies out of school to do it. Note, I didn't say the students of these schools were involved, even though a friend of mine who attended one of the perennial track powerhouses once told me that those acts were carried out by the students themselves in his days at the school.
Newsflash
A large Calabar flag being passed around in the bleachers stand at the National Stadium on the final day of the GraceKennedy/ISSA 2007 Boys and Girls Championships. Calabar topped the championships with 273.5 points. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer.
Anyway, in one incident, the fellows 'mash up' the guard house of Merl Grove High and in another school, stormed the compound thus scaring some of the little first form students half to death. All in the name of alleged support! I have a newsflash for these guys. If the young misses were so inclined to cheer for the institution you claim to hold in high regard, then they would have done so without your 'motivation'. Also, if this is the best kind of support you can think of to give to the school, then I think the present crop of boys could do without your support.
Then there were the fights between students of schools allegedly in rivalry. Plus, there was a relatively minor missile-throwing incident at the end of 'champs' on Saturday, when athletes from one school went over to a section of the crowd dominated by a rival school. If they were legitimately celebrating, that's one thing. From my vantage point, they were jeering, which is completely different. The bottles (inevitably?) soon came raining down.
Degrading acts
All these events only help in degrading what is easily the best high school meet in this hemisphere. I saw athletes who, having just given everything, embraced each other in mutual respect at the finish line. So why can't some of the fans get it? One of these years, the sponsors, the governing body for secondary school sports and the real fans are all going to say 'enough' and distance themselves from champs.
It's bound to happen unless the unscrupulous idiots who probably didn't learn a thing when/if they attended these institutions, don't stop mucking it up for the rest of us.
Feedback: daviot.kelly@gleanerjm.com
