Elton Tucker, Assistant Editor
Molly Rhone
Today, we continue to spotlight those who have been nominated to receive the 2008 Gleaner Honour Award early next month at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston.
Molly Rhone and netball are inseparable. For as long as she can remember, the Knox College old student has either been playing netball or working for the development of the premier female team sport.
Rhone is now the world's top administrator in the sport and on a mission to spread the game worldwide.
She made sporting history in 2003. At the congress of the International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA) held in Jamaica, Rhone became the first and only Jamaican female to head an international sporting body.
The IFNA president and former Under-21, Under-23 and Jamaica Reserves captain and vice captain of the national team to the fourth World Netball Tournament in 1975, has always been and remains an avid sports fan. Her association with and participation in sport started at a very early age.
Outstanding athlete
"I was born running," she said in a recent interview.
Rhone attended Knox College in Spaldings, Manchester, where she was an outstanding allround track and field athlete.
"I did 100m, 200m, long jump, high jump, anchored the relay. I did everything."
She was champion girl at Knox for six consecutive years and her exploits on the track brought her to the attention of the school's netball coach. She mastered the sport so quickly that, at age 13, she became a member of the senior team, bypassing the juniors.
Her participation in sports and serving on 'every earthly thing else' at school prepared Rhone well for the leadership and administrative roles she would play in later life.
In addition to competing in sport, Rhone was a member of the students' council, a 4-H clubbite, Girl Guide and students' Christian movement. It meant she had to manage her time extremely well.
National team captain
Rhone got the first chance to hone her administrative skills in netball when she went to live in Canada in the late 1960s. There she was instrumental in moving the game forward in Ontario and became known as a first-class organiser. In addition, she played for and was captain of Ontario and the Canadian national team.
"I remember I was very proud when an article came out in the Globe and Mail which said 'if you wanted a sport event organised you should ask Molly DaCosta (her maiden name),' " Rhone noted.Her leadership and administrative skills have been consistently recognised. In addition to the National Honours - Order of Distinction (OD) obtained in 1999 and Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD) in 2007 - Rhone has received numerous other awards as a sports administrator and for her work in netball. They include the Gleaner Honour Award for the success of the 2003 World Netball Championships. In Canada, she obtained certificates from the Ontario government for contribution to sport in 1971, 1972 and 1973.
Rhone ran for and was voted in as president of the Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) in 1993 in a move which, she said, changed her life forever.
"I was so grateful to my family because it just takes so much out of you. I do not think people understand how much it really takes out of you to run an organisation," she noted.
The high point of her 10-year tenure as JNA president was the successful staging of the World Championships at Independence Park in 2003.
She had to put in a great deal of work to ensure a smooth tournament.
"I probably lost half of my hair at the time," Rhone said.
But her hard work paid off.
The 2003 World Championships was the most profitable up to that time before being eclipsed by the tournament in New Zealand last year.
Needed a voice
Looking back, Rhone was motivated to go for netball's top job because she felt smaller countries needed a voice.
"When I was president of the JNA, I would go to the meetings and I would look around the table and on every agenda item, it was Australia, New Zealand and England. I was really impressed with how they knew the regulations and the articles and I thought I needed to be like these people."
Rhone took office at IFNA with clear objectives and most have been achieved. One of her first was to get a good administrative structure in place.
Today, after four years in the job, there is now a chief executive officer, a global development manager, an administrative manager and a development manager in Africa.
Rhone and IFNA are now looking to aggressively market the sport.
This includes attendance at various international conventions to put a face to the sport and revamping the website for a game which is played by up to two million women in both South Africa and Australia and is considered the largest female team sport in the world.
A lot of effort is being put into Africa and the federation is now seeing some of the results. Malawi, a fairly new netball playing country, has overtaken South Africa and is now ranked number four in the world.
The first regional development manager was for Africa and IFNA has obtained funding from UK Sport who also has a lot of interest in the continent.
The number of countries playing the game has doubled under Rhone's presidency to over 80.
A coaching course was recently held in Argentina and there were participants from Uruguay and Paraguay. Switzerland has applied for membership and the game is spreading to middle eastern countries like Dubai and Israel. In Asia, the sport is being introduced to India, Thailand, China and Japan.
Term limits
The IFNA president, who is now in an unprecedented fifth year at the helm, is unsure how much longer she will remain at the head of the world body. She believes in term limits as according to her there are people with other ideas. But she will never turn her back on the sport.
"I can't see myself not involved in the sport," she says. "I will play an active role as long as I live. I will be forever involved, just to be a mentor to the girls - to instil the right values."
