WHY INTER-COL CHAMPS DESERVES OUR SUPPORT

Boys and Girls Champs is over 100 years old and part of Jamaica’s sporting DNA. All of us have memories from Champs, perhaps the biggest and now most popular high school track meet in the world, thanks to the exploits of Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Shelly Ann Frazer-Pryce. It is where many of Jamaica’s future track stars are forged in a unique cauldron of competition.

The time has now come, especially in this golden era of Jamaica’s track and field,  for us as a nation to also pay homage to another competition that has done more than it’s fair share in helping many of our global stars make the transition from high school to international stardom.

Earlier this year, a certain Elaine Thompson made her name known with an 11.10s clocking in the 100 metres to win gold at the NCB-sponsored Inter-collegiate Champs. She would go on to run 10.84s in Eugene, Oregon in June and subsequently 21.66s, the fifth fastest time ever run by a woman over 200m while winning silver at the IAAF World Athletic Championships in Beijing, China. Before this year, only those closest to her knew Thompson who competed for Christiana and Manchester High School. The latter has produced Nesta Carter, Sherone Simpson, and Natoya Goule, all of whom represented Jamaica in Beijing this summer. Similarly, Megan Simmonds clocked 12.91s over the 100m hurdles, Julian Forte clocked 20.19s at Inter-Col this year having made the transition from high school into the collegiate system.

Inter-col helps our developing talent successfully bridge that gap that so many of our high school stars tend to fall through into oblivion on their way to what they hope will be a successful career as a senior athlete and it’s why it must not be overlooked. College helps the athletes develop the maturity to handle the rigours of international competition, it also helps to develop athletes in the so-called non-traditional events like the throws and hurdles, events in which Jamaica is beginning to find it’s feet.

People forget, or ignore the fact that Shelly-Ann Frazer Pryce became World and Olympic Champion while a student at Utech, Simpson was Commonwealth champion and Olympic silver medalist while at Utech, Hansle Parchment became an Olympic bronze medalist while a student at the University of the West Indies. We also forget that Commonwealth champion and World Championship bronze medalist O’Dayne Richards is a member of the collegiate system as is Pan Am discus champion and world championship finalist Fredrick Dacres. In fact, when you look at the athletes who won medals at the most recent World Championships, you will see that collegiate athletes had a major impact on the success of the national team.

University students or graduates contributed 81 per cent of the medals, 66 per cent of the male team are from the college system, 73 per cent of the women team was from the college system.

Using the University Technology alone, as an example of collegiate contribution to the national effort we see where UTech students/graduates contributed 63 per cent of our medals. UTech male student/graduates made up 22 per cent of the men’s team ( 6/27) while UTech female  students/graduates made up 42 per cent of the women’s team.

UTech students/graduates won four individual medals or 33 per cent of the team’s medals. UTech also had 50 per cent of the male  4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay teams and 75 per cent of the female 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay teams.

The above figures should suggest that the college system plays a vital role in Jamaica’s success at the international level and is why Inter-Col champs deserves not only more Corporate support but also spectator support.

During Champs it’s hard to find a seat inside the national stadium while during Inter-Col Champs it’s hard not to find one because the only people there are the athletes themselves.

Yes, there is a need for a better approach to the public relations and marketing efforts behind Inter-Col champs but the public also needs to buy in. That buy-in has a lot to do with the rabid support that high school teams attract but here is an interesting fact about our global medalists. Usain Bolt, Danielle Williams, Shelly Ann Frazer Pryce, Elaine Thompson, Hansle Parchment, attended William Knibb, Queens, Wolmers, Manchester High and Morant Bay respectively. Yet, we all enjoyed their individual medals immensely didn’t we? No KC, no C’Bar, no JC students were among the individual medalists. There is no reason when why we can’t throw support behind students from Utech, the University of the West Indies, GC Foster College and all the other tertiary institutions that have helped hone the nation’s considerable athletic talent. Based on the evidence above, they certainly deserve it.