FOLLOWING POWELL'S EXAMPLE IS CRITICAL TO TRACK'S CONTINUED SUCCESS

Asafa Powell launched his foundation last week at the Pegasus Hotel. The event was attended by several of his MVP teammates, members of Government and track and field administrators.

Most of the officials in attendance would do well to note what the launch of the foundation was about. “I would like, in a structured and organised way to help others, especially those who have the necessary ability but cannot afford the gear, the meals, the medication, the bus fare, and the school books. This is what has led me to form this foundation,” Powell gave as his reason for starting the foundation.

Delano Franklyn is the chairman of the foundation that is going to be run by a 12-member board constituted primarily of independent businessmen and educators. He explained on my radio show Sportsnation that airs on Newstalk93fm that funding is expected to come by several means including sponsorships, contributions and generally leveraging the name Asafa Powell internationally. I suppose that events like the concert that the foundation has planned for early December will also contribute to the coffers of the foundation that aims to help kids at the very foundation of what has become our success in athletics.

By whatever means the funds are raised, what the foundation plans to do will be very much welcome and needed in this country. There are so many kids out there who need the guidance and the financial support that will enable them to break the cycle of poverty they were born into. It will also ultimately help develop talents that will rival Asafa’s and perhaps Usain Bolt’s.

The advent of such a programme does, however, raise questions about what the authorities have been doing. We see in West Indies cricket where the administrators sat back during the heyday of the sport, thinking that the region would continue to churn out world class cricketers forever. We have now come to see that that never came to pass and the region’s team now languishes at the bottom of the world rankings.

It is true that the high school programme does help unearth vast amounts of talent here, but what happens next? Between high school, college and the professional circuit Jamaica loses much of its talent because there is no system in place that keeps them from falling through the chasms that exist between the two planes.

In this country we love to fiddle while Rome burns but there are ways in which the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association in conjunction with the Ministry of Sport and the private sector can provide a safety net that will help us keep most of our athletes from disappearing into the night.

A semi-pro series of meets could be one option. Meets could be set up in Kingston and Montego Bay, and regional athletes invited. A group of regional sponsors as well as the respective governments could throw together a plan that would include broadcasting and advertising that would generate money by which the athletes could be paid fees that would go some way into covering their expenses, providing them with the means to continue training and afford themselves a better way of life until they can break into the pro-circuit.

The key would be to market these meets so that the crowds would turn out in droves to watch the next crop of great athletes emerge and in doing so create the right atmosphere for an event that could be broadcasted across the region and perhaps into Europe, especially since so many of the region’s athletes are so well recognised there. Sponsors would get maximum exposure which could lead to greater profits and the eventual sustainability of their sponsorship packages.

It’s a very vague idea, I know, but something tangible could be created from such an idea and there are other ideas too that can be fleshed out into workable solutions.

I say all this to say that its time that the sports administrators and the Government start looking at feasible ways to sustain the growth of the sport and stop depending totally on great ideas coming from people like Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt.

And they need to act now. After all, Powell and Bolt won’t be around forever.