Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham | It’s a scam!

One of the biggest scams perpetrated on the Jamaican people is the myth that if recruiting for sports purposes by our schools is ended, Jamaica will be the loser. Nothing could be further from the truth!

It reminds me of the saying “repeat a lie often enough, and the people will believe it”, attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief.

The schools try to cover up their scandalous behaviour by getting people to believe that their aim is to help the recruit by taking him/her from a scenario where there is no equipment, no facilities, no competent coaches etc., to one where these are in abundance. This is not so.

Schools recruit for sports purposes in an attempt to win at all costs at sports! Full stop! Everything else is considered collateral damage. Whether it’s beneficial to the recruit or not is of little or no consequence.

Schools have recruited youngsters from other institutions with strong sports programmes, wonderful facilities and very competent coaches. Many youngsters who were discovered, nurtured, brought to prominence at a given school, and doing exceptionally well in the environment, were robbed from that setting, simply because the recruiting school wants to win at all costs. It has nothing to do with helping the youngster.

Just recently, a mother cried out loudly and publicly against a school which she alleged had been making attempts to inveigle her football star son from a highly acclaimed traditional high school, with a strong sports programme, to its environs of much less repute. Helping those without facilities? Later on, the newspapers disclosed that the same school had breached eligibility rules in the football competition. Win at all costs?

PROS LOPSIDEDLY OUTWEIGH THE CONS

Antonio Watson from Petersfield High, who blazed to glory in the 400 metres at the World Championships, was previously set upon by a number of these vulture schools which attempted to recruit him. Had they succeeded, we would have heard that it was because they brought him to the right environment, etc.

Over the years, recruiting schools have taken sports stars from fledgling sports programmes of smaller, poorer schools, thus causing the programmes to collapse or remain weak. Some years ago, that happened to Donald Quarrie High. After 40 years of trying, they finally got somebody on the podium at Champs. Their hopes were high. They would build around this success. However, these hopes were callously dashed when the next year, their star was recruited by a traditional high school.

We keep hearing about the many scholarships and other good things done for sports recruits. However, previously, when the Ministry of Education wanted to put some numbers to these anecdotal offerings, and the principals agreed to cooperate in allowing the requisite research to be done by an agreed reputable research firm, the firm eventually gave up in frustration and disgust after three months, because the schools refused to open their books. If so much good was being done for the recruits, why refuse to give the evidence? There are so many stars of school sports that find themselves on a dead-end street after school, having been led there by the school.

All action undertaken by man has benefit for somebody or some entity, or it wouldn’t be done. Crime has benefit for the criminal, although it’s detrimental to the society. That’s why one does a due diligence, a cost-benefit analysis, to determine whose best interests is served by the action.

Doing such an analysis clearly shows that recruiting for sports purposes by schools is offensive, an abomination to the spirit of extracurricular activities, a double standard which is not in the best interests of the majority of recruits, poor people, our children, education/socialisation system or society. The pros are lopsidedly outweighed by the cons! It should be banned!

IT IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

Let’s start at the beginning. What is the purpose, the mission of our public schools? Their primary mission is to prepare our young citizens for life by formally educating them in the academic, technical and vocational areas. This does not require extracurricular activities (including sports) to be successfully achieved.

Many countries have shown this. In China, the children are involved with “schoolwork” from morning until 9:00 o’clock at night. The drive to succeed at schoolwork is intense. There is very little if any time for extracurricular activities.

In South Korea, when they were lifting themselves from the bottom, after the war, to the rating of top technical nation in the world, so focused were they on achieving excellence in the academic, technical and vocational spheres, that they did not even understand the concept of student-athlete. As a student, you just did not have the time to be an athlete! You were either a student or an athlete.

Nonetheless, some countries wanting a more holistic, balanced development for their children, especially bearing in mind that the school is one of the main pillars of socialisation in the society, gave extracurricular activities more prominence.

These activities complemented the study curriculum and helped students in a number of ways, including stress relief, the inculcation of prosocial values, attitudes, behaviours and life skills, for example, leadership skills, conflict resolution, goal setting and many more. They helped students learn important lessons and useful skills in a pleasant way. Extracurricular activities also helped some students to discover their careers.

However, in Jamaica we have abused and corrupted the extracurricular status of sports, by our overemphasis on winning at all costs and hence, recruiting for sports purposes. The intense competition generated has become counterproductive and has crowded out the very children extracurricular activities are supposed to be targeting. This is at a time when there is a crisis in education and a crisis in socialisation in our country! Woe is we!

Dr Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham is a former captain of Manning, All-Manning, All-Schools and All-Jamaica football teams. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com