Basil Jarrett | High school sports: Not just for athletes

IN HIGH school, I was a big fan of Craig Butler and JC’s 1985 Manning Cup team. While I wasn’t yet a student at the College, that team’s exploits were legendary – as was the plot to rob us of a title that year, but that’s a different story. Craig ‘Bullhead’ Butler was one of the standouts of that team, as was Richard ‘Pot Cover’ McDonald. The two are permanently etched into the annals of JC history. You don’t talk about JC football without mentioning Pot Cover and Bullhead.

And so, I was elated to see Craig and the Mona High football team lift the Manning Cup for the first time in their history. Mona versus Hydel wasn’t quite the final most people were hoping for as a North Street fist fight was a much more mouth-watering spectacle. But I’m happy to see that our high school football has evolved beyond the usual suspects of JC, St George’s and KC. Congrats, Bullhead. You may not be everyone’s cup of tea but you do know your football.

THE YEAR 1989

Now as much as I was a fan of that 1985 team, my favourite Manning Cup side will forever be JC’s 1989 edition. Thirty-four years later, I can still recall the names of the starting 11 without the help of Google. Kevin ‘Goofy’ Brown, Kerwyane ‘The Barrell’ Reid, Dwayne ‘Johnno’ Johnson, Michael Campbell, Baldwin Shields, Stallion, Cho-Cho, Transformer, et al, thrilled us that year – even though we didn’t win one single solitary cup.

JC has won nine titles since then, all within the last 16 years. But none of those trophies or seasons are as meaningful or as memorable as that barren 1989. From running for our lives together, following a 2-0 upset of Charlie Smith at Sabina Park, to crying tears in the rain when Tivoli beat us 1-0 in the Walker Cup final, that season left us with painfully sweet memories and lifelong friendships that I still cherish to this day.

The point I’m making here is that in high school sports, and life in general, winning isn’t always the best teacher. And if sports in our schools is primarily a teaching and socialising tool, have we got it entirely backwards?

ATHLETICS ISNT JUST FOR ATHLETES

In 1989, JC hadn’t won anything in nearly 25 years but this was a homegrown team, with the boys on the field being our friends since first form. This meant that every game was a home game with the travelling throng of blue-shirted supporters following the team wherever it played. Compare that to today where every year a new batch of stars is parachuted in through the recruiting revolving door and homegrown boys are hard-pressed to find any reason to follow a team of strangers.

The 1989 season taught us how to be part of a team, even if you weren’t on the team. When the team won, it taught us how to win with grace – sometimes. When the team lost, it taught us how to not let anyone see you cry. Most importantly though, it taught us life lessons that I still abide by to this day. The point I’m making is that athletics isn’t just for athletes. But that’s what we’ve made it out to be with this win-at-all-costs approach.

WIN AT ALL COSTS

Already, pundits have begun to accuse Butler of running a feeder programme for his Phoenix business, and that Mona is a football academy masquerading as a high school. But how is that any different from what JC, St George’s and to a lesser extent KC have done in recent years?

The sad truth is that this is what now passes for that learning and socialising tool that high school sports is supposed to be. And it’s not just football. Years ago, when a mega track star and his physics teacher clashed, it was the teacher who got the short end of the stick. Somewhere along the line, we’ve lost sight of the purpose of sports as a socialising agent for youngsters, justifying what we’ve done by claiming that sports is now big business.

Obviously, I wouldn’t argue that this isn’t so. But one wonders if it makes fiscal sense to spend millions on a handful of student-athletes, while the much larger portion of student-students go without books, comfortable classrooms and adequate teaching resources.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

So what’s the solution? Should ISSA make high school sports recruiting even harder? Or as my friend Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham suggests, ban recruiting altogether?

Well, as much as I sympathise with Muggy and his position, which to my mind has come from years of frustration trying to get school administrations to be more considerate of the future of the kids involved in these recruiting programmes, I don’t see a wholesale ban on recruiting as a reality.

What I think should happen is for school administrators to make it mandatory for all students, not just the athletically gifted, to participate in some form of organised sports as part of their enrolment and overall holistic development. For example, if I like basketball, but I’m not good enough to make the school’s team, there should be a basketball club where I can learn basketball and compete against other similarly less talented basketballers in a very structured and deliberate manner. Some schools do this. But far too often, if you can’t dribble down the flank, do two stepovers while beating a defender and ping-ing a pinpoint cross to the arriving forward, your only other recourse is scrimmage in the back of the class at lunchtime.

I also believe that ISSA and school administrators should put in place programmes that ensure that recruits and other student-athletes are given mandatory academic supplementation with extra classes, summer school programmes and other measures to plug the inevitable learning gap that comes with being a student-athlete.

“But Major,” I hear you say, “where is the money going to come from?” Simple. The same place where you find money to buy the iPhones, flashy boots and expensive sneakers to make your star athlete feel comfortable. In other words, once schools start to prioritise the ‘student’ part of ‘student-athlete’, the money will be found. But it starts with an admission that right now, high school sports is not serving its primary purpose of teaching and training and preparing our youngsters for real life.

Major Basil Jarrett is a communications strategist and CEO of Artemis Consulting, a communications consulting firm specialising in crisis communications and reputation management. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Threads @IamBasilJarrett and linkedin.com/in/basiljarrett