Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association – Keeping sports alive through innovation and determination

CATEGORY: Voluntary Service & Other

The Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) played a fundamental role in the return to normality in the Jamaican society during a period of inactivity and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is why ISSA is the recipient of the RJRGLEANER Honour Award for Voluntary Service & Other for 2021.

The organisation was instrumental in keeping students physically and socially engaged during the designated period of online classes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with its innovative and successful staging of Champs 2021.

One of the association’s toughest decisions taken in recent years was to cancel the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) in March 2020, when Jamaica recorded its first official COVID-19 case.

The cancellation was out of concern for the health and safety of not only athletes, but the spectators who would have attended, and the general public who would have interacted with them. With Champs being the only sporting event that still earns maximum attendance at the National Stadium, ISSA realised its staging would have created what could have become a superspreader of COVID-19.

The decision to cancel the marquee event also meant that all other ISSA sporting competitions would have to be cancelled that year, and for the same reason, in spite of the hundreds of millions of dollars that would have been lost in sponsorship, gate receipt, and broadcast fees.

However, ISSA recognised that sports’ inactivity during the pandemic posed a real threat to the potential for junior athletes across various sporting disciplines to gain scholarships for tertiary education, or to transition to professional careers. It simply could not have gone a second year without not only Champs and the various junior track meets in its lead-up, but competitions in all its other sporting disciplines.

ISSA was one of the first major sporting bodies to enable the return of local sporting events, and to do so safely with spectators in attendance, through rigid health and safety protocols to prevent the spread of the virus on the field of play and in the stands.

Champs returned in May 2021 without spectators and, more importantly, without any reports of the spread of COVID-19 during the five-day competition. It proved to the public that sports could safely resume once the environment is closely monitored and protocols are properly observed.

Champs’ return was then followed by Jamaica’s top-flight club football competition, the Jamaica Premier League, in a similar environment without spectators. With football’s return in Jamaica, ISSA then focused its attention on its own competitions. The ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup and Walker Cup, the ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup, the Ben Francis Cup, its Champions Cup, and the Olivier Shield were all staged between November 2021 and February 2022, at first with no spectators, but then with a limited number of fans as the positivity rate of the virus declined in Jamaica.

Champs in 2022 was one of Jamaica’s most striking signs of a return to normality in the society amid the pandemic, as it was staged with 20,000 spectators in attendance.

ISSA president Keith Wellington was eager for spectators’ return, as gate receipts meant a boost for its coffers in terms of allowing all of its other sporting competitions to be staged.

“Having fans back will help us, not just in terms of Champs itself, but all the other sports that we are responsible for, because everyone knows that we use the proceeds from Champs to fund many of the other sports that we administrate,” Wellington said in March.

“Things are falling into place each day and we are really looking forward to having spectators inside the National Stadium for more than one reason. Champs is not the same without the atmosphere of fans in the stands.”

It is often said that sport is a reflection of society, and ISSA played a key role through its sporting competitions in reminding Jamaica that a pandemic does not mean that society has to grind to a screeching halt.

ISSA showed that normality is possible once proper planning, exercising caution, and discipline exist in whatever is being undertaken in society. Its competitions allowed Jamaicans to forget the stresses brought on by the pandemic, whether by them being able to view their favourite teams compete on television or being in attendance. It also allowed athletes worried about their future an opportunity to be scouted and move on to greater prospects for their careers.

ISSA’s performance throughout the pandemic makes it nothing short of a worthy RJRGLEANER Honour Awardee.

INTERESTING FACTS

• ISSA was established in 1910 and started by the principals of Jamaica College, Wolmer’s Boys’ School, St George’s College, and New College and Potsdam (now Munro College).

• Its original name was the Inter-Secondary Schools Athletics Championship Committee. After a few changes to the name, the current Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) was established in 1950.

• The Olivier Shield was the first schoolboy football competition, starting in 1910; the shield was donated by then Governor Sir Sydney Olivier. The Manning Cup competition began in 1914 and the Dacosta Cup in 1950.

• ISSA originally only organised competitions for boys. Inter-school girls’ competitions were previously organised by the Games Mistresses Association. ISSA took charge of all inter-school competitions in 1993.

• Boys’ and Girls’ Champs were merged in 1999.

• The last four persons to serve as president of ISSA are: Colonel Ben Francis (Vere Technical); Clement Radcliffe (Glenmuir High); Dr Walton Small (Anchovy High & Wolmer’s Boys’); and Keith Wellington (STETHS).

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS

• ISSA has established a permanent office space for the secretariat.

• ISSA earned the 2020 World Athletics Heritage Award.

• The organisation has the ability to provide subsidies/reflows from competition earnings to schools.

• It developed the Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships into the largest high-school track and field meet globally.

• ISSA has a high percentage of national representation of student athletes to junior national teams, as well as graduating to top national senior teams.

BUCKET LIST

• The organisation wants to establish a multipurpose venue (to include indoor facilities for court and table games, as well as outdoor facilities for field games) to host ISSA events.

• ISSA is looking at the introduction of e-Games.

• ISSA wants to get sponsorship for 100 per cent of its competitions.

• The body wants to have fully electronic performance profiles of student athletes by the time the students turn 16 years old, which would be accessible to the public.

• ISSA wants to establish funding relationships with international NGOs to assist with the development of youth participating in school competitions.