Oral Tracey | Nothing else to prove at Champs

There are very few, if any, actual similarities between the football and track and field landscapes in Jamaica. One is thriving while the other is struggling. There are, however, some indigenous threads of connectivity in the principle of the development of young sporting talent that cut across both sports.

The discussions have been extensive - and to a large extent fruitful - on the issue of our elite young footballers realising that Manning Cup and DaCosta Cup football are not the be all and end all of the possible rewards for their talent.

With the reality of a bigger more lucrative market looming, it makes no logical or professional sense for an outstanding young footballer such as Kaheem Parris, for example, to go back to play schoolboy football against 15-year-old science, history, and geography students if he is serious about maximising his potential.

This principle also applies contextually to elite track and field talent such as Christopher Taylor, De'Jour Russell, and Michael Stephens of Calabar High School. Athletes of this calibre are at a point in their development when they need a change of mental gears. The motivation for shattering another Champs record or to lead their school to a seventh straight hold on the Mortimer Geddes trophy needs to be transferred and multiplied to facilitate the pursuit of the more arduous task of transitioning from promising Champs stars to meaningful and successful senior stars.

The recent record run at the Corporate Area Development meet by the Calabar mile-relay quartet that included Taylor had many local fans waxing lyrical about the potential of this group, but we ought to have passed that stage in our track and field. Outside of securing bragging rights and tickling the fancy of some Calabar old boys, dominating ordinary schoolboy opposition at Boys' Championships is hardly preparing these athletes for the bigger task at hand. Instead of focusing on the small portrait, we need to be looking at the bigger more authentic work of art.

Taylor has been running sub-46 seconds as a 16-year-old quarter-miler Russell is the Under-18 World Sprint hurdles champion and was fourth in the final at the Jamaican senior trials last year behind the current World and Olympic champion Omar McLeod, as well as the Olympic bronze medallist from London 2012, Hancel Parchment, while sprinter Michael Stephens looks to be on 10 seconds flat pace.

The sky is the limit for this level of talent. Assuming that these athletes have serious aspirations for themselves in the sport, it makes little if any sense for them to go back to dominate and win three or four events at Boys' Championships.

Even if there will be an inevitable step into the professional ranks, the level at which these athletes are already performing, the earlier must be the better. Let us not forget that Usain Bolt left high school to go professional with two years of Class One Champs eligibility intact. His potential was so overwhelming that the journey had to begin earlier rather than later.

TANTAMOUNT TO CHILD LABOUR

I was having this conversation with some colleagues this past week, and it was suggested that the early introduction of youngsters to the intense rigours of sport for expected gain is tantamount to child labour, which is punishable by law.

My retort was that as individuals, we must decide what we want and what sacrifices we are willing to make with specific reference to some of sports greatest superstars. From Lionel Messi in football, to Venus and Serena Williams in tennis, to Kobi Bryant in basketball, to Tiger Woods in golf, to Brian Lara in cricket, they all had one thing in common: guardians who exposed them to their chosen sport from as early as eight, nine, and 10 years old. By the time they were 13 and 14 years old, the writing was already on the wall: they would all be superstars in their respective sport.

Jamaica needs to get a grip on the global redefinition of the term young as it relates to sport. For far too long, the thinking has been that as long as you are in high school, you are young. Not in a sporting sense and certainly not when viewing the bigger picture.