It is appointed unto man once to die, and so, difficult as it is, we accept the passing Monday of one of the greatest Jamaicans to have walked the soil in this blessed land.

If a hero is one whose life has somehow touched the lives of nearly all his compatriots, and even beyond, then Herbert Henry McKenley is well past national hero status, warts and all.

In no small measure, he is responsible for the awe and respect in which Jamaicans are held whenever our athletes don the national colours and step onto any track anywhere in the world.

Too often, by accident of birth and geography, individuals are constrained to be only as great as the size of their country. One imagines how much of a superstar Herb McKenley might have been, were he born in places like the United States or other powerful economies of the world.

Yet, there is education in the fact that he could, like so many others, have chosen to change nationalities but did not. It is a measure of his commitment and loyalty to Jamaica that he stayed here, through thick and thin.

Try now to imagine what Jamaica's track and field prospectus would be like without Herb McKenley. Did he not shape this sport in his own image?

Herb was a truly extraordinary man. His greatest critic would readily admit that, we are sure. It is that special, warm and engaging Herb McKenley personality that sets him apart.

In London, England in 1948 and then in Helsinki, Finland in 1952, there were other great Jamaican names like Arthur Wint, George Rhoden and Leslie Laing, that unforgettable quartet who established Jamaica's place in sporting history, long before the dream of nationhood took flight. Still, the most enduring of them has been McKenley.

The Boys and Girls Athletic Championships as we know it will long remain a monument to this giant of a man. So too will every winning track team from Calabar, which might as well be named the Herb McKenley High School. So too will the exploits of Merlene Ottey, one of his protégés. And so too the world record run of Asafa Powell. He blazed the trail for them and his work inspired them all.

Yet, we believe that the greatest monument to Herb will be the continued development of our track and field programme, one of the most consistent platforms of national unity and national pride.

We will remember Herb McKenley, not for his faults, for there is no one without. Not for his mistakes, because we all make them. Neither will we remember him in the years when illness wasted his magnificent body.

We will remember him for the life spent helping to carve the athletics profile of our nation and honing the abilities of our outstanding athletes. We will remember his travels throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica, scouting for new talent until he found it, so abundant it was.

We will remember the man who showed so little interest in self-aggrandisement and personal prosperity, preferring to devote his energy, knowledge and love for athletics to the land of his birth.

We will remember Herb McKenley.

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