Let us make our position clear. We are not against the legitimate transfer of a student, where the transferee truly meets the academic admission requirements of the high school and is intent on improving his/her intellectual capacity (academic level).

We are opposed in principle to the importation, the transferring, the recruiting of students into high schools with a view to influencing the outcome of sporting events at these high schools. We maintain that schools, up to and including high school level, are primarily and overwhelmingly for the purpose of improving the academic (scholarly as opposed to technical or merely practical) potential of our students. We hold that schools are incubators that are to nourish and nurture the intellectual development of our youngsters. Schools must facilitate, encourage, motivate, protect, discover and develop our intellectual brightest and best. That is the primary function of schools up to the high school level.

However, man shall not live by bread alone, man is not one dimensional, man is not an island and that is where sports etc come in. Schools need to impart values and attitudes to this intellectual man, so that he can develop character, he can develop mental toughness, he can relate better with his fellow man, he can become a more rounded, well balanced personality who can contribute in a meaningful and sustainable way to his society. He can develop civility and become a good citizen. He can develop integrity and understand and appreciate the value of a principled life. Sports is one of the tools used by (high) schools to help teach, inculcate these values, attitudes and other life skills, to help form this good citizen, this balanced personality.

Students should qualify for high school on academic grounds overwhelmingly. Sports should then work on that cadre of academic potential in an attempt to make them more rounded individuals. If this is how sports is approached then there can be no motivation, no intent, no thrust to have students imported so as to win. High Schools in Jamaica are academic schools and hence, must maintain admission criteria that reflect this.

As a tool, sports must work on what it has put before it. It must work with the students who are legitimately in the school, that is, the students who have fully satisfied the academic requirements for entry to the school. We must not distort, subvert or skew the purpose of sports in high school by bringing youngsters to high school based on their sporting prowess. We must work with what we have. Sports in high school is a develop-MENTAL-tool. It is like an anvil and hammer which are used to shape, forge and temper the steel that is supposed to be made into a sword. Sometimes the steel may be top grade and at other times it may have impurities. The tools work on what they have and do the best with what they have. Similarly, sports should be used to improve the mental toughness, the character of those who are legitimately in school, no matter what their level of sporting ability.

With a good coach and the necessary administrative support, sometimes the school will do well and at other times it will not do so well. That’s life. We must develop the mentality of self-reliance within our youth and our people. That will force creativity, innovation and the dynamism which we need to propel us out of our poverty stricken state, as a country.

Importing sporting talent to high schools is like having warring factions in a community and arranging a football match to help diffuse the tension between the groups. However, football stars from outside the community are brought in, in an attempt to win the match. That defeats the very purpose of the whole exercise. The winning or losing of the match is really of minor importance. The game has much wider significance, ramifications than that. We must not lose sight of the importance of sports in the education of our children!

Of course, schools that import students because of their sports abilities are not expected to admit to it. Oftentimes they import in such a way that it can be difficult to prove although it may be common knowledge.

A Possible Scenario: Imagine a scenario where a youngster is targeted by a coach, his family approached, the relevant “package” is offered, and they are told to approach the school. Strings may be pulled from behind the scene and then it is said that they never recruited because it was the youngster’s family who came to the school of their own volition. In this way a “star” whose average is in the 30s at the school he is leaving may be allowed into a school where the pass mark is 60%. They will feign ignorance, innocence. It will be rationalised as “helping” the youngster. At times they may even invoke the name of the Lord, knowing that in Jamaica that tends to disarm many or at least lower most defences. They are expected to cover up. They loathe transparency.

Poor youngsters at the school, who need help, who have studied hard and sacrificed to hold down a place in the school get shunted aside as the “stars” displace them. They are denied the opportunity to develop more of their full potential. Since the coach could just go outside and bring in a star, he never bothered looking internally to unearth new talent. Consequently, many youngsters who were for one reason or another a little too shy to come out on their own, just never got the push that they needed from the coach or the administration. They have regrets for the rest of their lives because a part of them has been lost which they cannot now recover.

Schools these days have a lot of work to do, especially because of the deficiencies in family life experienced by so many of the students. Of course this can have a very negative impact on the intellectual output of the individual. Schools have to reach out to these children in an attempt to, as it were, throw them a lifeline. Sports should be helping to fill the void a poor family life has created in the world of too many of our youngsters. Sports should be helping to impart at least some of the values and attitudes that a dysfunctional home life has left many of our youth deprived of.

The importation of sporting stars by high schools in an attempt to influence the outcome of sporting events confuses and frustrates youngsters, corrupts the system and sends the wrong message on a number of fronts, including:

1 The delaying of gratification

2 The role of sports in high school

3 Beating the system

4 Self-reliance

5 Compliance with the spirit and not only the letter of the law

6 The end does not justify the means

7 Winning at all cost is not acceptable

Such importation is not in keeping with the values and attitudes the society so frequently espouses and so fervently desires. The hope of Jamaica lies in education steeped in proper values. Sports can and should be used to help inculcate the proper values.

Editor’s Note: Dr Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham is a former Jamaica, St George’s College Manning Cup, All Schools, All Manning Cup football captain, as well as St George’s College cricketer and track athlete, and also House Captain, Prefect, Headboy, Headmaster Medallist, Student Council President and Valedictorian at St George’s College.