BY ALICIA SUTHERLAND

Observer staff reporter

sutherlanda@jamaicaobserver.com

MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Members of the Sprintec Track Club based at GC Foster College in Spanish Town, offered their support and commitment to the development of football and track and field at the Mount St Joseph Preparatory School during a visit recently.

The team, led by Sprintec’s head coach and principal lecturer at GC Foster Maurice Wilson, marked the occasion with a donation of gears to the boys who are currently the defending champions in the prep school football competition.

“I really do see this institution as a powerhouse in terms of prep school sports in the next couple of years,” Wilson said.

Mount St Joseph Coach Robert Parkes said that the donation of the gears is a “big boost” for the football team, which started competition on October 17.

“We have won the (football) competition two consecutive years and going for the third this year… We start the track season in December and the Sprintec group will come on board also for the track programme,” he said.

Parkes said that past student Renae Freeman who is now at the University of Technology played sweeper for Mount St Joseph Prep years ago. She was the only girl in the competition at the time and she went on to represent the national team, he said.

Parkes expects a continuation of that successful trend from others including Grade Six student Neville Braham, who was singled

out for his prowess in athletics and football.

Wilson’s assistant and general secretary at Sprintec, Paul Beckford told the audience that the club’s aim is to “diversify” and work towards the development of sports all across Jamaica.

He said that Sprintec had the desire to assist an institution and the “blessings” fell on Mount St Joseph.

“We have seen the need for your programme to be developed… I can only say that where the Sprintec Track Club is concerned this is just a start to a new beginning. There is much more to come…,” said Beckford.

A Manchester native, Wilson’s kinship with the school also stems from the fact that his aunt Barbara Wilson attended the institution in the early days when it was a high school.

Honorary president of the Sprintec Track Club Patrick Anderson described the partnership as a “twinning” of both institutions. He said he believed in the “total” development of the students and the particular association allows them to assist the school “from time to time”.

The occasion was shared by two Sprintec athletes, fast-improving spinter, Rasheed Dwyer and 2013 World University Games bronze medallist over 400 metres, Anastasia Le-Roy.