FOR some odd reason, directors of the highly successful Gibson Relays have decided to rename the annual relay festival, which is normally held on the last Saturday in February of each year.

The popular event was named in honour of the late Anglican Bishop of Jamaica, Percival William Gibson — the founder of Kingston College — who was also instrumental in the formation of several other institutions of learning in Jamaica. This year’s renewal will be held next Saturday at the National Stadium.

Bishop Gibson, who stepped down as headmaster of Kingston College in 1956 when he became Lord Bishop of Jamaica, left an indelible mark on education in Jamaica. The St George’s College Old Boy, though short in stature, was a giant of a man, who, judging from what those who came in direct contact with him have said, was a tower of strength in helping to shape the Jamaican landscape.

That is why Neville “Teddy” McCook, himself a Kingston College Old Boy who excelled in athletics and football at the school, and later represented Jamaica at football while Brazilian coach Jorge Penna was here during the 1960s, decided to introduce an athletic event that would capture Bishop Gibson’s spirit.

Thus, the Gibson Relays began in 1973, and has been around since, despite missing a few years of competition in between, for various reasons.

McCook was an outspoken man. He, like Bishop Gibson, was not physically tall, but his ideas on not just athletics, but sport in general, were meaningful, far-reaching and effective when implemented.

He was not a man who chased accolades and if he were alive, he would have resisted any attempt to name events after him. He was simply a man who did not seek titles. If asked or chosen to do a job, he would do so to the best of his ability and without fuss. He was an achiever of no mean order, who preferred to work alone in many cases, or with limited support.

McCook always told me that the ideal size of a committee should be three people and two should be absent. It was his style. He abhorred procrastination, bureaucracy and red tape. In my estimation, McCook was the finest sports administrator of my generation. He, more than anyone else, must be credited for improving Jamaica’s track and field programme and lifting it to its current position in the global arena.

Now, for the Gibson Relays committee to simply attach McCook’s name to the event, and now call it the Gibson McCook Relays, is another way of taking a short cut towards properly honouring a man who deserves more than most in the area of athletics.

The Gibson Relays should be left alone and allowed to regain the name that has made it a staple among those who follow athletics till they die.

Teddy McCook, a household name in Jamaican and indeed world athletics, deserves his special place in athletic history. An event should be named in his honour, if only to start the process of showing recognition to the man who carried the baton for so long, all in pursuit of making Jamaica better.

Why does it have to take so long for the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association, the organisation that McCook led as its president when it was called the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA), to tell the world what McCook did to advance Jamaica’s athletic prowess?

Instead of merely appending McCook’s name to the Gibson Relays, why can’t the JAAA rename the National Championship, also inappropriately called the National Trials by some, after him? The Teddy McCook National Championship would be one way of starting that race.

The championship is now called the Supreme Ventures National Championship, and right away the critics of renaming the event will argue that the company would still want its name to be prominently displayed. But what about the Teddy McCook National Championship, sponsored by Supreme Ventures, for example? Would the company be against that? I think not.

And even if there is opposition to such a move, there are other events that can be renamed — among them the Jamaica International Invitational — the Teddy McCook Classic. In any case, this long, ‘wagga wagga’ title of Jamaica International Invitational is just that — clumsy and not easy to digest.

McCook’s contribution to Jamaica’s athletics was so profound that even the very introduction of a new event on the track and field calendar would be appropriate. You will hear all sorts of things, ranging from how crowded the local athletic programme is already, to the cost of staging a new activity … all smokescreen talk that’s designed to detract from what we should be striving for in recognising our heroes of administration.

Although sports personalities are the ones who drive sport and keep the public interested in what’s happening on the field of play, it is the administrators who ensure that athletes and sportsmen and women stay relevant.

Administration is what propels those same personalities to become better involved in organised competition. That is why it is so critical to have solid, sensible people leading organisations. McCook must be rolling over in his final resting place now, what with the leadership fiasco that has engulfed West Indies cricket, Jamaica’s football in shambles, and even some of the holes that have been dug in Jamaican athletics of late. He was quite passionate about all three sports and was angered by the sloppiness that often kept creeping into them.

We have pussyfooted about bestowing well-deserved recognition on those who have really performed. Every year, for example, National Honours and Awards are conferred on some people, whose inclusion makes you wonder which politician or other influential person they know well. More and more as the years go by, I have to wonder if, to some, the term Order of Distinction means Ordinary Dunce, which is why some of those who have been bestowed with the honour over the last 25 years have been so recognised.

Teddy McCook was no ordinary man. He epitomised greatness in every way. It is time for Jamaica as a country to show how much this man’s work in local athletics, in the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC) for which he was the Area Representative, and the International Association of Athletics Federations redounded to the benefit of so many, not only his countrymen.

Merely tagging his name to an already established event just will not do.

HG Helps is Editor-at-large at the Jamaica Observer. E-mail: helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com