PARAMARIBO, Suriname — He may be the technical advisor to the national women’s football programme, but Hue Menzies is passionate about shaping the entire football structure in Jamaica.

Menzies was born in England and grew up in Jamaica before moving to the United States in 1980, where he essentially improved his football knowledge.

Now a 30-year veteran, who holds a US Soccer National ‘A’ Coaching Licence and National Youth Coaching Licence, he has returned to share his wealth of experience.

And with 15 years of Olympic Development Coaching experience at the national, state and regional levels, he was introduced to the national women’s programme on the recommendation of ambassador for Jamaica’s women’s football, Cedella Marley.

Since then he and a team which comprises former Colorado Rapids assistant coach Lorne Donaldson, goalkeeper coach Alex Parra, fitness coach William Hitzelberger and local-based coach Xavier Gilbert have been working assiduously to move Jamaica’s women’s teams up the ranks.

“I was an average player in Jamaica, so I went to the ‘States’ and learned the trade and focused on football. I ended up playing professionally for a bit in college and then decided to coach and now I want to give back to the country, so I came into the programme,” he revealed.

As head coach and executive director of Central Florida Kraze Krush (FKK), which is widely considered one of Central Florida’s top soccer clubs on the boys’ and girls’ sides, Menzies has won several State titles in various age groups ranging from Under-15 to Under-18.

And while playing the role of assistant coach at the University of Texas Women’s Soccer, he has placed over 400 players into various colleges.

“It has been great working with colleges and national team and developing clubs; I developed two to three clubs over a period of time and developed players in the national team and professionally.

“But if somebody ask me what is my biggest accomplishment — the big thing for me is to see players achieve their goals, get into college and through football become the professional in life that you want them to become,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“I always tell people football is a pinch of what we are trying to do here; I think we have to look at the game of life and that is where the passion comes from — just making a difference in people’s lives and hopefully they can make a difference in the community, and the generations can come through and make things a little bit better for our country. I think football brings so much of those elements to help these kids mould themselves into citizens that they need to be,” he declared.

Menzies demonstrated his excitement about shaping Jamaica’s football from the core of the grass-roots level in order to alter the way players learn the game.

“We have submitted a full programme to Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) and it includes the grass-roots….getting into the schools, getting into the youth clubs and obviously the premier level of female football programme where we want to be able to monitor players,” he noted.

“We want to monitor the whole development of players on a more comprehensive basis. So once that programme gets approved we will get started and hopefully we get to the point where we are injected in the football committee in Jamaica,” he added.

And despite the lack of resources, Menzies remains deeply committed to the country’s national team, stating that the team is on par athletically with any other country in the world.

“When we start comparing athletes in America versus Jamaica, the players here are more skilful, and you just want to give back to them because of the lack of resources that they have on and off the field. I think it’s very gratifying to be here to change and mould people’s lives going forward and that is one of the reasons why Lorne and I decided to come back,” he explained.

— Sherdon Cowan