St George’s College’s athletics programme has been derailed after a series of events, including some negative publicity over the last few months.

But Team Manager Lyndon Latore remains optimistic and believes the school has the platform from which to go forward, determined to rise from the ashes like the mythical phoenix.The celebrated institution was in the news since their its star athlete Jelanie Walker failed to make a showing at the prestigious Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships. The result was that St George’s College did not garner a single point at the event.Then came the resignation of Head Coach Orville Byfield, followed by the death of joint team manager Peter Brooks.And if all of that was not enough, the school also lost its Manning Cup Captain Dominic James last year when he collapsed and later died during a home game.Without doubt, the school is at an all-time low where track and field is concerned.“It’s kind of sudden and, again, this incident (Brooks’ death) would have derailed us and sapped the energy from our legs,” said Latore.Brooks, who was an integral part of the school’s programme, was found with a gunshot wound to his head. The Corporate Communications Unit (CCU) of the Jamaica Constabulary Force said that it is investigating the death as a possible suicide.Latore, who is also the president of the old boys’ association and who had worked with Brooks for a number of years, was distraught at his friend’s death, but he remained optimistic about the school’s track and field programme.“Everything is probably part and parcel of life, where the youngster had opportunity to represent the school and chose not to.“The circumstances that surrounded it were pretty straightforward, and I think I have spoken about it a couple times in media,” he said.The issue with Walker was that he was still being trained as an individual by his former school coach outside of the school, and was told that in order to represent St George’s, he would have to be training with the team.That never materialised and he was not allowed to participate by the school at Champs. He later went on to represent Jamaica at the Carifta Games in Curacao and won bronze in the Under-20 100 metres.Then came the issue of Byfield. St George’s had acquired the services of the former Kingston College (KC) throwing sensation as their coach.He is one of the most qualified local coaches, having obtained an International Association of Athletics Federations Level Five coaching diploma in California.Byfield was a part of the coaching staff of KC’s winning team between 2001 and 2006, and was a part of Jamaica College’s winning team in 2011. But after taking over at St George’s last June, Byfield resigned a few weeks ago.When contacted, Byfield told the

Jamaica Observer that he resigned for “personal reasons”.But Latore still has high hopes for the athletics programme, though a replacement for Byfield is yet to be found.“Mr Byfield is a very good coach and a decent person but, as he ultimately revealed, he had to make some choices and he resigned,” Latore explained.“It’s not like it’s two years down the road and we have to start over again, because that would be more destabilising,” he pointed out.“But the management structure is still in place, and the school support is still in place. The boys are definitely there at the school who want to compete and our job is to facilitate the boys who are interested,” said Latore.The ‘Light Blues’ of North Street sent 34 athletes to the Boys’ Champs and failed to secure a point, something which came as surprise from one of the traditional powerhouses of high school sports. In 2016, St George’s finished 24th overall with nine points.“Certainly, in recent history…it would probably be our worst performance,” said Latore. St George’s won Champs in 1914 and 1925.“We have a sports council and we are geared towards improving ourselves. [And] we want to get into that 95 per cent and higher of boys passing five CXC and more,” he noted.But currently, the Light Blues are ranked 22 overall, with 80 per cent, among schools that are turning out students at the end of grade 11, with a minimum of five Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate passes.“Pity Peter (Brooks) won’t be around to be a part of this process, because it’s still ongoing… The same move to get Byfield, because we thought it was a good solution, but it didn’t work out. We just have to find somebody else and hopefully that works out,” Latore emphasised.“This year we had some kids with limited training years, some in fifth form, and it’s their first time at track and field. We had a team with about only 10 per cent of the guys used to high school-level track and field and been to Champs before,” he explained.“It was a very young and inexperienced team and a lot of the guys were short of training years,” Latore ended.