Building champions
Naggo Head Primary school swept to their third-consecutive INSPORTS Primary Champs title and eighth overall on Saturday in very convincing fashion, beating their nearest rivals Greater Portmore by a whopping 91 points in a totally dominant display.
The defending champions scored a massive 238 points to that of second-placed Greater Portmore (147) and third-placed Spanish Town Primary who amassed 95 points.Floyd Cooke, the head coach of Naggo Head, credits the understanding between the coaching staff and the administration at the school for the success they have seen over the past few year.“We have a good coaching staff; I have persons who are very bright people. We work as a team, my coaches and school and my principal, [so] that is the key,” he emphasized.The girls scored 141 points in the winning effort, while the boys bagged 97 points as they won both the girls’ and boys’ sections at the four-day event, and Coach Cooke says that balance is always a focus when putting together his team.“At all times we try to put our team together in unison. We don’t want to come here and we are a bit short on one side and a bit strong on the other side. We have some years when the boys are a lot stronger and some years when the girls are a lot stronger, but when we come here we intend to score on both sides,” Cooke assured.From Class One to Class Four the school exhibited excellent baton changes as they won five of the relays, and this the coach says is all down to practice.“It’s a lot of practice. If you want to do well at GSAT you have to practise; whatever you want to do well at, you have to practise. It is continuous for us, no matter how young they are. We practise and practise and practise and when you practise as long as we do it looks like that. Discipline is also key for us. We get parents involved at training, we don’t do excuses. We find a way to practise and we find a way to make it right.”Despite the straightforward win, there will be no resting on the laurels for anyone associated with the Naggo Head track and field programme.“My mandate is to keep the coaching staff together, and as long as we can keep the coaching staff together we will continue to do well. We see other challengers, we see other schools getting stronger and we are wary of that, so we have to go back to the drawing board and see where we can improve.”Despite being poised to go on an extended run of championship wins, building a dynasty is not the focus at the institution as many would think. Rather, it is producing athletes who can go on to represent Jamaica, which is the main focus at the St Catherine-based school.“We want to produce quality athletes to represent our country. I love to see when I come to Boys’ and Girls’ Champs and all the other senior events, I see persons who represented Naggo Head. We train, we practise with that intent. We don’t train to say we are going to win for five years or ten years. We prepare year by year for each championship. Naggo Head is about building champions, that is what we are about,” he declared.No one can deny that Naggo Head is building champions and few would dare to suggest that they won’t continue to do so.