After 39 years as chairman of Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ), Dr Carlton Davis has retired and has handed the baton to Professor Aldrick “Allie” McNab, the first volunteer at SOJ.

During his tenure, Dr Davis applied his considerable experience in leadership and corporate governance to benefit SOJ. Under his leadership, Jamaica hosted 34 National Summer Games, launched unified basketball and football competitions, and staged the first Caribbean Games.

He worked assiduously on SOJ’s Healthy Athletes Screening programme, which provides training for clinicians to take care of persons with intellectual disabilities. Jamaica is the only Caribbean island to host all five healthy athletes screening annually.

Today, SOJ athletes have access to free health screening for eyes, ears, teeth, feet, health promotion, and physiotherapy.

David Evangelista, president and managing director for Special Olympics Europe Eurasia, praised the contribution of Dr Davis to the Special Olympics movement.

“He has inspired an entire nation and generation to advocate for, treat, and engage people with intellectual disability differently. Under his focused vision of a world fully inclusive, Dr Davis brilliantly positioned Special Olympics Jamaica not only as a strong, disability sports organisation, but more importantly as a critical element to nation building.

“All of us at Special Olympics are indebted to Dr Carlton Davis for the tremendous national and global leadership regarding the rights of people with intellectual disability, and for his ability to inspire so many of us to pledge our sustained passion to a mission so critical to today’s world,” Evangelista said in a statement.

Delores Henry Cooper, past executive director of SOJ, said: “[He] is a gentleman with quiet dignity, great humility, unlimited intellect and exceptional organisational and leadership skills and commitment. He took on the mammoth task of re-establishing a Special Olympics programme in Jamaica. This he did successfully with the support of a hard working and dedicated team of directors and volunteers in all parishes.”

Lorna Bell, the current SOJ executive director, said Dr Davis was an outstanding chairman and one of the humblest persons.

“It has been a pleasure working with Dr Davis. I have valued the time and effort he has devoted, behind the scenes, to move several initiatives along. Dr Davis, besides being a politician, has given most of his life to serve the less fortunate in his own quiet demeanor and did it so humbled. He has left a rich legacy,” Bell said.

Special Olympics Jamaica took its first small steps about a decade after the Special Olympics movement was started in the United States by Eunice Kennedy-Shriver in the 1960s. Since then, the programme has grown rapidly, creating along the way astounding firsts, not only in the region but in international circles as well.

Today, SOJ is a respected organisation with over 4300 athletes registered in the programme from all 14 parishes and offers 12 sports to persons with intellectual disability.

McNab, a former football player and coach, has big boots to fill.