As a pre-teen I recall attending my first Boys’ Champs at the newly constructed National Stadium.

It was there that I saw the wonders of our athletics future through the performances of Lennox “Billy” Miller, Rupert Hoilette, Peter Morgan and others. I was there to witness, for the first time, the beginning of a great runner. His name…Neville Myton.

Myton was born in Old Harbour Bay in St Catherine and attended Old Harbour Bay Primary before moving to Excelsior High School in 1963 where he made an immediate impact on that school’s track and field programme. Historians will recall that Excelsior celebrated its first and only victory at Boys’ Champs in 1960. Two years later, the school failed to score even one point.

Myton’s joining Excelsior in 1963 literally brought transformation to the existing athletic culture at the school. With the application of his exemplary work ethics, and always willing to encourage and assist others, he always remained focused, while being a regular, kind and hard working student. This outstanding work ethic made him one of the first “track stars” on the track at the National Stadium.

In 1964 he won the mile and the 880 yards, both in record times. He smashed the 880 yards record which he lowered by five seconds and in the following year, further lowered the record to 1:51.6 minutes.

But in 1964, he announced to the track and field connoisseurs that he arrived and was a special gift. In that same year of capturing his first Champs win, Neville stunned the National Stadium when he won the National Championships and became the first schoolboy and third Jamaican to break the 1:50-minute barrier, stopping the watch at 1:49.3 minutes. But more was to come from the man who was described in the Star newspaper as the “Indomitable Distance Man”.

At the National Trials he broke the World Junior Record for 800 metres with an astonishing 1.47.2 minutes, a time which still stands as the Jamaican Junior Record for the distance. Myton actually made the national team and attended the Olympics in Tokyo while he was still a student at Excelsior where we watched the great George Kerr compete with distinction in the 800 metres.

By the time 1965 came around, Neville Myton was timed at 48.1 seconds over 440 yards on a 330-yard dirt track. The feat was recognised in the British magazine, World Sport, when they awarded him a special Certificate of Achievement.

In that same year he represented his school at the much-vaunted Penn Relays in the 4×440 yards relay and the one mile becoming the first Jamaican high school athlete to win an open event at the Relay Carnival.

On his return from the Penn Relays, Myton represented Excelsior’s Sunlight cricket team in a game against the highly respected Kingston College team and top scored with 43.

Some knowledgeable observers opined that it was Myton who was instrumental in lifting his school’s image at Champs to actually pose a threat to the dominant Kingston College team at the height of its glory days.

After graduating from high school, Myton moved on to Mesa, Arizona, to attend Mesa Junior College. There he made an immediate impact as he helped his college win the National Junior College Athletic Association Championships, not once, but twice.

He then transferred to San Jose State College where he became teammates with the top-rated stars, Tommy Smith and John Carlos. The team won 1969 NCAA Championships. While there Myton never lost a half-mile event and even anchored the sprint medley relay team at the 1969 Fresno relays in the second fastest time ever, missing the then world record by one-tenth of a second.

In comparison to his overall contribution to sport, Neville Myton had a relatively limited stint at the international level. Having attended the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 as a schoolboy, Neville struck gold for Jamaica in the 800 metres at the 10th Central American and Caribbean Games in Puerto Rico.

He was also a member of the 4×400 relay team that won bronze. A month later while competing in front of his home crowd at the Eighth Commonwealth Games, he collapsed on the backstretch of the track, injured.

Myton explained that he felt a slight twinge before the race and the worse happened.

He also competed at the Pan-American Games in 1967 in Winnipeg, Canada, where he was a part of the 4×400 bronze-medal winning team, the Mexico Olympics in 1968, and the Commonwealth Games in 1970 in Edinburgh.

In 1971, Neville Myton graduated from San Jose State College with two degrees — a BA in Social Science and a BA in Physical Education. He returned to Jamaica that same year and taught and coached at Vere Technical, Tivoli Comprehensive and Old Harbour High School.

At Tivoli, in 1976, he coached the cricket team to victory in the Sunlight Cup and the Spaulding Cup. That year he served as fitness co-ordinator to the Tivoli Football team that won the Manning Cup that year. He also served in a similar capacity with the Harbour View football teams that won the National Premier League in 2001 and 2007.

Myton’s love for the track continued for many years as along with his wife Paulette, he coached, mentored and fostered several of Jamaica’s top athletes such as Colin Bradford, Veronica Campbell Brown, Simone Facey, Shereefa Lloyd, Shellene Williams, and Patricia Hall.

He also coached outstanding 880 yards runner James Robinson from Tivoli, a winner at Boys’ Champs in the 1970s.

Once described as “the greatest schoolboy middledistance runner ever and certainly the most dedicated schoolboy athlete of all time”, Neville Fitzgerald Myton was awarded with the National Award of the Order of Distinction, Officer Class, in 2006 by the Government of Jamaica. Those who know him felt that it was long overdue.

Having worked with the JAAA for over 15 years, Myton initiated the Carl March Awards which has been going on for 22 years. He also initiated the Old Harbour Bay Road Race which has been in existence for 25 years.

Having admired Neville Myton from the distance of the stands from I was a teen, I finally met the “Mighty One” in person recently at the National Stadium. It was like sitting at the feet of one of the greats, just absorbing his depth of knowledge. He shared some critical bits of information with me which the writer would feel guilty if I did not share just a few of them:

— Too many of our athletes are building too much muscle in the wrong areas.

— It is the beginning of the third 200 metres in an 800-metre race that usually determines the winner.

— Many of our mediocre 400-metre runners should have focused on the 800 metres where they could have become world beaters.

— Athletes have a 4 to 5-year peak period after which they start their decline, even the extraordinary Usain Bolt who was in a class by himself.

Neville Fitzgerald Myton has no Olympic medals to show, but he is certainly one out of the “Top Drawer” and deserving of glory.

Editor’s note : Robbie Robinson is an attorney-at-law, public speaker, sports journalist, sports enthusiast and singer.