MONTEGO BAY, St James — High school basketball will be given more attention come next year, according to outgoing president of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), Dr Walton Small.

Small, who end his six year-run as president of the powerful high school sports administrative body last week, stressed that the development of basketball would get more attention in ISSA’s development plans next year, “further enhancing the opportunities that are available to the players both male and female here (locally) and abroad.”

“It is amazing, but we have not yet even started to scratch the surface of what basketball can do in Jamaica, and it will not happen if ISSA does not drive the development process,” said the Wolmers Boys principal, as he addressed the presentation ceremony of the ISSA Western Basketball Conference at the Montego Bay Cricket Club recently.

He praised the coaches who he described as “the most underappreciated people in sports.”

“I don’t know how you do it, the students are difficult sometimes to manage, but you are able to manage. I tell my teachers ‘if you can be like the coaches, the schools would be much better.’ When a student will misbehave or be disrespectful to a teacher, there is a special bond between the students and coaches,” Small reasoned.

Cornwall College players won two of the Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards—-Ryan Watson in the boys’ Under-14 and Omar Campbell in erbert Morrison Technical retained the boys’ Under-19 and Under-16 titles for the fifth consecutive year, while Cornwall College won the Under-14 boys, and Mt Alvernia High took the Girls’ Open title.

Herbert Morrison’s Anthony Thorpe was named on two conference all-star teams—the Under -16 and Under -19—-while Cornwall College’s Ryan Watson and St James High’s Kemauny Welch, were also named on the Under -16 and Under -14 teams.