I have been following an ongoing debate in the media in which it has been suggested that some Jamaican students are ignoring their “education” in their pursuit of sporting glory. According to this analysis these student athletes might be taking unnecessary risks with their future and might be better served concentrating on their books rather than on trying to earn a living from sports.

I believe that such a conclusion is flawed, anachronistic, and based on a misguided notion of education which would, perhaps, have been better suited for a time past when elite athletes were deemed amateurs and were not allowed to make a living from their sporting prowess.

Students should not be asked to choose between sports and education. That is giving them a false choice. Sports should be a part of their education. We don’t ask students to choose between science and their education. Science is a part of their education. While subjects such as physics and chemistry are geared towards students who seek a career in medicine, engineering, or some science-related field, sports as a discipline should be aimed at those who seek to make a living from athletic pursuits.

Education should prepare students to make reasonable career choices in the hope that this will result in their leading happy and fruitful lives. That our schools have allowed some student athletes to fall through the cracks is without doubt. Yet, this is part of a broader failure which implicates our entire educational system. The solution, therefore, is to undertake significant educational reforms.

We should be looking at ways to expand the career choices available to our students, not restrict them. Sports adds to our range of professional options. Guidance counsellors should point students to the professional possibilities that are available through sports. Some analysts cite the relatively few athletes who can make it to the very top of their game as evidence of the limited career opportunities available in sports. This conclusion is based on a false framing.

Elite athletes are only one part of the sports value chain. One does not have to be a world record holder or champion to earn a decent living. The absorptive capacity of sports is great. We have doctors, psychologists, and lawyers who specialise in sports. There are agents, financial advisers, commentators, and publicists who work with and earn from athletes. Coaching can be quite a lucrative endeavour. Every sport requires teams of professionals and a robust ecosystem in which to function effectively.

We should not be discouraging talented students from pursuing their dreams due to flaws in the educational system. Intercollegiate athletics in the US largely favoured men before 1972. The solution was not to dissuade girls from participating in sports, but instead to have the authorities institute Article IX to level the playing field and expand the opportunities for women in sports.

We would not be celebrating Serena Williams, as we have been in recent weeks, had her dad conceded to the conventional wisdom that there were not many opportunities for girls, particularly poor black ones, in the game of tennis. Billy Jean King didn’t defer to the status quo which seemed to have been designed to consign female tennis players to poverty. She fought the iniquitous system and prevailed. King, along with a band of other pioneers, decided that women should be treated equally as men on and off the tennis courts. The prize money for the winner of the men’s singles in the majors is the same as that for his female counterparts. This is as a result of the advocacy of women like Billy Jean who did not believe that one’s current status is one’s destiny.

Sure, we could argue that we should give the students more options so that they can hedge their bets. This would be no different from having a student who aspires to becoming a doctor also choosing subjects which would qualify him as a lawyer. While there is merit in this argument, we should concede that it is easier to find a person mastering one skill than two.

Trying to concentrate on more than one specialty can result in spreading oneself thin. Many great athletes, including Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Lebron James, Usain Bolt, Elaine Thompson-Herah, have largely ignored the academic trajectory by avoiding the college route and have headed overseas straight to the professional league. The Clayton twins seem to be following this trend.

Yet, sports can deepen our interest in what we consider to be intellectual pursuits. I was particularly turned on to reading by the World Tennis and Tennis World magazines which Father James Hosie would lend to me while I was a young student at St George’s College. There was good writing in these magazines which not only encouraged me to read about tennis, but also inspired me to delve into other forms of literature, including psychology, politics, economics, philosophy, linguistics, and law to name but a few areas of interest.

Through the years there have been reforms in sports (locally and internationally) which have significantly affected the capacity of athletes to earn, particularly in track and field. The professionalisation of track and field has allowed stars to earn directly from their sport of choice. I remember when the great American hurdler Reynaldo Nehemiah had to switch to football because he was not allowed to be paid as a track and field athlete.

Jamaican track and field received a significant boost when the legendary Dennis Johnson led the way to indigenise intercollegiate coaching. This development would have huge implications for track and field as many young Jamaican athletes stopped taking up track scholarships to colleges abroad. The decision of the Jamaican athletes to train at home has reaped rich dividends. Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Sherone Simpson, and Elaine Thompson-Herah are just a few of the athletes who have emerged from the Jamaicanisation of the coaching programme.

The recent advisory from Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) that there should be a limit to the number of events an athlete should be allowed to enter at the boys’ and girls’ championships should go a far way in reducing injuries and burnout among our young athletes. There are many who contend that the heavy workload which some of the talented young athletes have been required to carry has caused many high school stars to fall by the wayside. Hopefully this decision has helped more young athletes to make the transition to adult competition.

Needed reforms

Most of us are familiar with the practice of “buying”student athletes. This system of transferring student athletes from one school to another should be reformed. The process should be transparent and should not be employ the methods which many sporting franchises across the world use to acquire talent.

The acquiring institution should compensate the target school financially or in some other standardised manner. The transfer agreement should contain provisions for the welfare of the student who is being traded.

We note that the current policy of restricting student athletes from enjoying the financial benefits of sponsorship is being reviewed in the US. I trust we will follow suit in Jamaica. The practice of not allowing student athletes to secure endorsements and sponsorships is outdated and hypocritical. Students should have access to some of the wealth generated by their prowess and efforts.

I don’t believe it would be far-fetched to call on some of the traditional sponsors of sports in Jamaica to contemplate investing in a fund which would take positions on the future success of talented athletes. This would be similar to the establishment of a venture capital fund. Talented young athletes would have sources of funding for their careers and the investors would share in the earnings generated by these sporting stars.

We need to divorce ourselves from old orthodoxies and seek innovative approaches to wealth creation. Finding ways of increasing the opportunities for more athletes to generate income is a step in the right direction.

clydepmckenzie@yahoo.co.uk