They may have finished seventh at the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) this season, but Immaculate Conception High School sprint Coach Floyd Quarrie says a point total of 97 is a proud achievement.

Quarrie says Champs went well for the school because of what he describes as a strategic plan going in.

“We were looking to a competitive five days — or hunting for five days, as we called it, and it turned out successful in many areas,” Quarrie told the Jamaica Observer. “We had a lot of surprises. The girls surprised themselves, and they surprised us, the coaches, as well. They really pulled their own and put a lot of faith and trust in the programme rather than just the coaches.”

He says there were injuries to key members of the squad, which forecast a lower points return, but in spite of this the team tallied more than the 76, which took them to eighth last season.

“Our top sprinter from last season, Mickaila Haisley, suffered a hamstring injury that we were just unable to shake,” he said. “So she had to sit out a championships. That was the biggest blow for us, but for the most part, the rest of the team stayed as healthy as possible and we just tried to manage and manoeuvre the ups and downs. They are females, so there’s a lot to consider, but we have the support of the school and its managerial team that helped us to really avoid certain situations and we’re very grateful for that.”

Head Coach Franz Forde was preparing for a transitional period for the team, with a number of their key athletes leaving in recent years. This includes former Class One shot put champion Danielle Sloley moving on to Clemson University in 2020. That was followed by former Corporate Area 100m champion Gabrielle Lyn moving on to Johnson C Smith University, and her runner-up Chanel Honeywell going to Louisiana Technical University in 2022.

The technical staff viewed smart recruiting at a young age as the right strategy to continue the school’s successes in the long term. That recruitment has already paid off with Immaculate taking a one-two finish in the Class Four girls’ 100m through Kayla Johnson (11.97 seconds) and Najè Brown (12.20s). Ayanna Blake also took a silver medal in the Class Four girls’ 70m hurdles.

Quarrie says they had a long-term vision for a programme that would aim to make parents feel that they were getting well-rounded daughters from the school through taking part in a programme that properly balanced academics and athletics.

“The parents fully support the programme because we’re very transparent,” he said. “We are aiding in the girls at the school becoming more well rounded by being this competitive in track and field.

“We pride ourselves in not just coaching athletes to run, per se, but in all aspects. We take our time as far as preparing them to do interviews, and we have a thing where you’re banned from saying the word ‘execute’. “

Quarrie makes reference to athletes using the cliché of saying, “My coach told me to go out there and execute.”

“I want them to express themselves without being in a box,” he said. “They’re bright girls and them expressing themselves so eloquently during post-race interviews was a lot more them than us, we just guided them along the way.”

Apart from a total buy-in to Forde’s plan, Quarrie is also encouraged by the work being done with the quarter-mile programme by Coach Mathue Tapper, who joined the programme in 2018.

“We had a girl [Kimberly Wright] who made it to the semi-finals of the Class Three girls’ 400m, and he’s doing wonders with that,” he said. “All kudos to Franz for identifying and picking people for the programme.”

Final-year Class One athletes have to choose between tertiary education and going professional. Quarrie is of the view that education is crucial before going pro and uses his talent managing and development company QPC Sports to assist them in gaining scholarships.

“Each senior athlete should be in the position right now to accept a couple of offers that were presented to them,” he said. “We boasted over the years about having a 100 per cent scholarship rate for our athletes. It has only dipped on the basis of them not wanting to take the scholarships, but we’ve always had offers on the table for our seniors and that’s a bigger success for me as a coach than their performance at Champs.”