Calvin “Whoppy” Valentine, the Reno Football Club and Jamaica midfield wizard of the 1980s who died in late May, was a good enough cricketer to have “gone all the way”, says former national senior cricket coach Junior Bennett.

“He was a very good pace bowler… fast and skiddy”, Bennett said of Valentine who represented the Jamaica Under-19 cricket team in the early 1980s.

Tellingly though, it was Valentine’s skill in “killing the [football] dead” with his chest that seemed to trigger the most admiration from Bennett as he reminisced recently.

“Whoppy would collect the ball with his back to goal and turn with it like it paste on to his chest before rolling it down to shoot,” said Bennett who was a young cricket coach at St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) in the early 1980s.

Back then, Valentine represented STETHS, playing daCosta Cup football and Headley Cup cricket.

Valentine, an Old Harbour Bay, St Catherine native, had transferred to STETHS from Clarendon College where he had also played schoolboy football and cricket.

Lynval “Palla” Wilson, another former Reno and Jamaica defender who played against Valentine at schoolboy level and alongside him at club and national levels, was similarly in awe of the latter’s chest control.

“When Valentine tek the ball on his chest at any speed it came to him, you had to beg him to get it off… ‘please, Whoppy put down the ball’ …,” joked Wilson who represented Vere Technical High School at both football and cricket .

He also credited Valentine — who would typically advance down the right side of the Reno midfield — as a superb passer of the football “putting it on a dime for [striker] Michael Graham…”

Dave Wright, a Reno fan now residing in the United States, who followed the club religiously in the 1980s and 90s, remembers Valentine as a goal scorer of immense value. “He was an authoritative, robust midfielder with a right foot powerhouse of a shot from anywhere outside the box,” Wright told the Jamaica Observer by WhatsApp text message.

Wendell Downswell, a mesmeric dribbler who played for Jamaica and has coached national teams at senior and junior levels, served as a coach at Reno while still playing in the 80s and early 90s. He summed up Valentine as “super gifted” and a “student of the game” with “keen technical and tactical awareness”.

Downswell, too, marvels to this day, at Valentine’s ability to keep the ball on his chest “…like glue…”

A cousin, Shane Elliott, told the Observer that Valentine, who grew up in a strong sporting environment in Old Harbour Bay, was also an outstanding table tennis player.

Valentine attended Old Harbour Bay Primary, Old Harbour Secondary, Clarendon College, before transferring to STETHS where he was part of star-studded football team guided by Oliver Clue.

At STETHS he excelled as a right-arm fast bowler, partnering with the left-arm pacer Kenneth “Snake” McLeod in rolling over all before them in schoolboy cricket. Back then, the STETHS cricket team was supervised by current president of the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) Dr Donovan Bennett with the youthful Junior Bennett (no relation) as his assistant.

“He was the best fast bowler to pass through STETHS certainly in my time,” said Dr Bennett. “He was not only very fast and aggressive, he was as fast at the end of a long spell as he was at the start…I think he would have played for the West Indies had he stayed with cricket,” the JCA president added.

Valentine and McLeod shared the new ball for Jamaica in West Indies regional Under-19 cricket before the former made the hard choice to concentrate on football only.

“I think he just loved football more,” said Junior Bennett who remembers Valentine playing senior cup cricket for St Catherine Cricket Club.

But friends recall that for years, Valentine would sometimes wonder aloud if he had made the right choice.

In addition to club football (in Clarendon, St Catherine, Reno in Westmoreland) and for his country, Valentine played football professionally in Canada.

Elliott as well as Valentine’s ex-wife and childhood sweetheart Hilary, whom he married in 1996 — the union ending in divorce years later — recall that he would go to Canada to play seasonally over a period of several years.

Relatives and friends say Valentine died in hospital on May 29 following a stroke at his home in Old Harbour Bay, shortly after his 60th birthday.

The funeral service is scheduled for 1:00 pm on Monday, July 29 at the Old Harbour Bay Baptist Church. Interment is at the family plot, Wilkie Town in Old Harbour Bay.

Valentine is survived by daughter Jenesis and son Kristoff.