Lightly edited excerpt from the upcoming book The History of Cornwall College by The University of the West Indies Emeritus Professor Dr Horace Fletcher

The passing of Olympian George Rhoden last year heralded the end of a sterling era of athletic success in the mid-20th century, due to the efforts of certain young athletes and athletic administrators in Jamaica.

Through their efforts, a small country was able to conquer the world in the 440 yards and 100 yards. The names Rhoden, Arthur Wint, Herb McKenley and Leslie Laing became household names, as these gentlemen excelled in the Olympics, in 1948 and 1952, filling us with pride and revelling in the accolades for many years to come.

However, one athlete was not so lucky and was denied the ultimate prize, that of being able to call himself an Olympian, having represented his country at the highest level up to that.

Lancelot CA Thompson is the only Cornwall College old boy to have been selected to represent Jamaica, in the summer Olympics. In 1943, he participated in Boys’ Champs for Cornwall, placing third in the long jump, won by L Robinson of Calabar and second in the shot put open, won by A J Mahfood of Munro. In 1944 there was no Champs and by 1945 he had left Cornwall.

He became a teacher and director of athletics at Cornwall after leaving high school. Thompson later competed in the long jump and 400-sprint relay for Jamaica, during the 1946 Pan American Games held in Barranquilla, Colombia, and again during the 1950 games held in Guatemala. Both times he took second-place honours in the competition.

Thompson was selected to represent Jamaica at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. However, eight days before the Olympics, team manager Herbert McDonald sent a cable saying he was to be removed from the team along with Byron La Beach (reserve for the 4×440), Coach Yancey and Hyacinth Walters. (Olympic Muddle, Jamaica Gleaner, July 12,1952).

He further said money saved should be used to send a coach for the 4×440 team instead, for the following year. McDonald opined that the 440 relay team was, apart from Rhoden, all below scratch and a coach was needed.

Thompson had made the team as a field athlete while attending Morgan State University, with high jump of 6’5’ and long jump of 25’4’ (Gleaner, June 3, 1952). His Morgan State colleague was Byron La Beach (brother of 100 yards world record holder Lloyd La Beach) and both had run on a 4 x 440 yards team at Morgan State.

In the end, after public outcry, and fund-raising from private and public sources, there was a change of heart for some of those dropped at the last minute. The Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), however, voted to drop Thompson, while the Jamaica Olympics Association (JOA) said it was too late to change. To add to the drama, Thompson was asked to do a one-off, out-of-competition long jump of at least 24’ 6 inches, and could only achieve 24’2”. This helped solidify the decision to leave him at home.

The Jamaican team eventually included La Beach, Coach Yancey, Hyacinth Walters and Kathleen Russell. Russell had not been originally selected. They even took with them Ken Farnum, a Barbadian cyclist, to ride for Jamaica! Only Thompson was left behind, although he could have substituted for La Beach, as alternate in the 4×440, as well as do the two field events. (Gleaner, 1952).

To add insult to injury, Thompson’s best performances could have seen him gaining a gold medal in the long jump in Helsinki, which was won by Jerome Biffle of the US, with a leap of 24’ 10 inches, or 6 inches below Thompson’s qualifying mark of 25’ 4” and in the high jump his 6’5’’ would have challenged for the bronze medal of 6’6” by the Brazilian Jose Conceicao.

In contrast, Ken Farnum finished 20th and 21st in his two cycle races, while La Beach was not called upon to participate. Ironically, 70 years later at the Paris Olympics in 2024, most of Jamaica’s medals came from the field events as opposed to the sprints, with the 4x400m team not even qualifying for the games. His last-minute rejection was seen as a huge travesty, in so many ways and has caused great harm to the pride of the athlete, his family and to his alma mater Cornwall College.

He would rise above this personal tragedy and later in life succeed academically. He was the first black professor hired by the University of Toledo. But chemistry instructor Lancelot C A Thompson, who was 32 at the time in 1958, initially had a hard time convincing some people of that.

Thompson, whose parents were teachers, was born and raised in Jamaica. A native of Mt Airy, Hanover, he was a 24-year-old high school teacher when he received track scholarship offers from Morgan State University in Maryland and Tennessee State University.

“Many people in Jamaica advised me, go to Morgan State; they will lynch you in Tennessee,” said Thompson, who pointed out that Morgan State University is a historically black college.

At 24, he boarded a plane for Morgan State University. It didn’t take long for Thompson to be introduced to American racism and discrimination. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Morgan State in 1952 and a doctorate in physics and inorganic chemistry from Wayne State University in 1955.

He returned to Jamaica with the goal of “trying to revolutionise the way we were teaching chemistry”, he said. “The school books in Jamaica were old and outdated, and it was difficult to get the powers that be to understand how much chemistry had changed over the years”, he said.

He would later return to the US and go off to Toledo where he was later appointed vice-president of students affairs, a position he held for 20 years until his retirement. He died in 2016, leaving a wife and three children. Toledo University renamed the students centre in his honour.

Herb McKenley

George Rhoden