Three games were contested at Mount Alvernia High on Tuesday as the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) rural area netball competition resumed after the passage of Hurricane Melissa on October 28. And while the players tried their best on the court, two coaches reasoned that the results were of secondary importance.

For Jacinth Carey, coach at Green Pond High, and Alicia Chin, head of the physical education department at Mount Alvernia, getting the students back in school and being involved in classes or playing netball offer “a sense of normalcy”.

Carey, whose team won both games in the junior competition, against Mount Alvernia and Muschett High, told the Jamaica Observer that hard lessons learned during the COVID-19 lockdown years ago, has served her well since the hurricane passed.

“My reasons for wanting the restart is deeper than just playing games,” she said, “During the COVID era, I recall a report from China or one of those countries that set up a hotline for the children that were left at home. And many of them were being abused, even by fathers, and it was one of the things that rested on me during this time.

“So when ISSA said they were ready to restart, it was like they were reading my mind, I felt so good, really good about the restart,” she said. “After my first training session after the hurricane, I sat my girls down and I had a frank talk with them and I was telling them exact thing that I’m telling you. I said, ‘ladies, I’m so happy you’re here because some of you are at home, neighbours can be predators, sometimes even parents’. I told them, ‘don’t take it the wrong way but I rather when you’re here more than when you’re home and your parents are gone to work and there is nobody really there looking out for you’.”

Carey added: “I was really happy about just giving the girls something to do, taking them out of that environment,” she said, “So, no, winning the games is not important, not right now, just getting them back in the motion of leaving home. Doing normal things, so it was a very good idea to restart.”

Carey said she had been planning to take her players to see the national senior netball team host England in a few weeks, before the Jamaica leg of the series was cancelled.

Chin said getting the players back in school was key.

“We wanted something to take them away from the trauma that they have been through. And getting them to focus on playing netball was one way of getting them back to some normalcy,” she said.

“It was a rough ride for all of us, so they needed to get back to normalcy. That is why we have [restarted] school with them, [and given] them some counseling and [taken] them in as as quickly as possible to get them kind of settled in school.”

She said some of the girls had suffered major damage to their homes.

“Some could not even report when we asked them to, as they were marooned with their families. But, they eventually found a way out and here we are now,” the Mount Alvernia PE head pointed out.

“With the trauma that they have been through, I want them to get something to hold on to, to settle their minds. So that is why they’re out now,” Chin said.

— Paul A Reid

CHIN… it was a rough ride for all of us, so they needed to get back to normalcy