From all accounts, Mr Stephen Francis, the legendary, game-changing track and field coach, who died on the weekend at age 64, was a gifted scholar, who excelled at all academic levels.

Wolmer’s Trust, custodians of Mr Francis’s alma mater, tells us that among his achievements at high school was to lead the Wolmer’s team that won the 1982 Schools’ Challenge Quiz.

We are told that after high school he attended The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, securing a Bachelor of Science in Management Studies. Sometime later, he moved on to the University of Michigan Business School obtaining a Master of Business Administration in finance.

With such academic qualifications Mr Francis clearly had enviable choices.

That he chose track and field coaching as a full-time career speaks of a passion for the sport which knew no bounds.

It also reflects unbending will to build champions regardless of the hurdles.

That resolve resulted in the galaxy of athletic stars who came to maturity under his guidance. They include world beaters such as Mesdames Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson Herah, Shericka Jackson, Melaine Walker, Sherone Simpon, Brigette Foster Hylton; and Messrs Asafa Powell, Tajay Gayle, Nesta Carter, and Michael Frater.

Such was Mr Francis’s passion that, even as a teenager, he served as an assistant coach to the Wolmer’s track programme, eventually taking the reins in the mid to latter 1980s.

His MBA studies at the University of Michigan took him away, but he would eventually return to Wolmer’s heading the track programme there for a decade.

Mr Francis’s experience as a high school coach taught him lessons that led to the watershed co-founding of the MVP (Maximising Velocity & Power) track club in 1999 alongside his brother Mr Paul Francis, as well as Messrs Bruce James and David Noel.

As explained by Mr James, Mr Francis was discomforted by the recognition that, after many years of sending off highly talented athletes to colleges in the USA, far too few were achieving what he considered their true potential.

Why couldn’t Jamaican athletes be nurtured, honed, and developed into champions right here at home?

With that thought, the indomitable Mr Francis set out to prove it could be done.

The MVP example triggered the formalising of other such clubs, including Racers, led by the living legend Mr Glen Mills, who as a very young coach, famously guided the early career of Mr Donald Quarrie. The latter won the 200-metre Gold at the Montreal Olympics of 1976.

The arrival, decades later, of the incomparable Mr Usain Bolt became Mr Mills’ crowning achievement.

For Jamaica to have boasted two of the world’s most celebrated sprint coaches at the same time — their athletes winning scores of Olympic and World Championship medals — over the last two and a half decades, is truly remarkable.

In the case of Mr Francis, whose scientific, knowledge-based approach to the technical aspects of track and field was second to none, it defies belief that it wasn’t until the build-up to the Sydney Olympics of 2000 that he first did a formal coaching course.

Those who knew him best say his academic bent and love for the sport dictated that he read and researched endlessly — always willing to learn and improve in his relentless drive to build world beaters.

With Mr Francis’s passing, Jamaica has lost a champion beyond measure.