President of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) Keith Wellington says the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships this year cannot be about who runs fastest, score the most points or win trophies.

If the greenlight is given to stage the five-day event, set to start on April 27 at National Stadium, Wellington says ‘Champs’ can have a cathartic effect on the psyche of the country, and as such, every single individual involved must play their part in making it happen.

In an impassioned plea during a virtual meeting with coaches on Thursday, Wellington called on coaches to change their mindset from just trying to win at all cost, but to doing their part in returning the country to some semblance of normalcy.

After being cancelled last year after the first case of the coronavirus was discovered in the island, plans are advanced to stage ‘Champs’ this year, but Wellington acknowledged that the decision was outside of the ambit of ISSA, as it was the various government ministries and agencies that would make the final decision whether the event could go ahead, under protocols agreed by all parties.

The job, he said, was bigger than any individual, but would take a collective will to be accomplished.

“We have taken a position at ISSA that Champs this year is much bigger than ISSA as an organisation, or any individual school or athlete, but this is more than it has ever been, a national event, a national event not just in the sense that it is the biggest sporting event in the country, but a national event in the sense that the impact of having Champs is likely to have a bearing on the national psyche,” he said.

The hope, he said, was “that that bearing will be a positive bearing, anything outside of a positive bearing would mean that we would have failed and therefore we are taking our responsibilities seriously”.

The St Elizabeth Technical principal, added: “We are asking that each coach understands that he or she is part of a much much bigger picture and, therefore, whatever we are doing, whatever decisions that we are taking must bear in mind the bigger picture, we cannot be focused on who is going to run fastest at Champs this year or who is going to score the most points or who is going to walk away with the trophies; Champs this year cannot be about that, it must be about us putting on a national event, about us participating in a national activity which has significant bearing on every facet of Jamaican life.”

ISSA and Champs, Wellington noted, would be in a unique position to affect spheres outside of even sports. “We are going to be doing something that many other sporting organisations would want to do; we are going to be providing an opportunity that many others would want, so it cannot be about us as individuals, but more about us doing a national service…and we are going to be committed to making this something that we all can be proud of as Jamaicans,” he noted.

The job at hand, Wellington said, would take a team effort to be successful.

“We want to remind every single one of us that we all have individual responsibilities to make this work, it is not just about ISSA, or the ministries or the JAAA or principals putting things in place to make sure that we are able to do this safely, it comes down to every single individual,” he stated.

Wellington, who has been the president of ISSA just over a year now says his organisation was aware of the role it plays.

“In the future of our student/athletes in their wholesome development, not necessarily just in terms of athletics but the fact that we are all principals, all members of ISSA are principals, we have a duty of care to understand and appreciate the total development of the student, of the person or persons that come under our care, and as such we would have, despite all the challenges that we would have faced over the past year, all the scepticism, all the issues that persons have,” he reasoned.

Not all stakeholders, he noted, agreed with the restart of sporting events in high schools.

“We have stakeholders who are not so very sure that there should be any involvement in sports during this time… we have some who are dead set in their minds that it should not be happening, while we have others who are very supportive,” he said.