HARTLEY NEITA HARTLEY NEITA
ON THURSDAY last, I received one of those telephone calls which make bright so many of my mornings.
It was from a lady of 80 years. Her voice was that of a 30-year-old.
She identified herself as the Beryl Chin I mentioned in the column "This Day In Our Past" in The Gleaner on Tuesday.
Through marriage, she has changed her name to Gillies, but as Beryl Chin she had won the under-19 100 and 220 yards events, leapt 13'2" in the long jump and then ran the anchor leg for her house team, The Blues, to win the 4x100 yards relay at the Titchfield High School, Port Antonio annual sports day on April 6, 1938.
She was the champion girl of the sports.
Her sister, Violet, she told me, and who came second to her in the 100 and 330 yards events, is now living in the United States, a couple years younger than her. And her mother is 98.
She exercises every day, just as if she is preparing for another race. Her memory is clean and clear and she remembered the other girls I mentioned in the column Lilith Lynch, Rose Johnson, Sylvia Brown, Wilbertha Gregory and Sylvia Brown.
PONDERING 'WHAT IF?'
Her telephone call made me wonder 'what if?'
Jamaica's champion woman sprinter at the time was Icis Clarke. She was a Kingston girl, close to the sponsors and power brokers of the time. She represented Jamaica at international events.
Beryl Chin, however, was a country girl, from a then barely-known secondary school, and although her teacher tried to get her named on the Jamaica team to a meet in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the lack of financial backing left her grounded.
What if, however, her school had a professional track and field coach? I believe, John Searchwell, a former Titchfield boy and then master, performed those duties, and obviously did well. But he was not a trained coach.
What if, too, instead of the grass and dirt on which school athletes ran on then, were like the international track bed now laid at the National Stadium and at G.C. Foster?
What if, there were girls championships then which showcased boys and girls from the non-traditional schools of the time?
KLAS-FM reminded me last week that Girls Champs started in 1957. Boys Champs began in 1910, 40 years before.
The stars today, however, seem to be the girls. In earlier years, the schools had a sportsmaster or sportsmistress who had been an athlete, cricketer, hockey player or footballer while he or she was at school.
When they left school, they spent a year or two on the staff and performed the duties of coach.
As naturally gifted as some were, they did not know about tactics, for example. They knew about the value of physical fitness and boys and girls went through the rigour of stomach strengthening exercises so they could "knee-lift", and the strengthening of arms and shoulders so that they could climb over the bar in the pole vault.
What, too, if the boys and girls of those earlier years could have competed on the track at the National Stadium instead of the grass at Sabina Park?
PRODUCING CHAMPIONS
Yet we produced great athletes. Among them Karlene Searchwell, Carmen Smith. Lindy Delapenha and Frank Hall.
Looking back, however, it seems as if the great leap forward began in the 1960s with the construction of 50 junior secondary schools.
These are now full-fledged secondary schools and from them have come Merlene Ottey, Juliet Cuthbert, and the Turner sisters, to name a few.
Just remember that in earlier years, there were no secondary schools in St. Thomas and St. Mary, for example. Holmwood was just a vocational school, and there was no Vere Technical and no Tivoli.
Who to tell, Beryl and Violet Chin of Titchfield could have been Olympic stars. They were just born at the wrong time.
Do they regret it? No. But they were among the pioneers. They were the morning wind. Let us hail them.
