FUELED BY excited schoolgoers and nostalgic past students, support for high school sports in Jamaica exceeds that of any semi-professional and professional sporting activity locally.
For football, it's the Manning and daCosta Cups, Boys' and Girls' Champs is the premier local track and field event and the Grace Shield, formerly the Sunlight Cup, along with the Headley Cup, represents schoolboy cricket's top prizes.
All these sporting activities and others fall under the banner of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), the organisation responsible for the administration of all high school sports.
With the high school ranks swollen since the upgrading of secondary schools, ISSA's job of organising and monitoring their sporting activities has increased ten-fold.
George Forbes has been ISSA's competitions committee chairman for more than two years, tackling what he has described as an all-year job with hardly a break between seasons.
QUESTION: It's summer and school's out so what would ISSA be up to now?
GEORGE FORBES: Even though we're in July, I have already done the fixtures for the Manning and daCosta Cups, which start in September. They're now to be approved by the respective national chairpersons.
Q: What is your role as ISSA's competitions committee chairman?
GF: My function is to plan sporting activities for all high schools that ISSA has under its umbrella - Under-19, 16 and 14 football, netball, basketball, cricket, table tennis, track and field and so on. We also have responsibility for swimming and hockey.
PLANNING
Q: How do you cope with one season following on the heels of another, different age groups and so on?
GF: It comes down to planning. I'm supposed to have fixtures ready a month before each competition starts. It's basically forward planning. For football, Manning and daCosta Cups alone, there are probably 111 teams involved.
Q: How many schools are affiliated to ISSA?
GF: We have 154 schools in ISSA. Not all schools participate in every sport but all take part in some sport or another.
Q: What is ISSA's staff complement?
GF: ISSA has four permanent employees, myself included, and one temporary person, who's employed on a seasonal basis, September to April.
Q: How challenging is your job?
GF: It's very challenging. If anything goes wrong I'm the person held responsible. Football is the most challenging of all the sports. With the Manning and daCosta Cups there's a constant venue problem for the semi-final round. There aren't enough suitable venues to host second round matches, the last 12, when teams play on neutral grounds. As for the daCosta Cup, the rural competition, a lot of travelling is involved. Most schools would love to play a mile from home but it's not possible.
PROBLEMS
Q: What other perennial problem does ISSA face?
GF: There's a problem of securing referees for junior football competitions such as the Colts and Under-14s. The pay is less than that of officiating the Manning or daCosta Cups and at times we have a serious shortage of referees. Most referees will always chose a senior game over a junior.
Q: Which of these sports is easiest to administrate?
GF: All of them entail basically the same amount of work. The least headache is from swimming and hockey. Swimming is handled by the Amateur Athletic Swimming Association of Jam-aica, although it falls under the auspices of ISSA. We also get a lot of support from the Jamaica Basketball Association. Without their support it would have been almost impossible. They provide referees and co-ordinate the whole thing.
Q: How tough is it to organise Boys' and Girls' Champion-ships, especially since both have joined to become one event over four days?
GF: That's very difficult and where we get a lot of help with the marshalling of champs is from the volunteers. Without the volunteers, it would have been impossible. ISSA depends a lot on outside help. We work closely with all the sporting bodies.
Q: When do you get a break?
GF: There's really no break. There's no competition between July and August but during this period the planning stage comes in, fixtures have to be done, given to the printers and preparation made for press conferences. It's a job I basically start from 7:30 in the mornings until eight or nine at nights, depending on the sporting activity taking place at that time. For the kick-off of the Manning and daCosta Cup competitions at Jarrett Park, I would be in Montego Bay from the day before, working closely with the local people to make sure everything is in place.
VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS
Q: What about violence in high school sports?
GF: We've seen a decrease in indiscipline on the field of play. There's definitely an improvement. We don't have much control over spectators, that's the responsibility of the schools. Schools are held responsible whenever spectators behave badly.
Q: What about the educational requirement debate?
GF: They are students first and athletes afterward. We ask for 45 per cent in four subject areas and an attendance of 80 per cent for a student to participate in any ISSA-run sport. Initially, there was a problem with people being sceptical, saying, it was too high and that people blessed with sporting talent aren't necessarily good at academics and shouldn't be penalised. However, students and the wider public have seen the wisdom and weaker students have started putting in the extra effort to meet the requirements.
Q: How does ISSA's sporting season flow?
GF: From September to December there's football, netball and basketball spread across all age groups. January to March has cricket, girls' football, track and field as well as table tennis. Cricket continues April to June and there's also Under-14 basketball, girls' basketball, presentations and so on.
SPORTS JOURNALIST
Q: What was your occupation before joining ISSA?
GF: I have always been a sports journalist and still do that.
Q: When do you get time to unwind?
GF: It's a very stressful job. In journalism, you go out and cover an event not knowing what happens behind the scenes. Now, the only day I probably have is basically a Sunday.
Q: What effect has this had on your family life?
GF: Not spending enough time with my children but somebody has to pay the bills.
- Ainsley Walters
