Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham | Stabbed in the back: The rotten, raw deal of poor, struggling Jamaican children

As I look at what has unfolded in our high schools re sports, I can’t help but feel very lucky that I attended St George’s College (STGC) when I did.

It was at a time when STGC led the fight against the deterioration we now see in values and attitudes as reflected by recruiting for sports purposes by our high schools.

It was a time when, while others were importing “ballas”, STGC was exporting same, if their academic standard was not up to what was required by the highest rated academic high school of the period. In those days STGC produced six consecutive Jamaica scholars! It was a centre of academic excellence.

STGC “worshipped” football, but understood the niche, mission of specialised educational institutions and the secondary role of sports in that setting. They understood that it is for the school, in all aspects, to develop the student who has legitimately qualified to be at that school. If that were not so, there is a high probability that I would not have been discovered, provided with the stage on which to perform, and allowed to flourish.

I played no representative football until Colts at STGC. I had to struggle to make my first Manning Cup team and to maintain my place on the team throughout that season. My misadventures included kicking away an easy, open, “sure” goal, a sitter, which was more difficult to miss than to score, against Calabar. However, STGC persevered, persisted with me, nurtured and allowed me to grow, mature, expand my dimensions/horizons and, eventually, excel.

I went on to play All-Manning, All-Schools and for the Jamaica senior team while still in school, considered quite a feat at that time. I was also chosen to captain all the above-named teams. A visiting Brazilian team wanted to take me back to Brazil with them while I was still in school. I could have been the first Jamaican to play football in Brazil.

Expressions used to describe my play included: “awe and wonder”, “shone like diamonds in a pan of coal”, “made mince of the Antrim Wall”, “long has schoolboy football laboured to produce such a player”, “brilliant”, “king of the half liners”, “ripped the defence to shreds”, “worked wonders”, “Graham’s efficiency”, “little Brazilian”, etc.

I am the only Jamaican to be chosen from Division 2 to captain a senior Jamaica football team. I started my Jamaica career at right back and ended as captain and a forward. I am heralded by many as a legend in schoolboy football. Sports has taught me so many things, has impacted my life so powerfully and positively.

I often wonder how it would have been had I been dumped, bumped from my first Manning Cup team by a local or foreign sports recruit. How would my life have been had the STGC authorities not stood up for a principled approach, fair play, justice and doing the right thing, but succumbed to the myopic vision, perceptions of so many selfish, powerful stakeholders, old boys who just wanted to win at all costs?

JUST A COVER-UP

Our SPECIALISED EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, our high schools, our traditional boys’ schools, import youngsters for sports purposes to ensure that they win at all costs. Full stop!

Everything that is said and done by these likable, callous, untruthful, lying recruiters (helping poor people, etc.) is just to cover up, camouflage, hide, and excuse their real intent. This has led to the logical consequence of recruits, being sourced outside of Jamaica, by public schools, so that taxpayers’ money and the sparsely resourced, inefficient, struggling to failing education system is now being used to provide benefits for outsiders, foreigners, while poor Jamaicans cry out for the opportunity they have earned and deserve.

The niche, mission of our specialised educational institutions is to prepare OUR CITIZENS to compete in the academic, technical and vocational areas, while helping to socialise same, by inculcating pro-social values and attitudes, resulting in rounded, productive citizens. Corrupting this mission is wrong in principle and offends the values of fairness and justice.

Our young people, many from the depths of the ghetto, believed our leaders made the sacrifice, ducked bullets, stayed away from gangs, studied under street lights, stayed focused under extreme, severe, conditions, tremendous odds, only to find at the end of the day, they had been fooled, duped, scammed, “samfied”.

There were not enough high schools delivering quality education and many of the few which were so doing had changed the position of the goalposts, and were operating a double standard, a sports standard rather than the declared academic standard. This resulted in them being left on the outside watching ruefully, helplessly as their neighbour, who never cared much for studying, proudly paraded in the colours of their favourite school. Or, having got into the school, being unable to make the football or track team, because stars were parachuted in and have replaced them.

They are therefore cheated of the chance to learn from these experiences. Being unable to say they represented their school, they have been robbed of the sports scholarship, which would have allowed them to attend Ivy League or other highly acclaimed universities abroad or locally. Thank God for Campion College and Immaculate Conception High, among others, which have remained true to their mission.

WOE IS WE!

The overwhelming majority of the recruited come to naught, discarded, after having been lured away from focusing on their academic, technical, vocational development, on the very low probability of a professional career in sports or a scholarship.

The politicians, the Ministry of Education, ISSA, the silent, expedient church, siding with the powerful, the boards and the principals, the old boys are all complicit, are all collaborators in this use and abuse of our poor, innocent, black children. Sports, that microcosm of life, that potentially powerful change agent, has been weakened as a socialising, teaching/learning tool in our public schools. It is now raw, counterproductive, win-at-all-costs intense competition, geared towards moneymaking and the entertainment of the powerful.

Yet, we wring our hands and hold our heads in consternation, bawling for divine intervention and metal detectors, when crime and violence confront us at the end of this line. The process has spawned, is mired in deceit, manipulation and lies and has resulted in the corruption of our education system and the use, abuse and exploitation of our children. Will it ever change? Woe is we!

- Dr. Lascelve ‘Muggy’ Graham is a former captain of the Jamaica senior football team. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com