‘We’ve always done well’

Jamaica College (JC) Principal Wayne Robinson said the school’s latest ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ Championships triumph is more than a title; it is another marker of a school firing on all fronts.

The Old Hope Road, St Andrew-based institution secured its 23rd hold on the Mortimer Geddes Trophy with a commanding 345 points last Saturday, finishing ahead of Kingston College (282) and Calabar High (169.3). It marks their second title in six years and the first under head coach Duane Johnson.

But for Robinson, Champs is only part of the story.

“We’ve got a number of good performances in sports and the school, generally, is performing much better academically, so we wanted to emphasise that,” he said.

Across disciplines, JC has been stacking wins.

“We’ve always done well. This year, we’ve won U14 and U16 football [titles], we are in the table tennis finals now for the national trophy, and in addition to that, we won the hockey league,” Robinson listed.

“We’ve done very well in swimming, even without a pool. [The] volleyball [team] is still unbeaten and they’re looking for the semi-finals to come up. In basketball, we were runners-up in the U16 and we were in the semi-finals in the U19.”

‘NOTHING BEATS PERFORMANCE’

Robinson says the school has struck the right balance – pairing athletic dominance with academic strength.

He pointed to their campaign in the ongoing TVJ’s Schools’ Challenge Quiz, where they have advanced to the final, as well as the school’s rich tradition in robotics.

“We’ve always done well at robotics, and we’re now preparing for the Schools’ Challenge final on Thursday,” said the proud headmaster.

“We’ve won the Stock Exchange Competition for eight straight years in a row, so these are not accidents. These are very good performances by the school.”

He continued:“The school has taken on a different era of leadership and performance. And at the end of the day, nothing beats performance.”

That mindset, Robinson said, is rooted in the example of one of JC’s most distinguished alumni – Norman Manley, a former athlete, Rhodes Scholar, and premier.

Robinson said Manley’s achievements at and after JC provide a blueprint of what it means to be a student at JC and inspire students to follow his example.

“Jamaica College has always been about leadership,” the principal said. “The epitome of who we want to be is Norman Washington Manley, who was a statesman, a scholar and won significantly at Boys’ Champs. That is our benchmark; so we want to be the best at what we do.”

gregory.bryce@gleanerjm.com