Munro College creating waves in local tennis

“What we hope to achieve is nothing short of Munro College being the best in the country and that is how we view things. A lot of Munro old boys are extremely competitive and we believe that when we put a programme together, we want to see Munro at the top of the heap at the end of the day.”

Those were the fighting words of Munro College Old Boy Robert Hale in December 2022, when he told The Gleaner about the investment being made at that time, in an effort to bring Munro tennis back to the glory days of the seventies, when they ruled the roost in high school boys tennis.

Fast-forward to March 2026 at the Eric Bell Tennis Centre, and Tennis Jamaica’s Best of the Best High Schools and Clubs Tennis tournament, which produced the following results in the boys’ division of the tournament.

Division 1: Munro defeated Liguanea Club 3-2; Division 2: Munro defeated Wolmer’s 3-0; Division 3: Munro defeated Wolmer’s 3-0, a clean sweep of the boys’ division of the tournament.

One could truly say after that performance “mission accomplished”, but that is not how the Munro College team manager, attorney Kirk Radway, and coach Andre Brown see it. To them “that was just the start of something big and there is still a far way to go”.

Radway, who with his dedicated team are working hard to carry out the mandate to put Munro tennis on top in high schools tennis, admits that it is hard work and a lot of people play important roles behind the scene, financially and otherwise, to make things happen.

NEXT GOAL

Radway pointed to the fact that there was a major and important start, when Hale, who is based in the Cayman Islands, and his wife Monica, spearheaded not only the rehabilitation of the three tennis courts at Munro but also set about improving the facilities around them. That was a major first step he stated, but after that, the proper use of the facilities and by whom was the next major goal.

The goal he said is not to just have a good tennis team, but to contribute to the personal growth of the young men who are participating. One of the main goals of the programme, he said, is to build a centre where young men, mainly from the rural areas in Jamaica, can be properly trained and educated, so as to be better equipped to make a name for themselves and also to help grow Jamaica.

“We do not concentrate only on tennis,” he said,” our goal is to prepare them for the world they are going to live in and make them able to contribute positively to society.”

Radway pointed to the fact that although it is hard work, it is also rewarding work and he admits to the fact that when he joined the programme, he joined it as a concerned parent, who wanted to do good for all the boys who attended Munro, including his son Josh. Contributing to the school itself was the initial driving force, he admitted. He also conceded that it has been challenging, and that there has been trial and error in the search to find the right mix.

MAIN NEED

The administration, he said, realised that one of the main needs was to find a coach who not only had the technical skills but who would also buy into the philosophy of the programme, and that took some time. There were a few coaches who came on board for a while, but things just did not seem to fit and there were more questions than answers.

They persevered nevertheless, and continued the search. Eventually, he said, he came in contact with coach Andre Brown at various tournaments, and who, without doubt, he discovered, had the experience and the technical skills that they needed, but there were lots of hurdles to be cleared if he was to come on board. They kept talking, however, and after about a year, they both agreed to make concessions, and Brown joined the team in January 2025. It was not a smooth start as the boys were not accustomed to the level of discipline and structure that Brown expected from them.

There were complaints from both the boys and their parents, but with the goals that they hoped to achieve in mind, they embarked on selling what was needed to achieve those goals, and there was a slow but positive “buy-in” to the philosophy. When positive results started to be achieved, there was a complete turnaround, and the individuals started to blend into a team philosophy.

Coach Brown confirmed that it was frustrating at times, but as soon as the boys saw the benefits that they were achieving from their discipline and hard work, his job became easier.

“Nothing succeeds like success” he stated “and I smile sometimes when I have to tell the boys some days not to go on the court but to rest and recuperate instead. “ We are not there yet,” he declared. “In fact we have just scratched the surface. We are now winning tournaments, for example we also did well in the high schools tournament last November, when we won two out of three divisions, but that will only make life more difficult, as we now have targets on our backs. We are now the team to beat. The programme is growing, but we have a far way to go and our aim at Munro is to produce student-athletes. We want our boys to be academically sound as well as being good tennis players. That will mean that we are producing young men who will not only be contributing to their own personal growth, but to that of their school, their community and the nation. That way, everyone wins.”