Allow coach Mair to do his Job
This attached news clip for me is indeed troubling.
The persons trying to influence this coach really need to stop, take a breath, realize what their true positions are, as opposed to John Mair’s, and work with him to make this program a success.. I used to be an integral part of that team while it was winning as their therapist/reflexologist, supported by former principal Ben Francis, Coach Oliver Heywood, Team doctor Dr. Paul Auden and Team Manager Dennis May. John was himself a world class athlete out of Jamaica College and later their winning coach.
Mair knows what he is doing. No one has the right to dictate to a coach and especially one who distinguished himself on the track worldwide, how to prepare his team. The old Students Association, while having the greatest wish to return the school back to its winning ways, must realize that they are just that, old students diversified. Though supportive, this is not the area in which they are uniquely qualified, and they should concentrate on supporting this team, and its coach, rather than seek to be a disruptive factor. From experience, the athletes perform for their beloved coaches and team officials. To seek to rob them of the person they have come to love and trust both their athletic future and their confidences to, can only prove counter productive.
Mair has started to rebuild the program and should be allowed to finish it. Because he hasn’t won yet with this team, does not mean they will not shine under his hands. It takes time to identify and develop raw talent. Every coach needs time to prepare a team. It is not ready made. If it is to become a dynasty again it must be built at all levels that there will be a succession of high caliber athletes good enough to win championships. To launch a campaign against him will only serve to make those athletes dispirited and perform in a lacklustre and dismal way because they have no one to perform to, or perform for.
I have had first hand experience with that. I have seen one of these teams touted to win, perform like a bunch of prep schoolers and just about disgraced themselves because they were unceremoniously robbed of a beloved team official just before their big day. They were so dispirited that it broke me, brought tears to my eyes. It is hard for some who were never athletes or athletic administrators themselves to understand, but it is a world so different from the general norms applied to professionalism that they will never fully understand it. Incidentally. I left a similar position with Jamaica College, while John was the junior coach there, to take up that position with Vere Technical, so I am speaking knowledgeably on this issue.
He is a good coach as he was an athlete, and he can take Vere back to the peak it once enjoyed. Interference now in this manner will also be sending a message to other qualified coaches out there to stay away from this organization because they too will suffer the same fate. Then they will have a slew of half baked and inexperienced coaches vying for the chance to coach a team that has a big name and can make them a good name in the business, often to the detriment of said team. That is a chance we don’t need to take right now. I have maintained contact with athletes and officials from both the Jamaica College and Vere camps and we love each other very much and always will.
We are a part of each other. Knowing this I am appealing to those well meaning parties who seek to interfere, to chill out and do what they have always done best and admirably so…Support! Support! Support!
This man has already proved himself – Let him do his job. He is not a miracle worker after all!
My sentiments exactly Marshalee Goodaz Thompson.