Is Jamaica An Overrated Sports Giant?

[Historian]

This is not a knee jerk reaction to a volleyball loss to a tiny island nation of a mere 300,000 people. Rather, it is a well-meant question based on years of watching our regional competition failure in boxing, in lawn tennis, in swimming, in volleyball, in basketball (although we have won the CARICOM basketball championships in recent times), and, albeit to a much, much lesser extent, in soccer.

In fact, as I’ve suggested in the past, netball, track and field and cricket are probably our only saving grace! For the country with the highest English-speaking population in the Caribbean (almost three million), we should be stamping our authority in sports!! But what, instead, do we have?

There are some here who won’t like this question of mine, but so be it.

Jamaica tumble in qualifiers
Published: Monday | May 25, 2009



Jamaica's captain Delford Morgan (left) hits one by his Bahamian Ian Pinder opponent while Jamaica's libero Ricardo Chong looks on during their World Volleyball Championship qualifying match at the National Indoor Sporting Centre on Saturday. The Bahamas won 3-1 (19-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-22). In other results Saturday, Mexico beat Haiti 3-0 (25-16, 25-16, 25-20) and St Lucia beat Cayman Islands 3-0 (25-11, 25-15, 25-14). - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer


KINGSTON, Jamaica (CMC):
Hosts Jamaica tumbled out of contention for the 2010 FIVB Men's World Championship on Saturday night, when The Bahamas rallied to beat them three sets to one at the National Indoor Sports Centre.

In a pivotal NORCECA Group D qualifying series match, the Bahamians outgunned Jamaica 19-25, 25-18, 25-22, 25-22 to secure a spot in the next round of regional qualifying with Mexico.

"We are happy to go home with this victory," said winning Bahamian coach Raymond Wilson.

The Mexicans, who played The Bahamas for Group D honours yesterday, secured their spot earlier in the evening with a victory over Haiti.

Fighting qualities
The Bahamians, who had come back from a two-set deficit to defeat St Lucia on Wednesday, advertised their fighting qualities again with a huge win over the home side against the odds.

Shedrick Forbes led the Bahamians in scoring with 15 points, with sturdy support from Byron Ferguson (12) and Renaldo Knowles (11).

Danny Wilson (19) and Dellan Brown (13) were the chief scorers for Jamaica, whose coach David Jack lamented his side's slip at the crucial stage.

"We still need to overcome those hurdles and win the big games. You have to give a lot of credit to The Bahamas," he said.

Secured their spot
Mexico secured their spot in the next phase by wiping out the Haitians 25-16, 25-16, 25-20 behind Leonardo Manzo (13) and Tomas Aguilera who logged 10, including four blocks.

The winners of the group decider will advance to the NORCECA Group G in Puerto Rico from July 6-11 and the runners-up will go to NORCECA Group H in Cuba from August 12-17.

St Lucia picked up their first win when they beat the Cayman Islands 25-11, 25-15, 25-14 in the fifth-place play-off earlier.

Kaji Charles was St Lucia's standout player with 11 points, that included three blocks and four serving aces.
Amobi Armstrong also had 11 tallies for the St Lucians, while Olney Thompson led Cayman's effort with 10 points.

[Assasin]

No not overated as a sporting giant. For such a small country we have produced a lot and still producing.

How many other countries our size can boast so many sportsmen and women?

Just look at the lastest, we have one of the top twenty scorer in the world "top" soccer league. We have one of the better player in the Austrialia netball league, we have a player drafted in the NFL. This is just the last six months and that don't include track which we have some of the fastest times in the world.

Yes we can build ourselves in other sports but we are that sporting giant.

[Historian]

Oh Really?

No not overated as a sporting giant. For such a small country we have produced a lot and still producing.

How many other countries our size can boast so many sportsmen and women?

Assasin, while I don’t post much on sports on any forum, I’m very much aware of what’s been happening in the various sports disciplines. But as I’ve said in my post above, and which you’ve simply repeated in your post using other words, the sporting disciplines in which we genuinely impress are netball and track and field, and to a lesser extent cricket and soccer.

And why should I be impressed if we have a sole Jamaican in the NFL? What about NBA basketball? It’s been quite a while since Patrick Ewin. You need to check out some of our regional brothers and sisters (for example, Suriname in soccer) and you’ll get some surprises!

Now, think about this: That tiny nation (of a mere 300,000 people) that defeated us yesterday in the volleyball qualifiers also defeats us on a regular basis in swimming at the Carifta Games, in boxing (when last has a Jamaican boxer defeated a Bahamian boxer?), and in basketball, and they are highly ranked in tennis (if I’m not mistaken, they just recently lost their tennis Zone I status).

In the case of track and field, their women won an Olympic Games relay gold medal (2000 Sidney Olympics) before we did, Olympic gold in the women’s 400-meter race (2004 Athens Olympics) before we did, and their 4x400-meter relay men have had no problems regularly outperforming our men since the 2001 IAAF World Championships (Edmonton).

And I could go on and on about the underperformance of Jamaica, but what would be the point really?

I was hoping that a response would have looked at, say, a possible connection between Jamaica’s extraordinarily high crime rate (which places us in a per capita league similar to South Africa and Brazil) and sports. Has our crime and inner city blues (depressed living) affected our ability to maximize our potential (outside of track and field and netball) on the world stage?

[Assasin]

Crime play a minor role. What play a major role in sports development is the lack of funding and facilities.

How many countries have players in the NFL? there are other Jamaicans in the NFL. Have you consider these are sports we don't play in Ja? Right now no other caribbean island is producing the amount of players we have playing in overseas leagues. We have players in England, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, US, China, Eastern Europe, and Canada all doing well.

Jamaica is no prime recruiting ground for US college basketball player and there is one top Jamaican recruit in one of the better D1 college who seems to be headed to the NBA. It is just a matter of time before we have a few Jamaicans in the NBA performing well. It has only been recently they have a decent basketball league in Ja.

Yes we are weak in some sports but it is not crime that is the factor. I remember when I went to Titchfield we were one of the top school in basketball but we had boards all over the place and played at lunchtime and after school. Now they don't and Titchfield haven't produce anymore player and if you check the national player pool right now most of the players are from Titchfield and KC of the 1978-95 graduates like Mo Young, Keith Garvey, Sammy Lamount, Dibbs, and others while the other islands are using youngsters in their late teens and early twenties.

What made us the giant is the fact that we have produced greater quality sportsmen at the international level and the achievement is there to show than any of these countries you can name. Were were are currently lacking is in the quantity field of mediore sportsmen.

[Islandman]

To be honest I have nerver seen us as a sporting giant. We are T&F giants without question, pound for pound the best in the world.

Other than that we are pretty good at a few other sports like cricket and netball and have had the occasional exceptional performance in other sports like football.

[TDowl]

There was a time we were big in Lawn & Table Tennis, Badminton, Squash, Boxing, Swimming, Water Polo, Cycling, Weight Lifting, today we are not even minnows.

I can't say much for Volley or Basket Ball, Field Hockey.

[Stonigut]

There is also the not so small question of resources as wellBahamas is a giant to Ja relativce to resoucres per capita. GDP per capita (PPP) Bah is $28K Ja is $7k, if Ja could get it's economic act togedther we would be truly a giant, Bah is literally the 51st state of the US with all their kids going to school in the USA for the most part at a college level, thus especially in sports such as volleyball, water polo, swimming and those non-fundamental sports that resources play a critical part in terms of ability to achieve then countries like the Bah will seem to do really well versus a bigger country like Ja that has little facilities geared to getting talent in these areas and are pretty much the reserve of upper middle and the wealthy of Ja representing the country, basically picking from what could be the least 10th in terms of talent. FDor our size and resources we are very good.

[Sickko]

Giants? Hmmmm, except for track and field and to a lesser extent netball which is purely a Commonwealth sport, we cannot even start to say we are competitive anywhere else.

Occasionally we do produce one of two or two gems in football or cricket or basketball or swimming but other than that to even mentuon us and sporting ghiants in the same brethj is a joke.

BTW for the record we have had another NBA player since Patrick Ewing, Rumeal Robinson was born and raised in Mandeville until about nine when he moved to Boston, went to the same school that Patrick attended, formerly called Ringe and Latin--was an All-American then went to the University of Michigan where he made the winning free throws that won them their last NCAA title and was a lottery pick for the Atlanta Hawks.

He also played for the Lakers and the Nets.

Interestingly he came home to start up a business but was frustrated with the lethargy he saw here and returned to the US

[Karl]

Over-rated?

Sure some think we are 'all that now'. They are wrong.

...but our reality...forget Lazie's lack of belief...our reality is talent abounds. Unfortunately getting large numbers to realise full potential...or even near full potential is hampered by quality of our administrators and those who currently are charged with the responsilibity of guiding and developing the talented.

Talent abounds!
Realisation of potential lags!

[TDowl]

Nonsense, just another Excuse, just go back to the 60's and you will see what I mean.

[Gamma]

Historian,

There are several Jamaican NFL'ers. SEVERAL! Same with the NBA. However, we cannot be all things to all people. e.g. USVI will turn out good basketballers because it is a US territory and benefits from having it as a part of the school curriculam etc.

A sports power we are! Even if we do not win every single thing those that we do not win we either have not invested much into it or there is not that much interest in it.

america is a sports power but they don't win everything. did they even enter a field hockey team?

of course when cuba is thrown into the mix, we might become less dominat in some field events and even some track events...but a just suh!

[Gamma]

60's our GDP was probably more competitive..

[Historian]

Gamma, Think Again....

Historian,

A sports power we are! Even if we do not win every single thing those that we do not win we either have not invested much into it or there is not that much interest in it.

Gamma, as a Jamaican, I understand your sentiments. However, to say that “A sports power we are! Even if we do not win every single thing those that we do not win we either have not invested much into it or there is not that much interest in it” is not your most accurate statement ever. Put another way, we not only “not win every single thing”; rather, we hardly win anything outside of track and field and, on a regional level, netball.

Initially, my post was not concerned with the individual Jamaican-born and Jamaica-connected sports people who end up in the NBA or the NFL. Rather, it was concerned with our continuous pattern of losses to other Caribbean countries over the years in sports such as boxing, body building, basketball, swimming, tennis (we are perpetually in, I think, Zone 3), badmington, and volleyball. Trust me, our record in all of these activities, save for the CARICOM basketball tournament of about three years ago, is dismal.

For example, a poor nation like Guyana with an estimated population of 800,000 has no difficulty beating us in badmington. Also, did you watch the Guyanese, Jamaican and Trinidadian teams’ performance in last year’s Stanford Twenty20 cricket? I lost a bit of money on that tournament, as I was firmly convinced that the final would have come down once again (as in 2007) to Guyana versus Trinidad. And I lost money by the barest of margins, as if I remember correctly Jamaica scraped past an excellent Guyanese team only with the final ball of the semi-finals!

The fact is, Gamma, as both Islandman and Sickko have correctly pointed out (Stonigut’s economic perspective also is very relevant), Jamaica today really cannot be regarded as a “sports power,” and the fact that some probably see us in this light is, no doubt, through our outstanding performances in track events! (TDowl’s historic perspective is, as usual, also correct.)

Check our regional record in everything else outside of netball and track (and to a lesser extent, field)!! (By the way, while you’re doing so, check also the continuous pattern of excuses we come up with after each major hemispheric soccer competition.)

[Assasin]

Not to mention we just enter Dogsled, doing well in surfing and alway rank in the top 5 in netball.

[Gamma]

let me take one step back to take 2 steps forward, a sporting giant in the world of sports or in the caribbean, the americas? where....