Jamaica's M.P.s & Senators: Heeding a KC Athlete's "#9" Wisdom

ONE LESSON JAMAICA’S MINISTERS COULD LEARN FROM A KC NUMBER 9 WHO NEVER WAS

" Jamaican Power: Heeding a KC Athlete’s ‘#9’ Wisdom" (DAM-Commissioned Image Produced by AI)

When I went to high school, I did track and field. Keyes-4, Hoilett-2, Grant-3, Miller-1, Martin-5, Manhertz-6, and I-7 were outstanding in roughly that numerical order on many a Sports Day at KC’s Clovelly Park. For the better part of five years, from First to Sixth Form, that pecking order held. By Fifth Form, all except Jimmy Grant and the philosophical Manhertz had been elected House Captains. We were leaders and disciplined young men all, and our academics were Sixth-Form sound.

In our lanes, we shone. In the relays, we were a purple lightning bolt. Our baton changed hands like silk sliding over polished mahogany; at Champs we were, on many occasions, simply untouchable. It was in that glow of youthful prowess, applause, and schoolboy “public-spiritedness” (otherwise called politics) that the mischief began. Success, in the KC of my era, had a way of creeping up behind you, clasping a hand on your shoulder, and whispering you into irrationality.

That is the only explanation for what overtook Billy Miller and me.

Billy—legendary MILLER—House Captain of Gibson House, the consistent juggernaut of KC athletics. I, meanwhile, belonged to Hardy House, which in those days was usually last and in some years heroically last-last. But we were young, energetic, and just bright enough to confuse enthusiasm with aptitude. Miller took to football one Sunlight Cricket and one Manning Cup season and even managed to appear as the Number 9 centre-forward striker at least twice. The team lost both matches, and the coaching staff—practical men—returned Tomlinson (Tommy), Davidson (Winty), and Keyes to the front line.

Yet the contagion spread. I reasoned, with the peculiar logic of a strutting Sixth Former, that because I had physical strength, some authority, and a chest inflated by track victories and showcasing badges of all kinds, surely I too could play striker. Why not? I had speed. I had brawn. I had a House Captain’s badge. I was, in my own mind, Jamaica’s next Pelé with Physics and 4-points Maths homework.

So off I went to Hardy House’s football squad and, without shame, presented myself not merely to lead the team but to wear the Number 9 jersey. That jersey, mind you, was meant for a proper forward—one of the many boys from Franklin Town, Waltham Park Road, or Cockburn Pen who actually trained for that craft on fiercer streets. They had the touch, the agility, the instincts. They could smell goals like a mongoose smells trouble and hens. I could keep goal, mind you. I could defend a post.

But score goals? Consistently? Against defenders from deCarteret House Circles breathing Category Five pressure? That was a fantasy amusing only in retrospect.

Hardy House lost enough matches for my French-speaking teacher, mentor, and track coach, the wise Foggy Burrowes, to pull me aside privately, while leaning on his famous walking stick.

His advice was short. It was surgical. It was unforgettable.

He said, Minott, stop it. Leave the Number 9 shirt alone. Get out of the way of the real forwards.

And just like that, I desisted from my puerile vanity. I stepped back. The rightful strikers stepped forward. And what do you know? The team began to play properly. Our goals returned. That year we did not finish sixth—an elevation so profound we nearly held a church service. We came third, and Hardy House rejoiced. I rejoiced even more, for I had learned a lesson more valuable than any inter-house shield.

It is a lesson Jamaica’s Cabinet Ministers—two of the women and nearly all the men—might consider before their next press conference or their next in-camera bright idea that becomes tomorrow’s national headache.

The lesson is simple: do not wear the Number 9 shirt if you are not a striker.

That was my only offence: mistaking enthusiasm, ego, and positional authority for competence. It happens to bright schoolboys; it should not happen to grown adults who run a country.

Yet here we are, decades later, watching one ministry after another barrel down the field wearing Jamaica’s Number 9 shirt while lacking the technical ability, humility, or respect for trained professionals who should actually play the position. A few of these ministers, like my teenage self, seem to have bulk and brawn but not the touch, not the vision, and certainly not the agility for national-level decision-making under pressure.

Take our recurring adventures in energy policy, health-sector management, post-hurricane national recovery, or educational timetabling. One minister picks up the ball, dribbles into three defenders, loses possession, and blames the weather. Another decides that the mere holding of office confers expertise in engineering, epidemiology, or nuclear physics. A third insists that advisors, technocrats, and the nation’s finest scholars must fall in behind their untested idea du jour. Eventually, when the scoreboard flashes zero, they tell the press that “further consultations are necessary,” as though Jamaica were an endlessly patient referee willing to restart the match.

But Jamaica is not Clovelly Park. The stakes are not inter-house bragging rights. And these are not seasons that begin in September and end in April. When ministers wear shirts they cannot justify, Jamaica loses years—sometimes decades—of national development.

We do not need more displays of Cabinet cosplay, where a minister of X suddenly appears as a self-appointed expert in Y and Z. We do not need Number 9 strikers who cannot trap a ball, cannot pass, cannot shoot, yet insist on taking the penalty in extra time while the nation holds its breath. We do not need more man-and-woman-splaining when the scoreboard is visible to everyone but the players.

What we need resembles Foggy Burrowes’ quiet intervention: someone the ministers trust must pull them aside—privately if possible, publicly if necessary—and say, Minister, stop it. Leave that portfolio alone. Pass the ball to the people trained for it.

This is not humiliation. It is national discipline.

Jamaica has brilliant forwards waiting on the bench. Our universities are filled with them. Our diaspora is filled with them. Our agencies and institutes, battered but not broken, contain dedicated men and women who have studied, practised, failed, improved, and mastered their craft. They can score—if we stop blocking the penalty spot.

When we misassign talent, we lose. When we elevate vanity over competence, we lose. When we treat governance like a Manning Cup trial match, we lose spectacularly.

Foggy Burrowes was correct: get out of the way.

If I had insisted on my Number 9 fantasy, Hardy House would have finished last with distinction. With me out of the way, we rose—in one season—from familiar defeat to unexpected respectability.

Imagine what Jamaica could do if our ministers embraced the same humility.

Imagine the inter-house table of national progress: Energy House climbing; Education House stabilising; Climate-Resilience House sprinting ahead; Health House winning by daylight; Integrity House, long in the cellar, finally moving into the medals.

Imagine Jamaica finishing not sixth—not last—but a respectable third, or even first, in matters that determine our children’s futures.

I should not have to mansplain any of this to the press conferees. Get this, ministers: stop wearing jerseys that do not belong to you. Pass the ball to the real forwards. Jamaica, weary from too many losing seasons, deserves at least that much.