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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Karl[/i] [br]G.C. FOSTER ...AND ITS HIDDEN TREASURES published: Saturday | September 25, 2004 By Anthony Foster, Freelance Writer The indoor facility accommodates basketball, netball and volleyball. G.C. FOSTER COLLEGE of Physical Education and Sports is an institution with many secrets. Some were exposed when it was learnt that the institution has churned out the likes of national stars Danny McFarlane, Roxbert Martin and World Championship silver medallist Christopher Williams. Also, do not count out national football coach Wendell Downswell, Michael Dyke, who brought professionalism to Edwin Allen's track and field team, Michael Clarke and Gibbs Williams, who have done very well with St. Catherine Cricket Club. A senior lecturer at the school, Gibbs Williams, also worked with the national cricket team as a physical trainer. SPORTING ACTIVITIES G.C. Foster College's facilities have also been used for many sporting activities such as Boys and Girls Champs, Premier League football matches, parish cricket, Jamaica Football Federation camps, the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) Academy, basketball and volleyball camps, boarding and training for many Jamaica junior athletics teams and for athletic club championships. The campus has all the facilities you can think of for sports including football, cricket, hockey, basketball, netball, volleyball, baseball (indoor and outdoor), and boxing plus a gym, mundo track, swimming pool and diving pool, among others. With those secrets now exposed, the 24-year-old institution is looking to add to its impressive résumé of successful sports personalities. To this end the college is hoping to raise money to bring it up to par with those in wealthier countries such as the United States. Plans are in progress to upgrade the track and field and cricket areas with stands, the hockey field with an astro-turf playing surface and to develop the football field in the centre of the track to world class standards. They are also going to refurbish the exercise and weights rooms with state-of-the-art equipment and put in stands all around. The weights room alone is estimated to cost US$35,000. To upgrade these facilities, Steve Ashman, project consultant, estimates the project will cost in the region of $50 million. In seeking corporate Jamaica's help, Ashman said: "Think about how many splendid performances we could display at the inter-national levels. Track and field, cricket, football, boxing and swimming, just to name a few. "I have been to fishing villages all round Jamaica and have seen children from the age of two swimming in the ocean as though they were already Olympians. We just need to identity them and take them to G.C. Foster to round them off," he said. He also noted that with the World Cup of cricket coming to Jamaica, G.C. Foster was the only place where players could get most of the facilities required for training. He was making reference to the mundo track, swimming pool, gym, boxing ring, basketball, volleyball, lawn tennis court, football field and cricket pitches. Ashman said sponsors would be able to get facilities named after their company or any other name they wished to use. There were also plans afoot to sell advertising billboards. A GIFT Established in September 1980, the college campus, located on 41 acres of land in Angels, just outside of Spanish Town in St. Catherine, was a gift from the Cuban Government to Jamaica. The college, the only one of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean, offers its graduates diplomas in teacher education, a certificate in coaching or a bachelor's degree in physical education. The University of the West Indies and the University Council of Jamaica accredit the programmes offered. Apart from the regular sports classes, students also do sports medicine, physiology, sports nutrition, anatomy and kinesiology. Dr. Raymoth Notice, Spanish Town's mayor and chairman of the St. Catherine Parish Council, said he would do whatever it took to help the institution become one of the best in the world. Notice then got the account drive rolling with a personal donation of $10,000. Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) technical director Carl Brown described G.C. Foster as a well-kept secret. "Nobody believes in development, only in horse racing." He said in other sports people didn't wait for the development process, they wanted results straight away. JAMAICA'S FOOTBALL Brown said G.C. Foster College had a very important role to play in Jamaica's football and it needed help. According to G.C. Foster College's principal, Yvonne Kong, included in its objectives were for it to be a certifying body for coaches, umpires, referees and officials for the sporting bodies within Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. Diversification of the school's programmes would include physical education and tourism, physical education and journalism, physical education and community development, physical education and recreation, as well as adapted physical education. Top rated track and field coach Raymond 'KC' Graham also spoke highly of the institution he attended. "There is lot of knowledge there. People who don't understand may see it just as a college where you play. It's not so," Graham, a long-serving national coach said. "Going there (G.C. Foster College) and doing the course makes you more of a professional," he said. "I have a wealth knowledge from GC ... I am advising anybody who is sports-oriented and wants to do well to go to GC Foster College," he said. "There have very experienced lecturers over there," continued the coach, who has won four Girls Champs titles with St. Jago. One of the college's plans is to work with all the sporting bodies and to have qualified coaches to go in and work with the lecturers. They also want the school to provide coaching courses for all the national sporting bodies. Chairman of the G.C. Foster board, Dr. Winston Dawes, said coaches from Cuba were expected to come in to the programme. WORLD-CLASS COACHES "We are getting coaches in boxing, basketball, swimming, volleyball and hockey. They are world-class coaches, so we are working with the associations (sport bodies). We are supposed to meet with them this week or next week to develop a programme then communicate with the Cuban ambassador so that they will go and make the final selections, based on our recommendations," Dawers said. George Evans, first vice-president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), welcomed the move to upgrade the training of coaches. "It must help the JFF as our coaching programme is inadequate. To have a programme such as this where it goes up to the degree level will benefit the parishes, clubs and, in time, the JFF," Evans said. "You are going to have quality coaches going back and imparting the A-Z of football (and other sports). What we have at the moment, we have a whole lot of volunteers, a lot of people who love the sport but really they are not up-to-date with all the things needed to be a coach," he said. At present, all one needs to become a level one football coach is a two-day introductory course. The level two course is four days, which comes with a test, after which the coach can work with national league teams. © Copyright 1997-2004 Gleaner Company Ltd. [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.