Long before the parents of our present crop of track stars were born, outstanding Jamaicans were performing at a level which caused the world to stand up and take notice.

The almost 6ft-4 inch Arthur Wint, from Plowden in Manchester, struck gold, Jamaica’s first, in the 400-yard event at the 1948 Olympics. A 5ft-4 inch Lindy Delapenha from Spanish Town was the first black football player to win a First Division championship medal in England. George “Atlas” Headley — about the same height as Delapenha — was the first great black batsman to emerge from the West Indies. Interestingly, all were born in the month of May.

Then there was Joy Foster. This irrepressible eight-year-old tennis player crept into the Guinness World Records as the youngest person to represent his or her country in an international match.

But there was a significant difference from today’s stars. These people had to work for a living and make time for training. Today’s track stars are paid — very well paid. So much so, these youngsters find themselves in a quandry: what to do with all the money which seems to be coming from all directions.

This seems to be a good time to start this discussion as, unbeknownst to the public, many of our stars continue to lose millions.

And this is not a problem peculiar to Jamaicans. A 2009 Sports Illustrated magazine report estimated that 78 per cent of National Football League (NFL) players — all millionaires — filed for bankruptcy or are experiencing financial distress only two years after retiring and 60 per cent of National Basketball Association (NBA) players suffered the same fate after five years of retirement.

Former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who was once worth US$ 400 million, spent most of his fortune on jewellery, Siberian tigers, partying, girls, and cars. He declared bankruptcy in 2003, even before he retired.

Can anyone imagine what a 109-room mansion looks like, or what one might do with such a house? Well, Evander “Real Deal” Holyfield purchased one for US$10.9 million but seemed to have forgetten that he needed to make the monthly payments to the bank that gave him the loan, so it was repossessed and resold for half the original, ridiculous price.

Floyd Mayweather called himself “Money”. And why not? Despite earning US$200 million for a single fight, he begged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for time to pay back the US$22 million he owed them in taxes that year.

American actor Charlie Chaplin discovered Jackie Coogan. He made 19 films before his 18th birthday and became one of the first heavily merchandised celebrities. It is estimated that he made nearly US$4 million (US$71,890,000 in today’s money). Little did he know that his mother and stepfather squandered his wealth. His mother stated, “No promises were ever made to give Jackie anything. Every dollar a kid earns before he is 21 belongs to his parents.” He sued in 1938, but after legal fees, he got a mere US$126,000.

More of us would remember the character Arnold Jackson of Diff’rent Strokes. His given name was Gary Coleman, and he was the highest-paid child actor on television throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. He was rated number one on a list of VHI‘s 100 Greatest Kid Stars.

The relationship between Coleman and his parents was extremely strained. In 1989 he sued his parents and a “financial advisor” for misappropriating the multimillion-dollar fortune he had amassed, but only got a fraction of his money.

I met him in the late 1990s when he was working as a security guard, he had the same engaging smile. But I was told that he had a very short fuse and was still angry with his parents. He died at age 42, alone and in pain.

It seems that whenever a child becomes the financial provider in the household, it throws off the balance and the power dynamic in the family and often ends when the child starts failing to adjust to this new level of responsibility. In contrast, young celebrities who come from stable and financially well-off families seem to have an easier time accepting their new worlds.

A new practice here of pulling children who display great talent out of the school system to go “professional” is of serious concern to me. This is fraught with problems. A major objective of socialisation in school is to make a child socially competent. A child must develop skills that will allow him or her to function socially, emotionally, and intellectually. Pulling children from their peers to compete with adults is damaging in every way, particularly when the primary motivating factor is hastening the day when they can become fully functioning cash registers.

Exploitation by legal guardian — financially or emotionally — can lead to mental health or substance abuse challenges in a child star. The worst kind of abuse would be for a guardian to then take these challenges as evidence that the child needs to be managed by the very person who betrayed his or her trust in the first place.

Britney Spears and her legal battles with her father Jamie Spears has raised a lot of questions about child stars and their parents. Other young celebrities who have become even bigger stars as adults, like Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, and Taylor Swift, seemed to have had an easier time because of the amount of support and guidance from their parents, and that’s because their parents didn’t rely on their children’s money.

Despite the financial fouls committed by sportspeople and other entertainers, there are great examples of athletes who have achieved enduring financial success. The richest athlete of all time is basketball superstar Michael Jordan, who has a US$2.1-billion fortune built from his NBA income and sponsorships. This is while his teammate Dennis Rodman is struggling to find child support money. Serena Williams has won more tennis Grand Slams than any other player and four Olympic gold medals. She put her money to good use in diverse business interests and her own venture capital firm Serena Ventures.

In 2008 I was as ecstatic as my fellow Jamaicans about the performance of our athletes at the Olympic Games. By the time they returned I had entertained the highest hopes that, by this time, there would be four G C Foster campuses offering the world training for coaches and administrators as well as speed training for those in a number of sports. I also saw Jamaica as a one-stop shop for celebrities to safely invest their funds and navigate some of the financial fouls they so often encounter. Unfortunately, things have not worked out as I envisaged, and I cannot understand why. Why is G C Foster not now the largest tertiary institution in the Caribbean?

Recent events in the financial sector are tragic, not because the sector is collapsing, because it isn’t. But one highly publicised event, riddled with speculation and mischief, can do damage to the sector that will take years to correct.

I have studiously avoided reference to track and field athletes with good reason. There is much mystery clouding the few facts available about our present financial troubles. Regardless, it would seem that our Government is still our safest bet in protecting our belongings — of all kinds. We have an extremely bright and talented minister of finance in Dr Nigel Clarke. His claim that a critical document sent to his office two years ago never reached his desk is — contrary to his detractors’ claims — quite believable. This is because I have interacted with senior managers in the civil service from time to time and am often forced to wonder if they are deliberately sabotaging this Government. Even more shocking is the fact that ministers seem unwilling or unable to kick them out of the service.

Jamaica has 10 commercial banks. Tiny Cayman Islands has 10 times that number and is one of the world’s leading providers of institutionally focused, specialised financial services and a preferred destination for the structuring and domiciling of sophisticated financial services products.

Jamaica’s first bank was established in 1836. Cayman’s financial sector was established with the enactment of a handful of laws 130 years later, in 1966. Jamaica has a Moodie rating of B2, while the Cayman Islands has a rating from the same agency of Aa3. What is the reason for this discrepancy? I would propose that it is events like the one tormenting us at this present time.

Despite novices being placed in responsible positions, I am satisfied that the country has highly skilled and experienced service providers that are able build a strong regulatory framework and a culture of compliance with international standards.

In the final analysis, it is as former Prime Minister Bruce Golding says: The Government, having issued licences to people to offer financial services to the public, must bear some responsibility to protect the public. He is right. The oldest and simplest justification for government is as a protector: protecting citizens from abuse — physical and financial. No amount of petty, personal, public puerile prattle can make his statement less right. And only the less discerning among us could call him a failure.

The present finance minister is capable of putting the framework in place to provide a first-class service to the world. All that will remain is the required vigilance to ensure adherence to recognised and relevant international standards and a commitment to supporting global efforts to fight financial crime.

Glenn Tucker is an educator and a sociologist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or glenntucker2011@gmail.com.