Despite many hurdles, the Kingston College (KC) track and field team was determined that no amount of appeals filed against its athletes, or anything else, was going to stop them from winning the 2025 Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA)/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships, according to Principal Dave Myrie.

KC was especially determined to take home the winning trophy, seeing that the school is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

“I have mixed feelings. I am grateful and ecstatic. First and foremost, I thank God for his favour and for seeing us through. We are a Christian school and a praying school. I am a Christian and I believe very strongly in faith. After Champs, the first thing I did was to say thanks to God for the support and favour. This Champs was a very interesting one on many levels. I felt some nastiness existed as well. There were so many issues, whether from false starts, from the mass amount of appeals, where people lodge complaints about every little thing, you wonder why we had so much of that this year,” the principal told the Jamaica Observer following celebratory activities at the North Street-based institution on Monday morning.

Myrie’s opinion was that the issues that came up this year did not exist last year, and expressed that it might have been because certain elements did not want KC to conquer at Champs as the school celebrates 100 years of existence.

“That wasn’t the case last year. There was a decent Champs last year without too much of this. It went as far as someone wanting to appeal Tahj Marques White, saying that he is not Jamaican and just came to KC the other day. That boy has been at KC from first form to now. I just could not understand what was going on.

“As a school, as a camp, we just said, you know something, we just need to rally around ourselves and focus and do what we need to do. I think even if persons weren’t concerned too significantly about us winning or losing, because this is our 100th anniversary, there were many who wanted to see us dethroned in our anniversary year. I think it took on more significance for some people that KC shouldn’t win in this our 100th anniversary, for whatever reason,” Myrie expressed.

Myrie told the Observer that his position was that the team needed to perform and move well past its competitors so that in the event of multiple successful appeals against the team, it wouldn’t impact overall victory.

He highlighted also that this year, there were far more KC old boys who attended the championships to show support in the school’s 100th anniversary year.

“I think this year was also a special one for our old boys because it is our 100th anniversary year, and even though we have a major gala coming up on April 16, for many of them, it was a toss-up about whether they would come to the gala in April or come to Champs instead.

“A lot of them turned out for Champs because they wanted to see our team’s historic win. The funny thing is that the team this year was not as strong as the team we had last year. I think KC has an old boys’ network that is second to none and because of their love and support for the school, they turned out in droves to come and support the team. If you looked at the stadium, it was nearly like a quarter or more of bleachers all the way around to half of grandstand, it was a sea of purple we were seeing.

“Our people support our boys, no matter what, whether they are falling down or whatever. A number of the old boys should be heading to the airport for flights and they are still out there as part of the celebration because they are just so into their school. Without our old-boy support there is a lot that we would not be able to do.”

During celebratory activities, chairman of KC’s school board Michael Vaccianna praised the members of the winning team for bringing glory to the KC family. He said they showed Jamaica what the “Fortis spirit is all about”.

“They fought hard and were victorious and have made sure the championship cup remains here at North Street. I want to say thanks also to those who guided and supported them, the head coach Leaford Grant and all other coaches, the management team, the volunteers including the very dedicated old boys, and the leader of the team, our principal Mr Dave Myrie. We want to thank GraceKennedy for sponsoring the Championship and for all the sponsors who have created this magnificent event in which Kingston College has now been victorious 36 times. Kingston College first won the championship 88 years ago and over those 88 years we have managed to win the championships 36 times. That is an amazing achievement.”

Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, a proud KC old boy, extended congratulations to the members of the track team and recommended that going forward, all the other students who do not participate in sports should not only praise the championship team but look at what they can do to make KC proud.

“Always have a goal in mind, work hard, be determined and succeed. I say to all KC boys, be proud of your school and keep the flag and the purple power always. Always be on the straight and narrow path so that KC can continue to be blessed.”