JOA makes pitch for softball

THE COUNTRY’S softball has scored a home run, hitting a landmark partnership with the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) that sets a platform for its athletes to achieve a place on the Olympic stage.

At the very core, there is an establishment for grassroots development through the JOA’s sponsorship of the Jamaica Softball Association (JSA) that yields equipment, plus the resumption of the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) competition in the new year.

The equipment, valued at $1 million, includes batting gloves, batting helmets, balls, softball bat and fielders’ masks.

Sponsorship for the high schools league is valued at $1.5 million.

The plan, however, goes beyond just driving development and interest at high school level, but spreading the game right across the country to unearth talent to offload bases for a run at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, United States.

All participating schools received gear and at the handing over ceremony JOA president, Christopher Samuda, said: “The equipment we’re going to be giving you this morning … if we put it in a biblical context it is equipment, equipped for God’s purpose and there it has to be purposefully used and I’m very confident the president will fulfil this purpose.

“What we need to do is to ensure that our young people are engaged, engaged in the sport. Not only that they see the sport as an avenue to take them out of particular circumstances, but also to use the sport to represent their country and make their country proud,” Samuda continued.

“The youth are yearning for options and the JSA is giving them options.”

SPORTS FOR ALL MANTRA

Sharing on the Sport for All mantra that they have been executing, Ryan Foster, the JOA’s Secretary General/CEO announced their school’s league sponsorship and strategy to work alongside national sporting associations to fulfil their goals, much in the way they have been doing for other disciplines he noted being categorised as “minor sports”.

“The Jamaica Olympic Association through this administration is strongly in support of non-traditional sports and through our Equipment Grant policy we’ve extended it to softball and many other non-traditional sporting associations,” Foster said.

“We believe this equipment will not just kick-start softball in Jamaica, but we want to encourage and ensure we give other avenues for our athletes, young athletes to participate in a multifaceted approach to sport. Sport is not just for us, it’s not just for football, track and field, and netball, it’s for everyone,” he stated.

“Softball is one of the sports that we’ve targeted for LA 2028 and they would’ve been beneficiaries of many other avenues that we’d have announced on Saturday (handing over) through our Equipment Grant, but also our Travel Grant and our Coaching Grant that will be given to our member associations who are seeking to qualify for the 2028 Olympics. So we welcome the move by the Jamaica Softball Association in restarting the sport and especially starting at the younger generation in high schools.

“The Jamaica Olympic Association will sponsor the ISSA league at $1.5 million this year,” Foster said.

President of the JSA Marvalyn Campbell stated that the sponsorship will drive their pursuits, expanding the abilities to reach the summit.

“We had a vibrant secondary schools league some years ago and that died because of lack of funding, lack of sponsorship and equipment because equipment age overtime,” she admitted.

GRATITUDE

“Without the JOA this would never have been possible. Thanks is such a small word for such a large, large, large, large effort on the part of the JOA, the secondary schools league is being revived and schools, we’re here for you,” Campbell remarked.

“A lot of athletes will gravitate to the sport, a lot of athletes who love the sport, and so we’re looking forward to a vibrant league, so much so we’ll find sufficient athletes to make it to the 2028 Olympics in LA.”

High schools already confirmed are Pembroke Hall, Meadowbrook, Merl Grove, Queen’s, Immaculate Conception, Ardenne, Holy Childhood, Alpha, Holy Trinity, Vauxhall, Excelsior and St Hugh’s, with Wolmer’s “waiting in the wings”.

Foster related that the JOA wants softball among other sporting disciplines that qualify athletes who expose the nation’s sporting potential at the Olympics, in this case LA 2028. The JOA’s target for sports represented at LA is 10 and the JOA’s Member Relations Manager Novelette Harris will also be closely involved with the JSA’s mission.

“Ms Harris and myself will be working very closely with the association to ensure that the equipment is not only placed to good use, but that we will be unearthing new talents in the sport to ensure that we have an Olympic squad for LA 2028 … where we will be looking at these athletes to grow them leading into 2028,” said Foster.