Money is our biggest problem – Wellington

Principal of St Elizabeth Technical High School, Keith Wellington, has highlighted finances as the most challenging aspect of their track programme as their boys continue to improve and are looking forward to maintaining their top five spot at the 2019 ISSA/Grace Kennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships.

“I think the expense that comes with trying to build a strong athletics programme is the most challenging part. If you’re to have a strong team, it means you would need to have a large number of students participating, and the larger the number, the greater the expenses, especially as it relates to nutrition, medical expenses, and even coaches,” Wellington said.

“We are a rural school and don’t necessarily have persons that can volunteer their time, so a lot of who we have as coaches we have to provide them with at least a stipend. However, we still don’t have the number of coaches that would be required to cover all the areas. So, all in all, the biggest challenge that we have is the expense to provide all the necessary resources,” he added.

Whilst not putting too much pressure on his team to deliver the fourth place immediately Wellington is expecting to get even closer this season after finishing in the top five last year.

“I would like to see the boys’ team get I little bit closer to the fourth place,” said Wellington. “We are in the process of rebuilding the girls’ programme and would like to see how the younger athletes in classes three and four perform, as they are the ones we are hoping, in another three or four years, will bring us back to where we were five years ago,” Wellington said.

MAKING PROGRESS

“I think they have done very well over the past five or so years. We have been building, which was deliberate, as we like to build from the bottom up and the progress we have been making is in keeping with what we want to do. We would love if we were progressing a little bit quicker, but we understand that it is a competitive field. Even though we have quality athletes, it takes a lot of investment to get the numbers that are required to compete at Champs for a championship. We want to do what we are doing methodically to ensure what we do is lasting and we don’t fall back to where we were a few years ago, when we weren’t able to score 10 points or so at Champs,” he added.