SCAMMING BRAIN DRAIN

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE LOTTERY scamming scourge, which has been steadily destroying the social fabric in western Jamaica since 2005, is now threatening to derail the region’s proud sporting tradition, as many talented youngsters are leaving sports to embrace the illicit get-rich-quick scheme.

Petersfield High School, in Westmoreland, which has emerged as a track and field powerhouse over recent years, under the expert guidance of coach Machel Woolery, will be forced to field a weakened team at this year’s ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs), as several talented student athletes have traded their spikes for scamming.

“We tried to sell them the idea of getting track scholarships and the possibility of a lucrative career in track and field but they’re not listening to us because some of them are already making more money than we are making,” said Woolery, whose track programme at Petersfield has churned out several national junior representatives in athletics.

While noting that the glamour associated with scamming is the main attraction to the youngsters, he also believes the changing face of the Jamaican society, as it relates to attitudes and values, is at the heart of the problem.

“In my youngster days, we use to look up to teachers, nurses, doctors, and the police as our role models, they were the ones we try to pattern and emulate,” said Woolery.

“Today, the scammers are the influential persons in many communities. They are the ones driving the expensive cars, building the big houses, and having a lot of money. They are the ones our youngsters are seeing as their role models and idols.

“Another problem is that successful law-abiding citizens tend to move away from their home communities for more affluent communities, and their positive influence is no longer there to be copied by the youngsters,” added Woolery.

Superintendent Adrian Hamilton, the police officer in charge of operations in Westmoreland, is not surprised by the challenge facing Woolery at Petersfield based on the large number of school-aged children involved in the rampant criminality plaguing the parish.

“We are having a serious problem in this parish as it relates to youngsters and their involvement in criminality, both as perpetrators and victims,” said Hamilton.

“We have been putting school resource officers into some of the schools but the overall crime problem in the parish does not allow us to put in as much resources as we would like.”

Still driven by his burning desire to continue to develop high-quality athletes, coach Woolery is now on a recruitment drive to identify new talent, and he is also pledging his support to any programme that is advanced to finding a solution to the problem as he remains convinced that sport is one of the best, if not the best, vehicle to put ambitious youngsters on a path to upward mobility.

“I know the negatives are out there trying to outdo the positives in our communities, but I am not giving up, I will continue to seek out and develop new talent wherever I can find them,” said Woolery.

“However, a way must be found to cut off the flow of this illicit money because as long as the scam money is available to them, we are going to have more youngsters being tempted to throw away their lives trying to get rich quick without working.”

Interestingly, eight years ago, Everton Tomlinson, president of the Westmoreland Football Association, said lottery scamming was drawing away many promising footballers from the game, and called for an urgent stakeholder meeting to address the scourge before it got out of hand.

“If we don’t find a way to address the problem quickly, it is not only going to destroy sports alone, but also destroy life in the parish as we used to know it,” Tomlinson said at the time.

“Scamming comes with a lot of guns and gang-related violence. It is already claiming many lives,” said Tomlinson, who admitted to attending the funerals of youngsters, who left football and went into scamming.