KC great Rupert Hoilett is dead

Nicknamed the Phenomenal One for his speedy running at the annual Boys’ Championships, Rupert Hoilett passed away yesterday at The University Hospital of the West Indies after succumbing to a heart-related ailment. The 77-year-old Hoilett was brilliant at the 440 yards and 400 metres, winning the imperial distance at Boys’ Championships three times in a row for Kingston College.

Though he was a specialist in the 440 yards and 400m, he also ran the 880 yards and placed second in 1963 at Boys’ Championships. In addition to winning the Class One 440 yards in 1963, 1964 and 1965, Hoilett was British West Indies 400m champion in 1964 and silver medallist at the 1966 Central American and Caribbean Games.

In 1964, he was one of three high school student athletes to don black-green-and-gold at the Tokyo Olympics. The others were 200m finalist Una Morris and 800m specialist Neville Myton.

Hoilett contested the individual 400m in Tokyo.

Earlier in 1964, he was part of the first Jamaican team to compete at the Penn Relays. The Kingston College quartet of Jimmy Grant, Hoilett, Tony Keyes and Lennox Miller won the 4x110-yard relay to kick off a longstanding tradition of Jamaican high school dominance at the Penn Relays.

Grant, Hoilett, Keyes and Miller were named to the Penn Relays Wall of Fame in 2014.

Speaking in 2017, Hoilett humbly noted that others had run for Jamaica while at high school.

“It was special,” he said with pride, “you know, but there were precursors to it in the Pan-Am Games.”

“I was kinda prepared,” recalled the three-time Boys’ Championships Class One 440-yard champion, “and encouraged by the great Herb McKenley, I took his challenge, and it came to pass.”

His Champs victories, scored in 1963, 1964 and 1965, each came in record time. While Calabar High’s Daniel England and Javon Francis have both won the Class One 400m three times, Hoilett’s achievement of setting records each year remains unique in Boys’ Championships history.