by Usain Bolt
Mom and Dad were always at my races to cheer me on, but while my mom, Jennifer – or Jen-Jen to her friends – spoiled me and let me get away with things, Dad kept pushing to making sure I went to training, and the teachers knew they had his support if I was slacking off.
I didn’t really start trying until grade nine, when I was about 14, but it was noticeable how my performances improved once I put in the extra effort. While I was the best runner in my school, there were guys from other schools, like Keith Spence from Cornwall College and another one named David from Emmanuel College, who used to beat me regularly. Yet once the effects of regular training kicked in they couldn’t keep up, and the following year, 2002, I was winning the World Junior Championships. Training had helped, but I also realized I had talent, real raw talent.
The teachers at William Knibb deserve my grateful thanks for what I’ve achieved today, but I didn’t always see it that way. They were so protective that they wouldn’t let me join the school soccer team or do soccer in PE in case I got injured, nor would they let me play cricket. When I went to the CARIFTA Games trials they deliberately put the school sports day on at the same time so that I couldn’t take part in it with my friends. Then, the following year, when they realized I would be available to take part in it, they cancelled sports day completely.
I know that the head of sports, Miss Thorpe, had my best interests at heart. Whatever you wanted, you could always go to her. She even put up with me flicking her on the back of the ear whenever I walked past. She kind of got used to that.
One teacher, Mr. De Souza, a soccer coach, was always checking on me. Whenever he saw me walking round without shoes on he would be screaming at me, telling me how important it was for a runner to keep his feet protected.
Mr. Barnett, my athletics coach at school later on, was quite soft with me, but I produced the results for him. He didn’t train me to extreme levels, because he realized that flogging me into the ground was not the way to get the best out of me. He was a funny man and would let me drive his Toyota Corolla on the main road once we got five minutes away from school, even though I didn’t have a license. I knew what I was doing, because Floyd from the games room had let me have a go in his car a few times. But my dad wouldn’t teach me to drive and I still cuss him for it. He had two vans for work and a motor bike and never let me use any of them. Not once did he say, “Come on, son, I’ll show you.” With my height I could have been driving at the age of ten, but Dad was one for doing everything the right way. I had to have about 30 hours of lessons at driving school on Dad’s orders. He was so strict and expected rules to be obeyed. You could never get around him.
Usain was so full of energy when he entered school, earlier than most children. He came in at two years old, younger than the typical entry age of three and a half His parents thought he was ready, and that he was. I’ve been teaching at Piedmont Basic School for nearly 25 years and remember Usain from the first day he started. Usain was always running around the classroom and impossible to catch even then.
children do you know? Who is the fastest man on earth?” And, after a pause, they reply, “To the World – Usain Bolt” and point to the sky together. It’s special for them that the world’s greatest athlete went to their school. When they are out on the field they all want to be as fast as him. I tell them the way to do it is to eat up, drink up and get strong . It’s good to have a role model like that who children can relate to.
He was tall for his age, which he obviously took from his dad, and a curious boy who asked lots of questions. He was interested in schoolwork as much as his sport and wanted to learn, but when I took Physical Education on Thursdays I could see he was a talented boy.
We have a checklist of everything children should know before they go on to primary school at the age of six. Usain scored good marks for everything, especially math, and his handwriting was absolutely beautiful.
The whole school watched the Olympics on a big screen, and I was running around myself when he won. I put a scrapbook together of all his achievements for the children to look at, and the class is always interested in what he’s doing.
We have a little song which goes, “Children, children, do you know? Children, Along with The Digicel Foundation, Usain has helped with renovations to the school. The floor used to be just concrete, but they tiled it for us and decorated. They also put in cupboards and sinks and built a bathroom. When Usain comes to see his parents, he generally stops by to see us. Being famous hasn’t changed him.
MY HAPPY PERSONALITY AND LAID-BACK style which the public sees is not an act–it is exactly how I am away from athletics and comes from the way I was brought up. Mom and Dad would never go around cussing or arguing. Dad would talk and explain things, and you had to really push his buttons to get him angry. But if I didn’t do what he said he would punish me to make sure I never did it again. Dad was big on discipline, and respect to him for that, because it’s what made me the person I am today. It helped me understand life and he deserves thanks for that.
I didn’t like being punished, of course not, and there where occasions when I felt it was totally unjustified, but it’s what parents did. You didn’t always know when it was coming either. Dad could take me by surprise, and when he grabbed me it was a case of “Oh God, here we go”.
He was in charge of discipline in the house, while Mom spoiled me. I’m so like her, with the same type of hair, skin and even her laid-back style, while the only thing passed on from Dad was his height. He is a rules man who expects everyone to be on time. To make sure I was never late for school he would get me up at 5.30 a.m., even though William Knibb – which was half-an-hour’s drive away – started at 8 a.m.
His view was that it was better to be an hour early than a minute late. He’s late for nowhere. If he’s in control of getting there, then he’s not going to be late.
Dad didn’t like us going out, he preferred us to stay in, and when we were younger we had to be home before he got back from work in Windsor, or else there was trouble. We had a dog named Brownie who served as a sort of early warning system – when you saw him running to the top of the hill to greet Dad, that was the signal to get inside.
Before getting home from school I would stop by at Aunty Lilly’s, have a meal there and then have a second one with Mom and Dad. Aunty would be looking out for me from the veranda and knew just what I wanted – pork. Mom wouldn’t cook pork, because she was a Seventh Day Adventist and her religion banned it. Jamaica is a very religious country which seems to have more churches than houses, and Mom spends a lot of her weekends in church. Strangely she would still cook me bacon and eggs for breakfast.
Aunty Lilly runs a shop and bar next to her house, and on Saturdays I would go there with Dad for sweets and ask her to “make up”, which meant asking for a bit of money to help me out. She was always good for it, and she still gives me yams from the farm she owns when I visit. While Dad chatted to Aunt Lilly and the locals, he would let me have a sip of beer, knowing that as soon as I drank it I’d fall asleep. I was so full of energy, this was the only way he could get any peace.
When I was younger I often stayed with my grandmother, Monica – now my only living grandparent. She lived in Reserve, about a 45-minute walk from our house, and in the summer holidays my cousin Charlene would be there too. Grandma is one of the best cooks ever, which was good because Mom doesn’t like to cook. I joked with Mom about her not being able to cook very well. Grandma’s corn-meal porridge was unbelievable. Even when it was ice cold it tasted good. Grandma still bakes me the most wonderful sweet raisin pudding when I go to the country.
Grandma, who is my mom’s mother, was there for all of us. Everyone goes to her if they have a problem, which is probably why she’s one of life’s worriers. When I’m driving from Kingston to the country, which can take three and a half hours along dark winding roads, she prays the whole time, and I have to call her the minute I get there. I forgot to do it once, because I was tired and went strai
ght to bed, and when she rang the next morning to check if I was OK, oh my God, it wasn’t a pretty conversation.
She’s lived alone since Grandad died when I was nine – in an accident which happened right in front of me. He was on his way through the kitchen to get wood for the fire and slipped on the wet dirt floor, banging his head as he landed. He didn’t move, and I went to the next house to get help, but there was nothing they could do for him. He had suffered a heart attack.
It was a terrible time for our family but didn’t mean much to me because I was so young. When we went to the funeral my mom and her sisters were crying, but I didn’t. I stood around at the graveside watching him being buried, then went off to play. You don’t understand what death is at that age.
We would go to my other grandfather’s in Windsor on a Sunday, which was a special treat for one big reason – he used to give us fresh cow’s milk. Every time one of the cows had a calf, there was a three-week period where the calf would be drinking from the mother, and then after that we could have some. I would have a huge, five-liter pot of cow’s milk and it was the best taste ever. It comes straight from the cow, then you boil it, skim it off and drink it hot. I can taste it just thinking about it. You haven’t tasted anything till you’ve tried that, I promise you, and I looked forward to it so much. You couldn’t drink five liters of cow’s milk every day, but every week, fantastic. Neither he nor my grandma is with us any more, but I have such good memories of those times.
We lived slightly inland, so rather than spend our time by the sea we would play for hours down by the river. I almost drowned once. There were some concrete slabs in the water and we would swim from one to the other, but one time we were having a backstroke race and I misjudged where I was. When I went to stand up where I thought the concrete deck was, there was nothing. It was the weirdest sensation as I quickly sank and began to freak out as water rushed into my mouth and up my nose. Fortunately I’d watched a program only the week before which said that if you think you’re drowning, the worst thing you can do is panic. Somehow I remembered it and managed to stop trying to breathe, went right down to the bottom, pushed off and came back to the surface. I can’t describe the relief as I gulped in the fresh air. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t seen that TV program.
I didn’t go back to the river for a good two months after that and have been wary of water ever since. I might fool around in the swimming pool at my house or splash around on the beach, but that’s about it.
My brother, sister and I all have different mothers, which is not unusual in Jamaica. Back in the days when Dad was growing up it was like that in a lot of families. My sister, Christine, is four years older than me and lived with us at various different times, while my brother Sadiki is eight months younger and would stay with us in the school holidays. Although my sister and brother are from different parents my mom always welcomes them to our home whenever they wish to visit. When Christine and I were growing up we didn’t get along. Dad didn’t like it when we went out in the yard to play football, and my sister used to tell on us for that and lots of other things. As you can imagine, I wasn’t pleased with my sister for ratting me out, so we didn’t get along well, but our relationship is a lot better now we’re older.
To people in more well-developed countries it might seem we had a basic existence in our little two-bedroom rented house. We didn’t have much money but we never felt deprived. Dad had his job with the coffee company and said that if you worked hard you would always survive without having to beg from anyone. If we needed something he made sure we had it, but if he thought it wasn’t essential then we probably wouldn’t get it.
Amazingly, Dad actually decided that buying me a game console was essential because he and Mom were sick of me going off to the game room in Falmouth. He thought if I had the games at home they could keep a better check on me. When you had a Nintendo everybody came around to your house, especially if you had a new game. The house would be packed, with maybe ten guys in my room, but Dad accepted it because at least he knew where I was.
When I started making decent money as an athlete it wasn’t for me it was for my parents. They have never lived a grand life and didn’t want to move to some flash place away from the community so I’ve helped them to extend their house and build a garden. My dad is weird, he doesn’t like to ask for anything and prefers to work for his money. Mom will ask but that might only be for the bus fare back to Trelawny from Kingston.
Long before I was famous they were both well known in the community, and would help anyone out. Dad always had a “good morning” and a “good afternoon” for everyone, which is how I learned to be well-mannered and polite. He still works in the grocery shop he opened after taking redundancy from the coffee company and it keeps him at the center of local life. He will never stop working.
While I respect Dad I never felt he got the balance right between discipline and fun. If I wanted to go out he would set ridiculous curfews – as early as 10 o’clock at night, which was when all the parties were starting and gave you no time to impress the girls.
Despite that I did have a few girlfriends. The first was Kimlin Matteson, who went to William Knibb like me but didn’t live nearby. When it came to school holidays there was no way of getting in touch, because we didn’t have telephones in the house or cell phones. After Kimlin I went out with Nakeisha Neal from the year above, but we split when I was 17 and moved to Kingston to be a full-time athlete. It was there I met Mizicann Evans, and we had a good time together for nearly seven years. She was the only person I’ve ever argued with, probably because we got on each other’s nerves after so long together. Sadly, we broke up but still see each other sometimes because she’s good friends with Mom.
There were two parties to go to at my school each year, but by the time I got there it was time to come home. So once I decided to party on and face the consequences from Dad for being late. I even got into trouble with him in front of my school mates when I was nearly 17.
It all started when I was sitting on a chair outside watching a class soccer match and some of my friends, who were messing around, sat in front of me and refused to move. There were some shoes beside me, which I threw at them, and when they threw them back at me they missed. A bunch of guys standing on a hill behind took one of the shoes, flung it and it hit this girl. Another girl then picked up the shoe and pulled it till she tore it.
The Principal said I had to get the shoe fixed. I refused, because it wasn’t my fault, but I’d just got my first cell phone and Mom called to say the school had contacted Dad and he was going to come and sort it all out. If Dad was on his way it was very bad news, so I went off to Falmouth to get the shoe fixed and had to ask my Aunty Annette for money for the repair because I didn’t have enough. I got the job done, raced back to school and returned the shoe to the kid who owned it.
Everything was good, or so I thought, until I walked past the staff room door, took a glance and saw my dad was in there. Worse still, he saw me. It was not good after all. Dad called out “BOLT!!!” in the loudest voice and grabbed hold of me. You can imagine the trouble I was in after that.
Following my short stint as an athlete, where I competed in the 800 meters through high school, I was not sure what my next step would be, but things changed dramatically when I became manager for this young phenomenal star, Usain Bolt . In February 2002 my life made a 360-degree turn and has not been the same since. Now I can look back and say, “I have the template of how to manage a star athlete.”
I am a graduate of William Knibb High School, like Usain, but lost touch with the school’s track program, so I had not heard about Usain before I started mentoring him. I was working with the tax office in St James (Montego Bay) when Principal Margaret Lee rang to ask me to assist with the school’s track and field program . That was to be quite a challenge as I left work at 5 p.m. – by the time I had driven over to the school, training would be done The Principal called back and said there was a spec
ial athlete she wanted me to consider
I met Usain for the first time on a Friday afternoon, introduced by Alton McDonald, a PE teacher who was at the school when I was a student When I inquired about Usain I was told he was obedient and talented, two great attributes I looked for in people generally. Of course I would later learn that Usain could be as stubborn as any regular teenager was.
I knew that his parents would be a vital piece of the puzzle I was to put together; but my meeting with them went smoothly. I realized they had a handle on him, and that led me to take on Usain as a project. His dad stood out as the main disciplinarian, with support from his mom. I liked that.
I got the opportunity to see him perform at a regional track meet in Montego Bay, where he ran a leg on 4x100 and 4x200m relays, and he was fantastic in both. The rush of adrenaline was fast ... and I thought, “Do I have an Olympic champion on my hands?”
In July 2002, at the World Junior Championships in Kingston, Usain took the world by storm with his spectacular win in the 200 meters, beating Brendan Christian (Antigua) and Wes Felix (USA). The spotlight was now on, and I realized my work was going to be more challenging.
I was not trained to teach, but I knew what it would take to make Usain successful, and I took the bull by the horns. Usain claims he resented me initially, but he was way too polite to show that. He did make a few mistakes, but he was generally cooperative.
