In 1971, Jaime was in the prime of his life and his basketball career. A group of Belize?s best basketballers and footballers were traveling in a truck to Peten, Guatemala, to play games across the border. I think the truck left late, because the accident happened at night. The driver of the truck was a Guatemalan, and our Western Highway was very narrow and rough in 1971.

A BSI lowboy was coming in the opposite direction. The problem was that the lowboy had a tractor on its bed, and the tractor blade was sticking out the side. The blade had no lights on it, of course, and the Guat truck driver got fooled. The blade caught the side of his truck, ripped it apart and flung the truck on its side into the bush. Players were pinned under the side of the truck. They were screaming.

In the darkness, somebody scratched a match to see the victims, and gasoline fumes from the truck?s fuel tank exploded. Four young men were burned to a crisp. One of Jaime?s legs was badly burned. He ended up losing the leg and being fitted with a prosthesis.

Jaime had been a fine gentleman before the accident, and after the tragedy, he became, to repeat, an icon. One Sunday morning at Bird?s Isle (1978, 1979), Jaime was refereeing a game, and Pulu Lightburn was accused of pushing him down. I wasn?t at the game, so I can?t say exactly what happened. At the time, Lightburn was under fire from the basketball power structure, so they used the incident to demonize him, absolutely.

Well, as fate would have it, I had to go to Jaime in early 1992 and ask him to coach the Kremandala Raiders, of whose twelve registered players seven were rookies. I had built the team to play pressure defence and run the ball, and I?d wanted Marshall Nunez to be the head coach, but Marshall had never coached at the senior level, so one of the senior players was working along with a member of the coaching staff to undermine Marshall?s credibility. I needed a senior coach in the worst kind of way, and Jaime was my choice. He accepted the job.

But Jaime never accepted any money from me when I offered him stipends. In a sense, he remained an amateur coach, in a semi-pro league. The Raiders were an early season sensation, and our fans adored Jaime. But when we were beaten for the second time by Maria Chang Crown Stadium, I knew that the Raiders could go no further under Jaime. I had to get another coach.

The issue was Jaime?s 1-2-2- defence, which was tailor made for Stadium. The reason Stadium butchered us on the offensive glass was because they were a team with four rebounders on their starting five ? George ?Black Prince? Bowen, Ian ?AC? Augustine, ?Charlie Dunk? Armstrong, and Byron ?Scott? Samuels. Samuels was technically one of their two guards, but he was as big as their forwards, and he hit the offensive glass ferociously. The weakness of the 1-2-2 was on the defensive backline, where two players usually had to rebound against three. In the case of Stadium, it was two of ours against four of theirs. They killed us on second chance and third chance shots.

When we watched tapes of their games against Santino?s Hotpoints, however, we saw where Santino?s beat Stadium easily with the traditional 2-3 zone. Jaime refused to go 2-3, so I terminated him. It was tough, but I had to do it. Jaime?s starting five on the Raiders were loyal to him. But this was semi-pro, not amateur. This was the way it had to be, if we were serious about winning.

The following year Jaime became the coach of the Venus Photo Lab team. The atmosphere was emotional and tense when Venus met the Raiders for the first time in the 1993 season. I could see in the stands the anger of some of Jaime?s friends, specifically a young guy I had taught at Technical way back in 1968/69. (He knows who he is.) They felt that I had ?chanced? Jaime. But it was just the difference between amateur and pro.

Jaime was not a very good coach. He did not use his bench well. He had been a very good player, but he was not a very good coach. Can you imagine how it felt to have to terminate a man like this who had suffered so much and had so much dignity? Then to have his friends hold it as a grievance against me?

I will say this to Jaime?s sons, that their father was a man, a real man, and I held him in the greatest of respect. I mourn his passing.