by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Aug. 25, 2022

Greg Meyers, 44, a Belizean-American from the village of Burrell Boom in the Belize District, sat down with AMANDALA this week for an exclusive interview about his mission to upgrade the sporting facilities and programs in the country to provide more opportunities for advancement to local athletes.

During his years in high school in New York, Meyers, who returned to Belize every summer as a child during the 80s, was state champion in the 800m race and was granted a scholarship to attend Rutgers University. However, due to injuries, Meyers eventually pursued a range of career paths before becoming a track and field coach.

Meyer’s coaching resume is quite extensive, as he has over 18 years of experience as a track and field coach, and coached several Belizean track and field athletes in the early 2000s, and now he is coaching his three children: Daniel Meyers, 15; Demetrie Meyers, and Mallory Meyers, 12, who recently competed in the 49th CARIFTA Games in Kingston, Jamaica.

During his sitdown with AMANDALA, Meyers spoke of his plans to improve several sporting facilities in the country.

“The goal of this particular trip is to bring the potential architects and builders to get a layout of the land [at] the different facilities that may be at our disposal so that we can start putting together a plan to develop the stadiums [like the] MCC Grounds, Rogers Stadium, National Stadium, and any other government-owned facilities, which is what private-public partnership entails. This is just an exploratory [trip] to figure out what is feasible … The grand scheme is, hopefully, to have a layout over the years coming to build a national facility that can foster, develop the youths all the way to the national teams at a youth class level just on par like everyone else,” he said.

He added, “… Ultimately, this is something that we want to spread through the districts and through the villages. Each village has a park; some have a large enough to have a small track, and I believe that it’s not that expensive to put a track on a field; it’s not really that expensive.”

Meyers further noted the impact that such enhanced facilities and programs could have on at-risk youth and on crime-reduction efforts. “The numbers are there. Everywhere you go, there is a structured athletics program through youth development that drastically reduces crime. Not just gang violence, or crime. We use sports to reduce stress and increase morale [and] increase productivity …,” he said.

Meyers went on to state that for some time now he has been conveying to the Belize Athletics Association his willingness to train the local athletes in the country to compete on the international stage. However, there has been no reply from the Association to indicate acceptance of his offer

“I don’t just coach my kids. I coach all over. I was offered a lot of money to go and coach a Division Two university, which I’ve turned down because I have a goal to be here. I want to help here. What’s frustrating is that I have people knocking down my doors for me to train their athletes, yet my own country doesn’t even return e-mails. So I would say the relationship is at this point, tenuous at best. I have communicated several times in regards to my children competing for Belize. My training is a year in advance; everything I have is planned out for an entire year, where they’re going to race because we have Olympic dreams. In order to effect change [within] the Association, it starts with communication and transparency, which I don’t see as yet. I’ve asked with zero response what status within the Association I am willing to help. I’m willing to be here, but I need to know what [my] status is,” Meyers explained.

Before the exclusive interview ended, Meyers mentioned that he has arranged for four Belizean high school student-athletes to get scholarships to attend St. Jago College in Spanish Town, Jamaica, for four years, during which they will participate in track and field training exercises.

“I have an agreement with Jamaican College and St. Jago College, for four scholarships. They want four boys. They don’t have to be superstars or all-stars, but as long as I give them my approval that they have the ability, and they’ll have the desire to go to Jamaica. Full scholarships; room and boarding, transportation; back and forth, to Jamaica to attend St. Jago High School and run track and field for four years … If we can identify up to four boys, we can get them to Jamaica by September 1, next week, so long as they have all their shot records, their families are involved, and communicate. I’m sure it’ll take more than September 1, but on September 1, I’ll have four scholarships available for four young men to attend St. Jago High School and four more for Jamaica College, but wouldn’t be till the following year,” Meyers said.

For more information on the track and field scholarship in Jamaica, Meyers can be contacted via WhatsApp at 347-407-3583.