The members of the St George’s College football team embrace their coach Neville ‘Bertis’ Bell in a hug following his tribute on behalf of the team
Dominic Allessandro James was said to be a young man of few words, and even when he spoke, his was a soft voice.
However, the tears shed for him yesterday, as well as the glowing tributes in his memory, left no doubt that he had made a huge impact at St George’s College as well as among the schoolboy football fraternity.
The 18-year-old was pronounced dead on Tuesday at the University Hospital of the West Indies after collapsing off the ball two minutes into a Manning Cup match between St George’s, which he captained, and Excelsior High School at the Stadium East field in Kingston.
Yesterday, the shock and pain of his passing still hung heavy in the air as students and administrators from other schools — North Street neighbours Kingston College, Holy Trinity High, Convent of Mercy (Alpha), Wolmer’s Boys’, Calabar High, Jamaica College, and Bridgeport High — filled the Holy Trinity Cathedral, next door to St George’s, for a special morning devotion.
“Imagine how him mother mus’ feel man,” one student whispered to another as they made their way into the Holy Trinity Cathedral. The comment, heard a number of times throughout the morning, was particularly poignant as Dominic was an only child for his parents, who were unable to make it to the devotion.
St George’s football Coach Neville Bell was still in tears as he recalled his first sighting of the talented footballer.
“He came to us from Jamaica College, and I remember when I saw him for the first time he was actually at training… and I turned to my assistant coach and said ‘who’s that?’ And he told me who he was and where he was coming from, and I said, ‘Bwoy, he is a wonderful player’ and then I found out he was just a wonderful person,” Bell said before the start of the devotion.
“After two years at St George’s College we named him the captain of the team, said that’s how high we held him,” added Bell, himself a St George’s past student.
He added that nothing seemed amiss with Dominic before the match, as at the start of every season each player undergoes a physical check-up and he wasn’t informed at any time at all that anything was wrong.
“Dominic was a wonderful young man, he was the captain of the team. We certainly didn’t expect anything like this. These things happen, and again we just have to deal with this and God will take us through, I’m certain of it. I’m not certain how we will be, but eventually we will be fine,” Bell said.
“I know the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association will have a meeting later today to decide whether the games on Friday will be played. We want to play, we don’t know what will happen, we don’t know if we will be strong enough to do it but we want to play; we do not want to disrupt the competition and it is unfortunate, but death is a part of life, whether we agree or not,” Bell said.
“I guess for years to come we will be wondering why an 18-year-old like that with such a bright future was taken away, but we want to play,” he added tearfully.
The majority of Dominic’s teammates could not hold back the tears before, during and after the service.
“A mi brother, a mi brother…now him gone, him gone,” one of the footballers who had to be repeatedly escorted outside, kept repeating following the devotion.
The entrance hymn
Great Is Thy Faithfulness was followed by verbal and musical tributes to the cheerful young man who was said to be always smiling.
Education Minister and former Jamaica College Principal Ruel Reid endorsed all the statements that were made about the footballer, acknowledging him as “one of my standout students”. He pointed out that Dominic, during his years at Jamaica College, captained the Under-14 and Under-16 teams.
“Our strength is in God, this experience shows how frail we are as human beings. We never can tell what the future holds and so, for all of us as Christian believers, we want to live each day as if it were our last,” Reid told the congregation.
St George’s College Acting Principal Dane Soares said that, while Dominic came to St George’s from Jamaica College, he quickly became a part of the Georgian family as “he has become a part of us and we too are now a part of him”.
“He was a pleasant, amiable young man, always smiling, always laughing and he spoke softly. I was speaking to the goalkeeper this morning and he was distraught. He said to me, ‘Dominic was my brother’, and that showed the impact this young man had in his year-and-a-half at St George’s College,” Soares told the packed cathedral.
Vice-Principal Suzette Mullings-Douglas said that, while she could speak of Dominic’s star qualities as a footballer, she would rather share how she, as well as the other members of the St George’s family, felt when they realised that he had died.
To do that, she chose a verse from
O Captain! My Captain! the poem written by Walt Whitman after the death of US President Abraham Lincoln.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won.