The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

IT’S not every day that one of our Bahamian athletes attains a NCAA Division One athletic scholarship and they graduate with a degree. Sprinter Karlton Rolle is the latest success story.

In June, Rolle graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) with his degree in biology. Last week, Rolle showed his appreciation by showing off his diploma to Jr McDonald, whose company, Baker Concrete/Greyco Limited, is the major sponsor for the Star Trackers Track Club.

“I’m really grateful to the sponsor because if it wasn’t for him, we really wouldn’t have all of the stuff that we had,” said Rolle, a graduate of Nassau Christian Academy and one of the senior members of the Star Trackers.

“I know our club relies a lot on our sponsor to help us as athletes, so I’m really grateful for his support to know he played a big part and like everybody who supported me, I’m really grateful. I had the opportunity to go off to school and with all of the support that I got, I want to say thanks to Mr McDonald for what he did for me.”

As a sponsor of Star Trackers, McDonald said head coach David Charlton has helped to groom the athletes prior to them departing for college and now they are seeing the fruits of their labour.

“Karlton Rolle just finished his degree and now he’s going back to medical school,” McDonald said. “That’s the satisfaction that I get out of sponsoring the club and the athletes.

“At the other side of that, I was at Bahamas Food Services buying some food for our Super Bowl party and there was a young lady there working who took care of me. She was a Tracker, but she got hurt, injured her leg and because she never fully recovered, she got out of the programme and she now has a great job.”

McDonald said while a lot of the Star Trackers’ athletes may not get the opportunity to go to college or university, they have developed themselves to become productive citizens.

At 9am Saturday, 23-year-old Rolle will be among the athletes competing in the 11th annual Star Performers Track Classic at the Thomas A Robinson Track and Field Stadium.

“We are basically training through this meet, so coach (Charlton) has us basically running 400s (metres) and 4 x 400s to basically see where we are,” said Rolle, a 100/200 metre specialist. “So you can expect a good effort from me.”

For the meet, McDonald said he will wait to see what unfolds at the stadium.

“We have a contingent from Canada, about 18 kids,” he said. That’s some serious bragging rights for them to come down to the Bahamas and win a bunch of medals and go home with them. But at the same token, the Bahamian athletes will be out to see that they don’t win any of the medals to take them out of the country. There will also be a team coming from Jamaica and we all know what that type of rivalry is all about. The Family Islands also have some talent, so it’s going to be an interesting meet to watch.”

At the end of the day, McDonald said they just hope to fill up the stands on Saturday as the spectators come out and cheer on the athletes as they compete for their respective clubs and country.