TT-born track and field coach Moseley Jack dies in Canada

MOSELEY Jack, a Trinidad and Tobago national who migrated to Canada in 1959 and went on to become a famed coach at Kajaks Track and Field Club for 41 years, passed away recently.

The 85-year-old first came to Canada at age 23 to study at the University of British Columbia with initial intent on becoming a doctor. However, he went on to become a teacher in the Richmond district and years later, a world class coach at Kajaks.

The Kajaks Track and Field Club Alumni announced on its Facebook page on Monday afternoon that they’d lost “another giant” in Jack.

Jack retired in February of this year after coaching at the club – which has produced several Olympic athletes – for an incredible 41 years.

“We find it difficult to put in to words the effect that coach Jack had on our club,” read the statement on the club’s Facebook page.

“Beginning with the club in September 1980, Moseley, like many other long-time coaches began coaching when his son Byron joined.

“From then on, coach Jack went on to become a world-class coach through his involvement with our Junior Development programme.

“Never compromising, consistently professional and always honest with his athletes, Moseley epitomised what it meant to take seriously the care for one’s athletes.”

The post went on to say that Jack always brought a motivating energy with him to practice and any athlete under his care knew that they were in the presence of a serious coach.

“Throughout his career, he touched the lives of every athlete to come through the club and often kept tabs on them throughout their careers…Rest easy coach.”

Jack, a 2018 Richmond Wall of Fame inductee, previously said that he stumbled into coaching by accident, after turning up at a Richmond elementary school track meet in 1980 with his son and daughter.

A Richmond News statement revealed the behind-the-scenes tale of Jack’s journey to becoming an athletics coach in Canada.

“A school teacher at the time, Jack had zero experience as an athletics coach and had absolutely no intention of taking up a coaching role at the local Kajaks club.

But later that same day, a blunt conversation with the club’s head coach at the time led to Jack spending the next 41 years honing the skills of the club’s younger athletes and earning himself the tag as a “Kajaks’ legend in the process.”

According to the Richmond News, after Jack’s retirement in February, he shared some of his previous experiences in TT before he migrated.

“I came from Trinidad and Tobago; we were not that advanced; there were no tracks there. I do remember someone doing the pole vault with a long piece of bamboo and landing on the ground on their bare feet,” said Jack back in February.

“We just played cricket and soccer, I knew very little about track and field.”

According to the Richmond News, it was a call from the Richmond School Board about a job that brought him back to the area and ultimately to the Kajaks.

“Everything I learned about coaching athletics, I learned it through the Kajaks or from national coaches,” added Jack, a 2018 Richmond Wall of Fame inductee.

“I went through all the coaching levels. I coached basketball at school as well, after someone showed me how the game works; that was another sport I knew very little about,” the late Jack said.

Kajaks’ head coach, Garret Collier, said earlier this year that it was “almost impossible” to measure how much of an impact Jack has had at the club over those four decades.

“During his time at Kajaks, with the junior development program, he’s touched the careers, at some point, of athletes who went onto national or Olympic levels,” Collier told the Richmond News