The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER migrating to New Providence from Lowe Sound, Andros, three years ago, javelin thrower Keyshawn Strachan has thrown his name into the Bahamas national record books and now he’s headed off on a four-year scholarship to Auburn University.

Surrounded by his family members, Blue Chips Athletics and St John’s College Giants team-mates, the 17-year-old 6-foot, 5-inch Strachan signed his letter of intent, becoming the latest Bahamian to earn an athletic scholarship to a major division one school.

In an emotional time as he tried to hold back the tears, Strachan thanked everyone who supported him from the time he left Andros, transferring from North Andros High to St John’s College to continue his education.

“I want to thank you all for being there for me one day. I appreciate it,” said Strachan, who singled out his Blue Chips Athletics’ coach Corrington Maycock and St John’s College for embracing him and his family.

He noted that coach Pat Ebel, the assistant coach at Auburn University, made his decision an easy one, added to the fact that they have a great programme that will help his pursuit of a degree in aviation.

“My expectations at Auburn is to be the best athlete at Auburn and to achieve many accolades at Auburn,” he stated.

Strachan, who erased Grenada’s Anderson Peters’ record at the last CARIFTA Games staged in 2019 in George Town, Cayman Islands, is coming off an appearance at the World Athletics’ World Under-20 Championships, in August in Nairobi, Kenya, where he finished seventh in the men’s javelin final with a best of 70.30m.

“It’s an honour and I’m grateful and I just want to thank you all for showing up. I appreciate you all and I will continue to make you all proud,” he stated.

No one was more proud of his achievement than his mother Dukisha Moss.

“I want to express how proud I am of Keyshawn. He’s the first one in the family to attend a university and so I’m just so thankful,” she said.

“God’s grace and mercy has brought him this far. As he said, there were many challenges along this journey, but we overcame them all together.”

She expressed her gratitude to Maycock for his stickability in ensuring that her son succeeded, along with her parents, including her mother Sabrina Moss, who was also present.

Strachan’s sisters Kamara Strachan and Ramaya Knowles, brothers Malachi Knowles and Carson Roberts, his aunt Charmaine Munroe-Lubin and his cousin Tamari Wallace were also in attendance.

In June on day one of the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations’ National Track and Field Championships Friday night at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium, Strachan shattered the Bahamian national record with a heave of 71.62m or 234-feet, 11-inches to erase the previous national record of 70.72m (234-0) by Denzel Pratt at the Big South Championships in Charleston, South Carolina on May 12, 2017.

His Blue Chips Athletics coach Corrington Maycock said he remembers three years ago when the CARIFTA Games was being staged in the Bahamas and he advised Dukisha Moss to look for her son to sign an athletic scholarship.

Yesterday, that dream became a reality.

“It’s on to the next. I have a lot of athletes I have to prepare for this same process,” Maycock said.

“In Blue Chips, we look forward to the kids going off to school. That’s what we’re all about.”

Although he will be heading into his freshman year at Auburn, Maycock said they have already agreed that Strachan will only compete in about five meets to get ready for the World Junior Championships in Colombia in 2022 and the Olympic Games in Paris, France in 2024.

“That’s the end game, but everything is just taking it one day at a time,” Maycock said.

To the other members of the Blue Chips Athletics team that will remain here, Maycock encouraged them to continue to work hard and stay focused and the same thing will happen for them.

“We reload, we don’t replace,” he said. “Beside Keyshawn, we have Nathaniel Zervos, Cailyn Johnson, G’Shan Brown, Calea Jackson, Caden Cartwright and Nicholas Zervos.

“Those are the ones in the next two years that we have to get ready for the same occasion as Keyshawn.”

To his team-mates, who are expected to follow in his footsteps, Strachan expressed his confidence that Maycock will provide the same opportunity for them as he did for him, but they have to “work hard” and “they will get there.”

BAAA president Drumeco Archer, referring to Strachan as the next Keshorn Walcott, Trinidad & Tobago’s 2012 Olympic Games’ gold medallist, said Strachan has proven to be a supreme athlete over the years of his junior career.

“It reminds me of 2012 when we saw the young Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad & Tobago, who would have won the CARIFTA Games, setting a CARIFTA record and then going on in the same year to win the Olympic Games,” Archer said. “I believe that Keyshawn Strachan has the very same characteristics, the very same trajectory and the very same physicality. He is extraordinary in the sense that I don’t think that anyone in this country has seen the likes of Keyshawn Strachan and I believe that the future is bright for Keyshawn.”

As a federation, Archer said the BAAA’s mandate is not just to raise incredible athletes, but to produce wonderful Bahamians who are productive and are able to make wonderful contributions to Bahamian society.

“I believe this is a very special and proud moment for his family,” Archer said. “His mother just whispered to me that we’ve broken the family curse by Keyshawn becoming the very first person in his family to have been given an athletic scholarship.

“I believe this is an event that will not only change his life, but the life of his family.”

On behalf of the BAAA, Archer encouraged Strachan to “shoot for the stars” as he ventures into the next phase of his athletic career, which was fuelled by the relentless efforts of Maycock.