Local cricket fraternity loses national coach/manager

The local Cricket fraternity has been thrown into a state of mourning, following the death of Ortis Jack, last Tuesday.

Jack served as coach of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Under-15, Under-19, senior women’s team and most recently as manager of the senior men’s team.{{more}}

The latter appointment was last October, during the Windwards tournament in St Lucia.

Reports are that Jack was to have been part of a Talent Identification Programme, soon to be developed by the St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association.

National female cricketer Shevonne Clarke remembers Jack as an astute coach.

“My first actual interfacing with him was in 2010, when he was the coach of the team when the women’s tournament was held here… I realized he knew cricket and knew how to coach … He was easygoing and not one who dialogued regularly with the players,” Clarke told SEARCHLIGHT last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, president of St Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association Kishore Shallow also expressed his grief at the sudden death of Jack.

In a media release from the association, Shallow wrote: “I must admit that I am really taken aback and distraught by this loss. Ortis has been one of the positive forces behind my executive, and was an integral part of the machinery to move SVG cricket forward. His abrupt passing is a tremendous misfortune for cricket.

“OJ was a stalwart in every sense of the word, when it comes to his contribution to cricket in SVG and the Windward Islands. He has influenced and played a huge part in the lives of many of our young cricketers and sportspersons, and will forever be remembered for that,” the release added.

A teacher by profession, Jack also had a stint in a supervisory post at the National Sports Council.

Bill Edwards, an employee of the National Sports Council who worked with Jack during his tenure, remembers him as a brother and a father figure.

“He good to work with; never pushed us around,” Edwards recalled.

“Our association goes back to the early 1990s when we were both in trials for the St Vincent and the Grenadines Under-19 cricket team. Since that time we have been good buddies,” Edwards said of Jack, who, in his active cricket life, was a wicketkeeper/batsman.

Edwards, who plays for Rivals Two in the National Lotteries Authority Neil Williams Twenty/20 Cricket Competition, said that he will be making a special effort this weekend to make a big score, as a tribute to the life of Jack.

SEARCHLIGHT joins in expressing condolences to the bereaved of the late Ortis Jack.(RT)