Past Pocket Rocket scholar encourages new recipients to defy odds
· The GleanerTahj Lumley, the youngest Jamaican to attain levels one and two in squash coaching, says the road to victory was not an easy one for him, especially when he faced forms of abuse as a teenager.
“It was a series of physical abuse, mental abuse and emotional abuse. [But] I would still show up to training and social spaces, because at the time, I only knew that I was being physically abused, but not mentally and emotionally abused,” Lumley said.
He admitted that, at the time, he was embarrassed to share what he was going through, but he pushed forward, maintained good grades, and won tournaments, eventually becoming the national champion and ranking third in the Caribbean for his age group.
Lumley, who achieved levels one and two certification at 19 years old, says the journey to this accomplishment was met with criticism, and he struggled with a lack of funds to travel to Guyana and pay for the certification.
“When I made the decision, I didn’t have the money, but I wanted to get the certification done. I reached out to a few people. I got the ‘yes’. I kept getting the ‘yes’ and I went and I got certified,” Lumley said on Wednesday, while delivering his address as guest speaker at Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s annual Pocket Rocket Scholarship Awards presentation, which was held at AC Hotel Kingston.
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“But on that journey to getting certified, being nosey as Tahj was, [and] that’s exactly how I started playing squash, I saw a message that someone said about me, that ‘I don’t think he can do level one and two in one week’. Bear in mind, I could only afford to go there for one week because I didn’t have the money,” he recalled.
Typically, levels one and two certification take two and a half weeks, but after receiving that message, Lumley was determined to prove the person wrong – and he did. He travelled to Guyana, got certified, and returned to receive congratulations from the same person who had doubted him.
In an effort to inspire younger individuals facing similar challenges, Lumley recalled that, “as a little boy from Kyntyre in Papine,” he used sports – specifically squash – to rise above the hardships he was experiencing.
“I would oftentimes hear the words, ‘Squash nah tek you no weh’. But, I can now look back and see how much of a favour it did for me actually. Every day I woke up, for six months, all I wanted to do was to win. Years later, the boy who was not going anywhere with squash was selected at the age of 16 to represent his national team, not at the junior level, but at the senior level,” he added. He also won five national junior championships, held the top rank in the Caribbean for five years, and represented Jamaica at the World Teen Championship at 19.
In 2013, Lumley was nominated for the Pocket Rocket Foundation Scholarship by his coach, Jeremy Parkinson, but he found it difficult to inform him of his selection. However, fate intervened when Lumley encountered Parkinson on the road shortly after and shared the news that he was now a scholar.
“That ‘yes’ from Jeremy Parkinson to try squash, changed my life... While being a student athlete having to maintain good results in high school, in my sporting discipline was no easy feat. It was harder when you have people in your corner that were not necessarily the best for you and do not want to see you strive in whatever endeavours you want to do or that your heart desires,” Lumphey said.
“This [could] come in the form of a family member. It may come in the form of people that are in circles that you’re associating yourself with. It could be your friends,” he said.
Lumley is the only scholar for the Pocket Rocket Scholarship Awards who has been chosen from the sporting discipline squash. The 20 awardees this year represent the largest cohort selected from various sporting disciplines.
His words of advice for this year’s scholars is: “As a recipient of this scholarship, it does not end when you end high school, because there is so much more that through this foundation, you will be able to experience, and one of those is giving back,” he said.