Sum it up - Maggotty's Math teacher-turned-coach delivering results

Coach of Maggotty High School Xavier Hendricks, who is also a Mathematics teacher at the school, is excited about what they have managed to do so far in this season's ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup and is looking forward to them qualifying for the second round in this his first job as a football coach.

Despite their 3-1 loss to St Elizabeth Technical on Saturday, Maggotty occupies the second of two automatic qualification spots in Zone E with 11 points.

Hendricks, who himself last played daCosta Cup in 2010 for Munro College and who also represented Jamaica in Field Hockey, said being a Math teacher has helped his football programme.

"Maths has played its part in terms of the discipline, hard work and lots of practice. Doing math is a repeated work, so we had to bring it across to them that they will have to repeat things a lot to get it right and to remember these things," said Hendricks, who believes his boys have been playing some good football and just need to work on their prowess in front of goal.

"For me, football has always been a passion. I've always watched a lot of sides, so the technical aspect of the game, I have a good grasp of it. It (coaching) wasn't hard or entirely new per se to come in, but understanding the players that we have and trying to build a football philosophy around the school and team was the hard part of it," he added.

"I think that working on the defensive aspect of our game has helped. However, (because of) the injuries that we had coming into this game, we had to reshuffle some of the defensive players and that played on us conceding so many goals."

When asked of the challenges of coaching given that he had no real experience in the field, Hendricks said getting the players to adjust to the new programme was the only challenge.

"It was a very hard challenge because it was a rewiring process for the players. They weren't used to the type of training that we are giving them for this year. The fitness programme, the fast pace of the game in terms of the movement of the ball and the technical skills they weren't up to par with. So it was a tough and gruelling Summer to get them to where they are now," said Hendricks.

Today's ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup matches:

Green Pond vs Maldon

Merlene Ottey vs Green Island

Holland vs Spot Valley

St Mary Tech vs Tacky

Vere vs Central

Yallahs vs Paul Bogle