Coach Mike ‘Mercy’ Ollivierre, IT-DAT aiming high

They call him ‘coach’, and that’s what Mike “Mercy” Ollivierre has been for just about all of his working life.

While he has spent the bulk of those years among athletes in Jamaica, Ollivierre tells SEARCHLIGHT that he always had a strong desire to return home to put his skills and talents to work in the land of his birth.

He got that opportunity around the time of political independence in 1979, but it “just did not work.”

Persons in the know say that his biting political commentary on the calypso stage helped to hasten the end of his tenure; so, while Ollivierre lost his job in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), he found a warm reception in Jamaica, where he had been coaching and lecturing since leaving university.

Ollivierre says he found work at “a school called St Elizabeth Technical, and… really flourished there as a coach,” running the sports department and rising to be a Level 5 coach – the highest level.

From that platform, he helped place Jamaican athletes on the regional and international stage, led national teams to the Carifta Games and World Championships, and was instrumental in 91 of his charges taking up athletic scholarships abroad over a period of 13 years.

An invitation from the Government in 2010 to come help make a difference on the athletics front saw Ollivierre packing his bags to return home to assist in the development of athletics.

…And, while his initial placements did not work out, Ollivierre remains clear on his mission to get Vincentian athletes to compete internationally. The five-year-old IT-DAT (Integrated Team Developing Athletic Talent) Academy is the vehicle that he is using to achieve this end.

“My objective really is to first of all, teach them about the sport, expose them some more, give them the opportunity to represent the country nationally and internationally, and most of all, try to create educational opportunities for them.”

The 60 athletes who are currently part of this holistic, year round programme work out at the Arnos Vale Sports Complex, where SEARCHLIGHT caught up with “Coach” during this year’s summer camp.

“We do strength, conditioning, flexibility, fitness.

“I teach them farming, how to look after plants and animals; we go to the beach, we just have fun; sometimes they don’t even realize the intensity of the workout,” Ollivierre states.

The bulk of athletes are in their pre-teens and early teens, but persons as young as eight have turned up and this year, a six-year-old who accompanied her teenage sister, was on board.

It takes about three years to make an athlete look good, Ollivierre explains, and it requires around seven to produce a quality athlete.

IT-DAT Academy has begun to reap some success at the national, inter-collegiate level and sub-regionally and Ollivierre is confident that soon, his charges will begin to spread their wings much farther.

“Out of this wide range of athletes I have here, I know it is inevitable, we are going to have prominent athletes in the future and it won’t be distant,” Ollivierre asserts.

Leadership development, mental stamina, overall discipline and a desire to do well academically are all areas of emphasis, “because…once you are physically fit you‘ll become mentally alert and you’ll produce much more in the class room.”

“Once you are weak, we try to make you stronger.”

It may therefore come as no surprise that IT-DAT Academy was voted Best Sports Club in the inaugural Best of SVG Awards earlier this year.

“I am honoured because it’s justification for the work that we do [and] the kids appreciate it,” Ollivierre acknowledges.