JAMAICA | Beyond the Final Whistle: JPA's "Sports Edupower" Confronts the Uncomfortable Truth About Athletic Careers

Jamaica Paralympic Association launches seminar series designed to transform athletes into architects of their own destiny

KINGSTON, Jamaica, February 3, 2026 - The roar of the crowd fades. The medals collect dust. The records, once thought untouchable, eventually fall. What remains when the final whistle blows on an athletic career?

This is the uncomfortable question the Jamaica Paralympic Association is forcing into the open with the launch of "Sports Edupower"—a seminar series that confronts head-on the precarious reality facing sportsmen and women who pour everything into careers with built-in expiration dates.

After the final whistle on the field of play, education continues and succeeds.

The Uncomfortable Arithmetic

For too long, Caribbean sport has celebrated the glory while ignoring the aftermath. Young athletes are lauded for their medals, paraded as national heroes, then quietly forgotten when age, injury, or circumstance ends their competitive careers.

The transition from elite athlete to ordinary citizen is often brutal—marked by financial instability, identity crisis, and limited professional options.

The JPA's Sports Edupower initiative refuses to accept this as inevitable. The seminar series, to be delivered by industry experts and JPA achievers, is designed to "reset the game on the field of play and boardroom for sport practitioners using the tool of education in re-engineering concepts and methodologies in academia and the business of sport," according to JPA President Christopher Samuda.

This is not motivational fluff. This is strategic intervention.

Living Proof: When Discipline Meets Education

The JPA is not trafficking in theory. They are showcasing athletes who have already walked this path.

Shauna-Kay Hines, a multiple medallist in para taekwondo across the Americas, recently earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Sport Leadership and Management with a minor in Facilities Management—graduating with Second Class Honours (Upper Division) from the University of the West Indies, Mona.

Her journey from Paralympic competition to academic achievement embodies exactly what Sports Edupower seeks to replicate.

"My degree represents edupower, edu-transformation, discipline—the same discipline it takes to train, to compete, persevere, fall and rise again," Hines declared.

Then there is Travis Ebanks, Chairman of the JPA's Athletes Commission and para badminton player, who has practiced law for over three years.

Last year, Ebanks represented Jamaica at the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the United Nations.

From the badminton court to the halls of the UN—this is the trajectory Sports Edupower envisions for every athlete willing to invest in their future.

Mikayla Brown, a para-archer with her sights fixed on the LA 2028 Paralympic Games, is simultaneously pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration at the University of Technology, majoring in Human Resource Management.

In November 2025, she represented Jamaica at the Junior Para Panamerican Games in Chile. Brown understands the dual track: "It's all about powering today's path to empower tomorrow's journey."

Architects of Destiny

JPA Director Ryan Foster articulates the organization's philosophy with clarity: "You come to sport with a dream to succeed. We do all that we can to inspire it so that, finally, you may live its reality, on merit, in the boardroom, on the turf and in the business of life in becoming the architects of your destiny."

This is the paradigm shift Caribbean sport desperately needs. Athletes should not be passive recipients of fleeting fame but active builders of sustainable futures. The sports industry itself is evolving globally—creating opportunities in management, marketing, facilities, law, media, and technology. Caribbean athletes can claim their share of this expanding landscape, but only if equipped with the educational tools to compete.

President Samuda frames it starkly: "There are no stop signs on your educational journey. You obtain knowledge and know-how in the classes and tutorials of academia and thereafter experience and social wisdom in the lecture theatres of the University of Life."

The Final Word

Shauna-Kay Hines offers the most compelling case for Sports Edupower—words that should be emblazoned on every training facility, every locker room, every athlete's mirror across the Caribbean:

"To my fellow para-athletes and able-bodied sportsmen and women, sport teaches us values and discipline, but education transforms them into power dividends. Medals fade, records are broken, but knowledge stays with you for life. Your sporting career has a timeline; your education doesn't. Be disciplined enough to prepare for your future, because long after the final race, match, or whistle, your mind will still be working for you."

After the final whistle, education continues. And succeeds.

-30-