Jamaica Olympic Association and Jamaica Paralympic Association President Christopher Samuda has hailed the partnership between the Jamaica Lacrosse Association and The Mico University College as far more than a conventional institutional alliance, describing it instead as a bold template for transforming sport through education, human capital, and strategic investment.
Addressing a press conference at The Mico University College, Samuda argued that the collaboration reaches beyond the playing field and the classroom and enters the deeper work of nation-building. In his view, the initiative represents a serious intervention in the “infrastructure of sport,” not merely in terms of buildings and venues, but in the development of the minds and capacities that make sport sustainable.
“When education meets sport at the entrance of humanity, doors of opportunities are opened wide,” Samuda said.
Beyond facilities, a case for human capital
Samuda’s central message was that sport’s true foundation does not begin with concrete, turf, or steel. It begins with thought, planning, and people.
He said physical infrastructure can only emerge after human capital has first imagined and designed it, and he credited the Jamaica Lacrosse Association for doing exactly that while praising The Mico University College for creating the institutional space in which the vision could advance.
“For the physical facilities of sport are conceptualised and purposed by human capital. Before the facility, the structure, is built, the mind has to vision, conceive and construct it,” he said.
That, Samuda argued, is what gives the newly announced 2026 PALA Qualifier its wider significance. He described the event not as an isolated hosting opportunity, but as the early product of a more consequential fusion between academics and sport administration.
“The human capital of the Jamaica Lacrosse Association visioned, conceived and are constructing and The Mico University College has opened the door and the result is the birth of the 2026 PALA Qualifier. Congratulations.”
A sporting event, but also an economic proposition
Samuda placed the partnership in a broader framework of sport enterprise, insisting that modern sport must be treated as an asset-generating industry rather than merely a pastime or even a traditional business.
He said the Jamaica Olympic Association actively encourages its member associations and federations to position themselves to host regional and international competitions, conferences, and qualifiers because such events can generate revenue, build brand value, and create new streams of commercial activity.
“Our foreign policy at the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) encourages member associations and federations to put themselves in a position to create currency for their sport by hosting regional and international tournaments and conferences which provide opportunities for revenue generation from merchandising, digital streaming and gaming, broadcast rights, licensing arrangements, corporate sponsorship, concessions and sales online and at the gate,” he said.
In Samuda’s telling, the partnership between lacrosse and Mico therefore has importance not just in athlete development, but in economic design. When a sport becomes a recognized event property on the regional or global calendar, he said, it begins to take shape as an asset with room for commercialization, branding, and cultural monetization.
“Sport is no longer a business. It has become a multi-billion commercial enterprise in which entertainment and tourism are resident partners,” he said. “So we have to get with the programme and read the script properly.”
The script begins in the boardroom and classroom
Samuda repeatedly returned to the idea of a “script” for sport development, arguing that success begins long before competition starts.
For him, the script is written in boardrooms, lecture halls, tutorial rooms, and training environments where ideas are refined and systems are built. He urged the Jamaica Lacrosse Association and The Mico University College to see themselves not as participants in a routine partnership, but as architects of a new operating model for Jamaican sport.
“What then is the script for sport development? It begins in board room of the Jamaica Lacrosse Association and The MICO University College and in the tutorial rooms and lecture theatres of sport education, where the mind visions, conceives and constructs and then the script is written,” he said.
He warned, however, that Jamaica cannot continue to rely on what he described as a consumerist approach to sport. Spending without investment, he argued, does not build enduring systems.
“Before you put gas in a vehicle, you have to build it. If sport in Jamaica is to gain mileage, we have to fuel capital investment,” Samuda said.
Capital investment as the cornerstone
One of the sharpest sections of Samuda’s address focused on the need for capital investment in sport infrastructure and athlete development.
He said aspirations alone are insufficient if they are not matched by facilities and systems. Without the necessary physical spaces, he argued, talent is left stranded.
“Capital investment is the cornerstone of sport development,” he said. “The Olympic aspirations of a swimmer will drown without a pool. A basketballer will be a basket case if he or she does not have a court to pursue the Olympic dream. And crosses will come over a lacrosse team if members play on a dirt field mined with potholes and littered with stones.”
That reality, he said, makes this moment especially important for the Jamaica Lacrosse Association and The Mico University College, both of which he challenged to reject stale conventions and embrace a more disruptive, transformative role.
“Lacrosse and MICO, you must challenge that conventional modus operandi of consumerism and capitalise on the opportunity you have now to be educational revolutionaries if not innovators, radicals if not change makers, activists if not reformists,” he said.
From conversation to execution
Samuda’s speech was also an appeal for action.
He said Jamaica has spent too much time discussing transformation without sufficiently committing to execution, and he urged the institutions involved to convert promise into measurable, scalable outcomes.
“Too long has been the conversation for change and transformation in our country. Talkfests must now give way to action fests and this partnership has the ingredients to pen a script of a bestseller,” he said.
He encouraged both organizations to evaluate the commercial and academic value of what they are building, to conduct cost-benefit analysis, and to explore whether the program can be internationally certified and replicated for the benefit of other sporting bodies.
“Re-set it,” he said. “Do a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether, by internationalising the product you have created and having it globally certified, a viable business action plan for sport development can be made.”
He also urged them to use Mico as a base for replication and pipeline-building, describing the institution as a place that could produce “a conveyor belt of an enlightened citizenry of sport.”
A wider vision shaped by JOA and JPA ambitions
Samuda used the occasion to place the Lacrosse-Mico venture within the broader strategic posture of the JOA and JPA, both of which, he said, are pursuing a “first to market” culture.
He pointed to the JOA’s direct partnership with PUMA, its staging of an Olympic House to promote Jamaica’s brand at the Olympic Games, and plans for an Olympic commercial center that would include a restaurant, wellness center, sportswear retail operation, conference facilities, and the association’s administrative headquarters.
He said the Jamaica Paralympic Association is following a similar philosophy and has already leveraged its ties with the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean to help advance discussions around financing, through the government, for a High Performance Training and Competition Centre of Excellence in Jamaica.
“By osmosis, the Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA) is aspiring to be first to market,” Samuda said.
He added that Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee, had declared during a visit last year that Jamaica had “earned the right to be the hub of the development of Parasports in the Caribbean.”
Education as pension, sport as résumé
In one of the address’s more reflective passages, Samuda argued that the partnership arrives at a moment when both sport and higher education are evolving.
He said shorter competitive careers are making education increasingly essential for athletes, while universities are beginning to recognize that sport adds real value to a graduate’s profile in a competitive marketplace. In that sense, he said, the alliance between Mico and lacrosse serves both sectors at once.
“More and more, shelf lives in sport are compelling an understanding that education is your best pension and more and more university interests are realising the value of having sport on their résumés in a competitive market,” he said.
He then reached for a memorable metaphor to describe the richness of the partnership.
“If you have not realised it already, Lacrosse and MICO, you have a five course meal in this partnership. Pocket hors d’oeuvres, a top cheddar salad, a fast break appetizer, a cradling main entrée and a rip desert.”
A final warning and a final endorsement
Before closing, Samuda broadened the conversation into a critique of Jamaica’s educational and sporting culture.
He argued that too often the country emphasizes stuffing information into young minds rather than teaching them to think creatively, strategically, and expansively. He also warned against reducing athletes to commercial commodities, insisting that their bodies should be treated as “a temple of gifted talent of self-actualisation” rather than “an economic unit and a commercial mobile wallet in sport.”
That insistence on balance, between mind and body, commerce and principle, education and performance, underpinned his final commendation of the Jamaica Lacrosse Association and The Mico University College.
“I congratulate you both for forging this umbilical connection between education and sport, this equilibrium between the mind and body which will produce more of a balanced and functional citizen,” Samuda said.
He described the 2026 PALA Qualifier as the first fruit of that union and a signal of more milestones ahead, adding that the Jamaica Olympic Association is proud to back what he believes could become a landmark development in the national sporting landscape.
“The 2026 PALA Qualifier is the fruit of this connection and the forerunner of milestones beyond. The Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) is very proud to be an investor in a product that has the huge potential to be an historic game changer in sport.”
