Kingston College Stalwarts Honored at Michigan State University

By Ray Ford (1970)

Ray Ford

If winning the mantle-piece football game on a college campus makes for a good Homecoming Weekend, then the one at Michigan State University a few weeks ago certainly wasn't. Unfortunately, the MSU Spartans got roughed up by lowly University of Illinois – a football team purposely scheduled as a push-over, to lighten spirits and loosen wallets. Thankfully, there were other fish to fry on this sprawling 5,000 acre campus in East Lansing, where alumni, friends and families returned to tailgate, share memories, swap stories, have cook-outs, and meander through winding trails guarded by golden-tinged trees.

This year marked the 50th Anniversary of Men’s Soccer at Michigan State and among those returning to take part in the festivities this time around, were Dr. Payton Fuller, Dr. Tony Keyes, and Mr. Junior Higgins, Kingston College old boys and past stalwarts of the soccer program here, along with members of their families.

A banquet was held for the healthy turnout of players from all six eras on the Saturday night - September 30th. Then on Sunday at 10:00 am, the oldsters took the field behind the Jennison Field House for a `BenGay' game, which served as the curtain-raiser to the regular Michigan State – Indiana University Big Ten Conference soccer fixture. At half-time, the past players were recognized, and to commemorate the occasion, were presented with crystal paperweights bearing the university’s insignia.

Tony Keyes, 1966-1968	Trevor Harris, 1966-1968	Payton Fuller, 1966

On this a sunny October day where fall inkled but summery temperatures prevailed, I managed to catch up with all three in the stands, on hand to see their team hold top-ranked Indiana to a 1-1 tie after regular time, only to go down 1-2 in the second overtime period.

Perusing the 2006 Media Guide, even if one was K.C.-biased, the individual records in terms of goals and assists, speak for themselves. Tony Keyes still heads the categories of both goals scored for a season and for career, with 28 and 56 respectively. "And in those days, as a freshman (first year student) I had to sit out my first year," Tony reminds. Since then, the rules have changed allowing first year students to play immediately - if good enough. And yet the achievements of the KC stalwarts, still stand. Trevor Harris still ranks third all-time with 23 goals in a season and 48 in a career, just ahead of Mabricio Ventura with 22 and 46 respectively. Then there is Cecil Heron - 19/32 in 7th place. In the category of assists, Harris ranks second all-time with 14 in a season and eighth for a career, with 20. Payton Fuller is 10th in the latter category with 18.

The story of Kingston College and Jamaican recruits coming to Michigan State is a fortuitous one. The university’s first soccer coach, whose stint began in 1956 and lasted for 14 years, was Gene Kenney. He too was at the weekend reunion and looked as sprightly as ever. The connection between coach Kenny and Jamaica was made through a friendship between himself and the Jamaican sprinting great Herb McKinley who went on to strike `Gold’ along with Arthur Wint, Leslie Laing and George Rhoden in the 4 x 400m relay and `Silver’ in the 100m, and 400m in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Both were students together at University of Illinois, when Herb had won the NCAA championship in the 200 yd and 440 yd in 1946 and 1947, and in the latter year had the world’s best times in the 100m, 200m and the 400m in 10.3, 20.4 and 46.2 respectively – still an unparalleled feat.

Soccer was merely a club sport at MSU when Kenney arrived as a wrestling coach. Somehow the sport got into his vein, and Gene was offered the job by the Athletic Director to coach the group and transform soccer into a varsity sport. And so in 1956 Michigan State made history by being the first Big Ten university to anoint soccer as a varsity sport. On becoming soccer coach, Gene then looked beyond the U.S. to help boost the program. He approached Herb for leads, who immediately tapped into his vast athletic network back home in Jamaica. Things then started to move.

The first men to come up - Pat Maglashan Jr., and Mabricio Ventura, were recruited from Kingston College on track scholarships. Before coming to Michigan State in 1959, Pat Jr., following in his father’s footsteps, was undefeated in the high jump in four appearances for KC at the Inter-scholastics Championship Sports. While Ventura, excelling at cricket, soccer and track, some argue, might have been the best all-round schoolboy athlete Jamaica has ever produced. After his first year in East Lansing, `Mauve’ switched his scholarship to soccer. Cecil Heron, another Jamaican, was recruited from Detroit as soccer player.

But the first man to really come to Michigan State on a soccer scholarship from Kingston College was Payton Fuller, and that was in 1962. Payton, a bustling forward at school, whose charming mom ran the cafeteria at the North Street campus for several years, might be best known for taking a catch at short leg to dismiss the great Maurice Foster for a duck in a 1962 Sunlight Cup match.

Tony Keyes followed Fuller, after that glorious undefeated final season in 1964 at Kingston College where he captained the soccer team coached by George Thompson, to Manning Cup and Oliver Shied supremacy. Trevor Harris his cannon-footed inside-right came in 1966, followed by midfielder Frank Morant and the goalkeeper Leslie Lucas in 1967. Reports have it that Lucas who was always keen to demonstrate his independence, upon arrival at the Detroit Metro Airport, jumped into a metered taxi and directed the driver to take him to East Lansing, some 90 miles west. Needless to say, at the end of the journey, only the taxi driver was pleased.

Efforts were made to have the likes of Lloyd McClean and Michael Vernon come on scholarships too. But having inked semi-professional deals along with Neville Oxford for Baltimore-based teams, they became ineligible. Nevertheless, as most familiar with KC know, like peas to rice, Micky Vernon cannot be too far from Frank Morant and visa versa. "He is my Achilles Heel," Micky would always say of Morant. And so `Mouse' as he is popularly called, came to study at nearby Saginaw Valley State College. Other familiar names to be in the area at the time, were Las Talbot who played Sunlight Cup cricket for K.C., after transferring from St Georges College, and Jimmy Grant and Roven Lock who were on a track scholarships at nearby Eastern Michigan University. Other household names here in the same era were Joseph Rochester from Calabar High School, Leighton Dennis from Kingston Technical High School and Bertie Peters from St. Georges College. The latter two attended the University of Michigan.

In 1969, the last batch of soccer players came to Michigan State from Jamaica. From Kingston College there were defender Junior Higgins and forward Gerry Murray, from Wolmers there was goalkeeper Nick Dujon, and from St. George’s College, the close-laced dribbler Lennox Robinson and the towering center-half Nigel Goodison. That was the last year of Coach Kenney's tenure and of the granting of scholarships to soccer players at MSU. Payton Fuller then assumed the coaching duties, becoming the first black head coach of a Big Ten program - a position he would hold for four seasons 1970-73, ending with a respectable 20-8-9 winning record. Why the blazing trail flickered and extinguished, no one knows for sure. But it certainly is a chapter tinged with a little sadness. "If it were me, I would have played for free, (without a scholarship)," said Keyes, with a look of dismay, in reference to complaints from some that they were not on parity with athletes from the university's football program. "Well, Jamaican soccer players are being recruited by schools on the east coast now," said Fuller managing a smile, but unable to mask his disappointment. A grand tradition had trailed off into vapor.

Of the lot, Heron (1959), Fuller (1964), Harris (1967-68) and Keyes (1968) were All-America selections, and between 1963 and 1968, Michigan State made NCAA Tournament Appearances and were NCAA Co-Champions in 1967 and 1968. And not by coincidence did those glory days and the presence of these men from North Street come about. The Jamaicans played a major role.

But the grand memories remain. Who can forget those rollicking parties at 302 M.A.C Avenue, the Hull and Oakhill Apartments, at Vine Street, those put on by Audley `Safro' Bailey in Pontiac, and the more sedate dinners hosted by Tony and his wife Geraldine, who together with their son, daughter-in-law and grandson, all made the trip. Then there were the weekend drives to neighboring states to play soccer friendlies, and the hilarious stories told en route. The `curry goat' cricket matches at Belle Isle, the limbo contests, the pranks and provocations, the parsing of telephone bills, the prying loose of rent money, the unauthorized use of a personal food and/or liquor stock, the attendant recriminations, and everything else that communal living can bring.

When they fanned out, Payton who now resides in Florida, went on to earn his doctorate in mechanical engineering and to hold several key positions in the auto industry before joining the staff at Nova Southeastern University as a Visiting Professor. Keyes went on to dental studies at Howard University in Washington D.C, where he still runs a successful dental practice. Harris, a successful businessman in Jamaica, represented Jamaica in soccer and had coaching stints with K.C, and Junior Higgins with his degree in chemical engineering, embarked on a successful career in the oil industry with AMOCO and BP in the Houston area. Lennox Robinson, very successful in the IT industry, resides in Jamaica along with Gerry Murray and Frank Morant. While Nick Dujon, now a lawyer, chose Belize

For Keyes, it began over 46 years ago when he transferred from Merle Grove High School to Kingston College when the former institution became all-girls. "I attended Merle Grove too," reminded Pauline, who was accompanying her husband Junior Higgins along with their son on this reunion trip. At that time the Merle Grove playing field was the Mecca of soccer for the Constant Spring - Red Hills area youths on a Saturday. And of course, Keyes was a stand-out, more so when he began attending KC. It was Foggy Burrows who in an early piece in his Sports Life magazine, put the sporting public on notice. Tony was a three-sport athlete until a fast one from pacer Cyril Buchanan, beat his bat into his shin. In track & field he was a high jumper, a fleet-footed hurdler and a sprinter quick enough to harbor thoughts of upstaging the future Olympian Lennox Miller in a 100 meter dash. "Anyhow Lennox get up any little funny way...., " he would always say on the morning of the big race at Champs. In 1964, Tony was a member of the first group of high school athletes from Jamaica to grace the famous Penn Relays held in Philadelphia where the K.C. quartet of Jimmy Grant, Rupert Hoilette, himself and Miller won the 4 x 110 sprint relay in successive years in times of 42.7 and 41.9. With an eye for fashion they could also be credited with making Flagg Brothers men’s shoes popular in Kingston.

But soccer was, and always will be it for Keyes. And the goal he remembers most? The one against St. George’s College. Marked tightly by the stocky Bruce Lyn just outside the penalty box towards the sea, Keyes dribbled from right to left, toying with the center-half like a jabbing heavyweight boxer before unleashing a sizzling left-footer that lodged in the left pigeon-hole. "And they say I didn't have a left foot," he still says with a chuckle. What seems to pique him most? Any comparison to a later Wolmer’s XI which some pundits claim would have given his 1964 side a run for its money. “Remember they had to sent to Brazil for a team to beat us,” said Tony proudly.

Trevor Harris his side-kick, was a no-nonsense wicketkeeper-batsman, and a forward who kicked hard, with either foot and without much a-do. He was an enforcer of sorts whose play beside Keyes was sheer artistry, best described at the time by the legendary Derrick Tomkinson, a coach and sports announcer associated with Jamaica College. In and out of the football side in 1963 under coach Trevor Parchment, Harris would come into his own in the '64 side and `ran things' in the '65 team. Considered ruthless by some, `Jumpy' is one of the most giving individual one could ever hope to meet. He remains Tony's closest friend and a business partner.

Junior Higgins was a solid left-back at school, who was kind enough to arrange boarding for me with his parents at Woodingham Drive in Detroit, Michigan in my first years here. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of life, we forget to remind ourselves of the little kindnesses others have extended to us along the way. This homecoming served to rekindle those memories.

Besides, I think the '64-65 KC era spawned more than just soccer. It galvanized a young urban society from uptown and downtown Kingston, and set the bar at a high level for how individuals should compete fiercely while still maintaining good friendships and mutual respect. If a `most-favorite-opponent' poll were to be taken, I think that KC team and this core group of players would come out winners. Just ask the likes of Dennis Anderson, Leibert Angus, Corcell Blair, Steve Bucknor, George Burke, Ossie Carr, Patrick Chin, Alan Cole, Michael Fray, Bunny Goodison, Kingsley Goodison, `Muggy' Graham, Roven Lock, Bruce Lyn, Warwick Lyn, Ali McNab, Peter Morgan, Micky Mowatt, Neville Myton, Ansel Philp, Micky West, Orville Williams or any of the host of others who competed in that era. Two, in the Georgians Jackie Bell and Dennis Zaidie who sadly left us, were also great friends of that KC squad. Good friendships are the delicious desserts of sports and the school tie. And lest we forget these sportsmen also opened doors and afforded a myriad of economic opportunities to several.

On the lighter side, I can't forget tagging along with Tony to those elaborate Saturday mid-day buffets religiously put on by Winston Chung Fah at his Princess Street restaurant, where, as Keyes would say, "anybody who was anybody" had to be there. Neither can I forget those breezy late night drives to Copa Cabana way out on the St Thomas Road to hear Merritone do his thing, as the rough south coast sea tumbled in. Then we would wind things down on Sunday evenings with a nice dinner at Aunt Kate's and Mas Nimrod deep in the interior of Hope Gardens. Those days I would never trade.

Ray Ford is a project manager in the Michigan Department of Transportation. He attended KC from 1963-1970 and played Sunlight Cup cricket in 1970. He graduated from Michigan State University with BSME and MBA degrees.

Top