Oshane Murray: When The Unthinkable Happens

When something horrific or unthinkable happens and changes the course of our lives, our instant reaction is to look back to basically see if we did enough, or ask ourselves if we could have done things differently. Reason being those hours, days and years we can't get back. Every new day is the first day in the rest of our lives.

I don't think Patricia McIntosh or Luke Murray will be asking themselves anything or looking back based on the unfortunate circumstances befalling their son OSHANE ALTON MURRAY January 30, 2013.

Oshane in my view is an accomplished Jamaican Tae Kwon Do athlete despite his young age. Coaches Jason McKay and Claude Chin would attest to this in an instant. While I could not even perform a kick to hurt a fly, this young man racked up Tae Kwon Do trophies as if he was addicted to them.

I first heard of Oshane's accident on the news, and almost instantly had a headache. My first thought was on his parents (being a parent myself), since he was a young university student at The University of Technology UTECH. He was performing outside his customary discipline (Tae Kwon Do) and hurt himself (spinal injury causing no movement in his lower body) doing a cheerleading manoeuvre at school. He was attempting a summersault when he missed his step and landed badly on his head at a very acute angle. It is no stretch of the imagination to feel the distress of his Tae Kwon Do coaches; the agony of his parents needs no description.

Some timelines may elude me but I will try to give you an idea of what this young boy achieved while still an adolescent. He was just starting to compete as an adult when the unthinkable happened.

US Open Junior Champion - Orlando Florida - July 2010

US Open Champion - Orlando Florida - July 2011

ITF Pan Am Bronze Medallist - Quebec City, Canada - June 2012

Member of Jamaica Combined team winning CAC games - Orlando Florida - July 2012

ISKA Middleweight World Champion - Valkenberg, Holland - November 2012

As you can clearly see from the results above, this was no ordinary athlete.

Oshane attended the following schools:

• VT Evangelistic Basic School
• Tarrant Primary School
• Calabar High School
• UTECH majoring in Electrical Engineering

Oshane is an example to all including myself to not waste your God given time and talent while you have it. Oshane was not even 20 years old at the time of his accident and look at all he achieved. For that fact and for that fact alone, the notion of what could have been does not come to my mind. What readily comes to my mind is wow, he achieved all that? Oshane lived a lifetime in an instant and anyone who plays any form of sport can appreciate that. Many people have competed for years without that level of success.

My heart goes out to his parents as I know this is one of the worst situations for a parent to be in; the feeling of helplessness must be stifling. Nevertheless, I am sure the pride they have in their son's achievements may alleviate some of the pain they are now feeling.

Oshane is currently on Ward 5 at the University Hospital of the West Indies and I am praying for a miracle.



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© 2013 Antonio Bell. All rights reserved

Disclaimer

All the commentary posted in this publication are my personal view(s) and do not reflect the view(s) of any Association, Federation or Governing Body.

Life After The Costa Rica Episode March 26

Analyzing our performance against Costa Rica to me would be an exercise in futility. I could just replace the word Panama with Costa Rica in the blog I did after our game against Panama. We were tactically outmaneuvered once again. We are playing as if we got an automatic berth into Rio 2014 and are just fulfilling the fixtures; that is how we look.

Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico play very similar styles of football; this is nothing new. Short snappy passes, possession football, crowding defense, and packed midfield, this is a given. I can't really pin down what the hell type of football we are playing. I can't identify a style of football we are currently using. One thing is certain, nobody else is playing our style of football. For now I will just call it 'The Unidentifiable Style'.....TUS.

We can recap with the blog post below about a football philosophy that is needed in Jamaica.
http://antoniobell.blogspot.com/2013/02/jamaica-needs-football-philosophy.html

More pressure will befall Tappa if he continues to NOT find answers for the tactics of the opponents. What I am quite amazed at is how we can clearly see what the opposition is doing against us, but we can't quite decipher what it is the Reggae Boyz are trying to do; in all fairness I only saw a strategy in the Mexico game.

Only if your team is ULTIMATELY SUPERIOR to everyone else you can afford to play the same way all the time (Barcelona/Spain). However, if you are the Reggae Boyz, you play according to your opponents strengths and weaknesses. Hence, Tappa will have to buy, rent, borrow or steal some shrewdness like right now. The opponent has to be dissected, analyzed, weakened and beaten; my new mantra 'do unto other teams what they are currently doing to us'.

Tappa is now becoming like my son, no matter what I tell him to do he refuses and it comes around to bite him. I put forward a strategy to counterattack the Costa Rica team, he chose to do his own thing and we see what happened......2 inna wi gizzad (there's the bite).

We have made absolutely no preparation for the loss of any of our key players and I spoke to this quite early on, but is Tappa listening?
http://antoniobell.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-fabulous-four.html

I gave you the team and strategy for Panama.....you didn't listen.
http://antoniobell.blogspot.com/2013/02/my-xi-against-panama-march-22.html

I gave you the team and strategy for Costa Rica....you didn't listen.
http://antoniobell.blogspot.com/2013/03/my-xi-against-costa-rica-march-26.html

Against my better judgement I am once again going into my strategy bag, to produce the team and strategy for Mexico June 4, and if you don't listen this time.......I can't be held responsible.

Tappa, as soon as I have prepared it I will contact you.

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© 2013 Antonio Bell. All rights reserved

Disclaimer

All the commentary posted in this publication are my personal view(s) and do not reflect the view(s) of any Association, Federation or Governing Body.

Costa Rica 2 Jamaica 0 - Ah Bwoy

Tappa...Tappa...Tappa....can you hear me Tappa? I get the strange feeling Tappa is ignoring me.

I actually don't know where to start, and honestly this may be a very short blog.

Funny enough, we are still in this World Cup Campaign; we are just making things as hard as possible for ourselves.

There is basically nothing I can say/write that I have not said/written already; so I would basically be repeating myself. I picked the team, gave the strategy, what more can I do? ...........lol.

Friends, all I can say is just look at some of my previous blogs. I don't want to seem like I am berating my National team coach.

I don't think Tappa knows how much humiliation I have to endure (being an ardent Reggae Boyz fan) with results like these. I will just give one comment that a friend (A fool Dayton tek mi coach fah inuh) posted on Facebook to me, he wrote, 'Yow..Bell...a man say wid dem performance here wi definitely a go Rio........Rio Cobre'. How am I to endure things of this nature?

I have one question, who stole Tappa's tactics book? Bring it back now the nation is in need.

Somehow I know Tappa had his tactics book in Mexico, but it seems to have been misplaced. I am willing to go and help look for it.

Every other team is doing what they have to do, doing what they need to do......except Jamaica. This is very distressing.

Tappa, I gave you some advice already but there is one I think you should really take seriously. In the interest of our country I will put it here again.

• Call Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho or Tito Vilanova and get some tips on how to use the players you have or get the players you need to carry out your game plan and strategy.

Friends I will have to endure the pain of watching this game again before I write anything else on it. I feel like someone gi mi two eayzaz box and mi disoriented. After Costa Rica scored the first goal everything became a blur.

Until then..............

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© 2013 Antonio Bell. All rights reserved

Disclaimer

All the commentary posted in this publication are my personal view(s) and do not reflect the view(s) of any Association, Federation or Governing Body.