JGHS welcomes Kareem Streete-Thompson for inspirational talk

Dozens of high schoolers hung on every word of Caymanian sporting icon Kareem Streete-Thompson, who offered inspiration and guidance for those chasing success.

Streete-Thompson addressed students inside the John Gray High School performance hall on Thursday, 14 Dec. – a talk that followed the collaborative efforts between Digicel and the Ministry of Education.

It was the first time since 2018 that Streete-Thompson, a three-time Olympian and World Championship competitor in long jump, had been home.

Giving back to youth was at the top of his priorities during his visit.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Streete-Thompson told the Compass following his speech. “Being able to connect with young men and women is very high on my list. If I can motivate in any way, that’s something always heavy in my mind.”

Streete-Thompson, current University of Texas at San Antonio associate head coach and former Rice University track and field standout, was inducted into the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame in 2022. Now married to wife Jackie, and with two children, Janae and Kaiya, he said his time away from Cayman was due to the pandemic.

“You know, COVID was COVID, but during that time, in the last five years, I’ve just been focusing inwards; my family. I have two daughters, and they are getting to that age now where I need to be very much involved.”

Streete-Thompson, who many consider a pioneer of athletics in Cayman, ranks among the country’s most accomplished athletes.

He was the first athlete from Cayman to win Pan-American, Central American and Caribbean and Commonwealth titles. Those included a bronze at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, three golds at three separate CAC Games, and a silver at the 1999 PanAm Games.

He holds the Cayman Islands national long jump record of 8.64m – set in 1994, and he still holds the CARIFTA record of 7.94m – set in 1990.

He is the only Caymanian in history to claim a CARIFTA record in athletics.

Although he is renowned throughout Cayman, Streete-Thompson wanted to introduce himself to the John Gray students – a new generation that perhaps isn’t familiar with who he is and what he has done.

“I needed to make sure they knew that I was one of them,” the former John Gray student said. “I was determined to reconnect in some form. This was a perfect opportunity to almost kind of reintroduce myself, because some of these kids have no idea.

“They’ve heard the name, but they have probably never seen me in person.”

From there, he reflected on his accomplishments and some of the hurdles he overcame. The students sat quietly, listening as he reminisced on the time he was 11 years old and watching his idol, Carl Lewis, on TV.

He talked about watching Lewis win four gold medals. “The crux of the story was, seven years later, I lined up against the man I watched on TV, and it’s controversial, but I beat him. And it’s something that will never be in the record books, but I will hold that near and dear to my heart,” Streete-Thompson said.

Streete-Thompson ended with some advice.

“Don’t let anything get in the way of your dreams,” he said. “Understand that what you are trying to do, there are very, very few people that get the opportunity to do it, and you can’t be put off by what people don’t understand.

“You have to be relentless, you have to be almost obsessive about it, because the people you are going to compete against, [they] are just as driven as you are. So take it to the next level and it never gets easier… but you just have to go after it,” he said.