​I first met Mr Earl Skeete in 2014 in my ca­pac­i­ty as Vice-Prin­ci­pal of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, La Ro­maine. At the time, Mr Skeete served as the col­lege’s bas­ket­ball coach, and from our very first in­ter­ac­tion, sev­er­al qual­i­ties stood out.

​He was al­ways neat­ly at­tired; his speech was con­sis­tent­ly pos­i­tive and en­cour­ag­ing, and punc­tu­al­i­ty was nev­er an is­sue. As a coach, he mod­eled dis­ci­pline and in­tegri­ty. It there­fore came as no sur­prise to learn that he was a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer—a de­tec­tive, to be ex­act.

​Mr Skeete was a re­cip­i­ent of the Na­tion­al Hum­ming­bird Medal for long and mer­i­to­ri­ous ser­vice in sport, hav­ing ded­i­cat­ed 44 years to the dis­ci­pline of bas­ket­ball. He al­so coached the La Ro­maine Jets to a na­tion­al bas­ket­ball ti­tle in the Hoop for Life tour­na­ment, se­cur­ing sub­stan­tial prize mon­ey that ben­e­fit­ed both the com­mu­ni­ty and its ath­letes.

Yet, as im­pres­sive as these ac­co­lades are, they fall short of cap­tur­ing the true mea­sure of the man. Mr Skeete made an in­deli­ble im­pact on the young men of St Bene­dict’s Col­lege through the medi­um of bas­ket­ball. He taught far more than the game—he im­part­ed life skills, val­ues, morals, team­work, prob­lem-solv­ing, and sound de­ci­sion-mak­ing. He lived with pur­pose, and those un­der his guid­ance found his ex­am­ple easy to em­u­late in their own lives.

​To­day, four male teach­ers at the col­lege open­ly ac­knowl­edge Mr Skeete’s in­flu­ence and guid­ance as in­stru­men­tal in shap­ing their paths. Un­der his stew­ard­ship, the St Bene­dict’s Col­lege bas­ket­ball teams won nu­mer­ous ti­tles, and many stu­dents earned schol­ar­ships to the Unit­ed States to pur­sue both aca­d­e­m­ic and ath­let­ic ex­cel­lence.

​The school al­so served as a base for the La Ro­maine Po­lice Youth Club, where Mr Skeete, along­side oth­ers, nur­tured young peo­ple who were trou­bled or lacked di­rec­tion, help­ing to steer them to­ward pro­duc­tive and mean­ing­ful lives.

​Mr. Skeete was a fa­mil­iar and re­spect­ed pres­ence at school events. He would cer­e­mo­ni­al­ly start the col­lege’s an­nu­al 5K road race by dis­charg­ing the start­ing pis­tol. He of­ten lec­tured stu­dents in­for­mal­ly, shar­ing wis­dom drawn from ex­pe­ri­ence, al­ways with sin­cer­i­ty and care.

​On a per­son­al note, dur­ing a pe­ri­od of pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenge in my own life, Mr Skeete found the time to of­fer me words of en­cour­age­ment—an act of kind­ness for which I re­main eter­nal­ly grate­ful.

Mr. Skeete, you will be deeply missed. You are an icon of re­silience, ser­vice, and qui­et lead­er­ship. Men like you have helped make St Bene­dict’s Col­lege the great in­sti­tu­tion it has been for the past 70 years. Your lega­cy lives on in the lives you touched, the val­ues you in­stilled, and the gen­er­a­tions you in­spired.

Rest in peace, Coach.

Gre­go­ry Quan Kep.