Sofoline's hardest-working and most passionate man quits
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Prempeh sports master Isaac Asare Lartey has quit and moved abroad. Mr. Lartey, the 1982
Prempeh Sports Prefect, who sacrificed so much for the alma mater is currently in Finland, where
he is pursuing a masters degree in sports management.
The sports boys were informed during reopening week that their sports master is gone. The footballers are currently training under
Assistant Sports master Ofosuhene for the impending National Milo Football champonship which was originally scheduled to be
held in July 2007.
The soccer stars refused to train without Lartey and some even decided to transfer to rival schools until prempeh.org stepped in to
advise them.
Alluding to what is currently unfolding at English premier league side Chelsea, the boys said they "prefer Mourinho, and not his deputy."
Mr. Lartey, a product of G'berg House, was brought in by former sports master S.Q. Sraha during the 1991/92 academic year to serve under him.
Lartey's first task at Prempeh was the grooming of Ralph Duodu, an "ordinary Joe" of G'berg House into a superstar hurdler.
Lartey became very adept at not only transformimg ordinary people into super star athletes, but also developed that incredible ability
to detect hidden talents in boys at an early age.
His most famous contributions to Ghana sports include producing one Asante Kotoko captain (Edmund Owusu-Ansah), one Black Meteors and Olympic Games soccer captain (Yussif Chibsah),
the first Ghanaian to play in the MLS (Dominic Oduro), the first Ghanaian to play for Manchester United youth side (Mawusi), 2004 Olympian Samuel Adade,
and World Youth Athletics semi-finalist Eric Goloe. Under him, the last 3 "Ghana's fastest youths" have been Prempeh sprinters. The training
regimen he devised for Goloe helped improve Goloe's time from over 13.0 secs to a remarkable time of 10.4 secs in the 100m bin 2 seasons, putting the then 16-year old very close to Olympic medal range.
He was the only coach in Ghana to send boys to every major international sporting events including the Commonwealth Games, World Youth Athletics, Olympic Games, All-African games and even the World Cup, where Yussif Chibsah
was sent as one of Ghana's so called stand-by players.
His football coaching prowess became renowned in 1998 when he produced at Prempeh what many consider one of the greatest
football teams assembled at the youth level anywhere in Ghana. He pioneered the 4:30am practices and was able to get opponents to travel in darkness
to come and play friendly matches at the Prempeh College Park at 5am every season during the school year.
He came so close to becoming the first coach to win the prestigious national Milo football competition 3 consecutive times. He turned Prempeh into a "tourist attraction," where every year
foreign university coaches visited to recruit talent for universities abroad.
In appreciation of his outstanding contributions to sports, the Ghana Football Association appointed him a premier league match
commissioner and fourth official last year. Prior to that, he held the position
of Ashanti Region Youth football coordinator, a job the Football Assciation created for him with the sole aim of recruiting
and grooming youngsters for the national Under-17 team.
Despite all these remarkable achievements and successes, Prempeh people rarely appreciated him. Dishonorable Senior Housemaster Atiemo
continually irritated Lartey by not serving the athletes any meal at the dining hall whenever they went to train. And because
the Headmaster lacks the competency to keep his Senior Housemaster in order, this problem
of athletes not getting any food to eat after training is still prevalent at Sofoline, where "somebody" intentionally ensures that no food will
be available for those playing sports. It is very peculiar this enchantment with sabotaging the dreams of young people.
A despicable and derogatory comment Atiemo made about Lartey in a January 2006 staff meeting triggered a riposte from Lartey, which caused
the Headmaster to kick Atiemo out of the meeting.
It is not known if Mr. Lartey will return to work at Sofoline after his studies. His wife is still on campus at this time. It is not certain if the college has given
her a grace period to get out of the campus facility.
Lartey's departure is a very worrying situation as this could be the year that Prempeh "collapses" completely. With the headmaster's lack of passion in academics seemingly unchanged,
we cannot anticipate any changes in our Sciece Quiz fortunes. Our only hope was to win some sports trophies. But now, that will be even hard to achieve, at least in the year 2007/08.
