Errol Messias leaves Calabar to coach distance runners at Kingston College

Veteran athletics coach Errol Messias has left Calabar High and taken up a post at Kingston College, where he will work alongside Hamin Pagon to lead KC’s middle- and long-distance programme for the coming season.

Messias spent about 30 years at the Red Hills Road campus. Alongside then head coach Michael Clarke, he helped deliver several notable triumphs for the school.

When Clarke left Calabar in 2022, Messias was named interim head coach. He was not retained in the permanent post that year — the school chose Corey Bennett instead — and was passed over again last year after Bennett’s exit, when throws coach Julian Robinson was installed.

Across those years Messias and Pagon often clashed on the track, especially once African athletes began competing for the North Street school. Athletes he guided at Calabar, among them Kimar Farquharson, Kevroy Venson and Rivaldo Marshall, faced runners such as Aryamanya (Ari) Rogers in contests that raised the standing of middle- and long-distance events at Champs.