The Road to Oman: The Journey of Hockey Jamaica to the Inaugural FIH Hockey5s World Cup 2024

Field Hockey has a long and storied history of over 100 years in Jamaica. Surprisingly, the country has only qualified for one major international event, the 2024 FIH Hockey5s World Cup in Muscat, Oman. This book showcases leadership and the manoeuvring in sports management with the hardworking people and teams affiliated with the Jamaica Hockey Federation (JHF) to pull the proverbial "rabbit out of a hat" and create history. It details the strategy and audacious journey to Oman, the challenges, triumphs, and the sports administration lessons learned along the way for Jamaica to participate in our first international tournament, the newer format of the game, Hockey5s. This book will share the author’s field hockey leadership journey and highlights perspectives of leadership models to uncover critical knowledge, competence, and skills required to effectively manage a Caribbean sports federation to achieve goals considered too aspirational and unattainable. Utilizing the Contingency (Fiedler 1963) and Situational (Hersey and Blanchard 1970) theories of leadership in a practical manner, the book provides insights on solutions adopted to address the challenges faced within the Jamaican sporting arena, as well as within other small island nation states. Some of the lessons and ultimate solutions center around the use of an integrated multidimensional leadership style, acute financial management, and sports administration knowledge to instinctively expedite decision-making – Blink. This, while the author explains managing and staring down his fears and the 'risks' posed by the unenviable impacts of the socio-economic situation on Sports, especially non-traditional sports. The book also provides the use of an appropriate strategic planning process to prioritize objectives and use of the necessary grit and determination through a theme called the 'Paradigm Shift' to change the overall management culture within the federation for greater effectiveness. This approach led Jamaica to the successful pathway of hosting its first Pan American Hockey Continental qualification event, and ultimately the country's first appearance in a major international FIH World Cup event in over a century.