For­mer School Teacher and mul­ti­sports coach Al­bert King died on Tues­day morn­ing af­ter suf­fer­ing a heart at­tack. He was 71. King was a for­mer Na­tion­al coach dur­ing his time. He was a teacher at Bel­mont Sec­ondary School where he held po­si­tions as the crick­et, foot­ball and ath­let­ics coach un­til his death.

On­ly last week he was speak­ing to the Lu­cia Reyes Prin­ci­pal of St. Fran­cis Boys Col­lege and told her that with the Pan­dem­ic he need­ed to meet with the Form Ones to be­gin train­ing the team for the up­com­ing sea­son.

King has trained many top-class ath­letes and did great work with many in their for­ma­tive years in­clud­ing for­mer World Cham­pi­on in the Men's 110 Hur­dles event Je­hue Gor­don. He was re­spon­si­ble for the likes of Nicholas Lan­deau, Maris­sa Gale, and Gen­e­sis Joseph, the last of his many ath­let­ic de­vel­op­ment projects.

Dur­ing his ca­reer as a Coach, King coached Air Borne Son­ics and Health Olympians but was al­ways the Coach of Bel­mont In­ter­me­di­ate (now Re­named St Fran­cis Boys Col­lege).

The top coach made an im­pact as head coach of the Caribbean Union of Teach­ers (CUT Games from 1992 to 2016. He al­so coached the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Team at the Bar­ba­dos In­ter-Cam­pus Games some years ago.

He was al­so the coach of the Na­tion­al Cross Coun­try Team in his il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer.

His long-time com­pan­ion Lu­cre­tia Marn­er-Burns told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day they vis­it­ed Rossi Sports store in San Juan on Tues­day to pur­chase cloth­ing for the St. Fran­cis Boys for the 2022 track and field sea­son.

Lat­er that day he com­plain about feel­ing un­well and sad­ly he passed away.

King, who in­tro­duced Gor­don to hur­dling as a Form One stu­dent at Bel­mont Boys In­ter­me­di­ate.

King was a Lev­el Four mid­dle and long-dis­tance spe­cial­ist al­so said that Gor­don’s tal­ent had been ap­par­ent from an ear­ly age.

“He came in Form One as a pri­ma­ry school champ from the Port-of-Spain and En­vi­rons Team when he at­tend­ed Mar­aval RC school but when I saw him run­ning over bench­es, I en­cour­aged him to pur­sue hur­dles,” he said, adding. “He was al­so good in crick­et. If he had de­cid­ed to fol­low it he could have been the equiv­a­lent of Dwayne Bra­vo right now.”

Gor­don spent five years at Bel­mont be­fore mov­ing to QRC for Form Six and is cur­rent­ly at­tend­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in St Au­gus­tine.

King said they had main­tained their re­la­tion­ship through­out and still kept in reg­u­lar con­tact. He al­so hoped Gor­don's win would en­cour­age the gov­ern­ment to in­vest more in­to track and field's de­vel­op­ment.

King was al­so re­spon­si­ble for the long-dis­tance ath­lete Cur­tis Br­ere­ton who was deeply touched by the death of his coach. Br­ere­ton said last Thurs­day at train­ing he told me that I was sup­posed to car­ry the ses­sion and he was cer­tain that I would do a great job. He main­tain that he had the con­fi­dence in me to run the ses­sion well. I am very shocked at his death. May he rest In Peace.

Al­bert King leaves to mourn his com­pan­ion Lu­cre­tia Warn­er-Burns, his two sis­ters Cristi­na and Coral King, his daugh­ters Oni­ka and Re­nee and his son Richard and his grand­daugh­ter, Ame­ria and grand-son Frek.