Jacky Beckford-Henriques' coaching excellence and outstanding leadership recognized
November 24, 2021
Just seven years after migrating from Jamaica, Jacky Beckford-Henriques has made this year’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100 list.
Selected by the Women’s Executive Network (WXN), the honour recognizes women across the country who advocate for workforce diversity and inspire others to become leaders.
Beckford-Henriques is the University of Waterloo head swim coach and co-founder of The Alliance that’s a progressive group of university staff and students using their voices and platforms to promote equity and inclusion.
The recognition caught her off guard.
“I am still pinching myself because it seems very unreal,” Beckford-Henriques said. “When I was nominated, I had to provide information about myself. I was quite miserable during the process of doing that because I didn’t feel like I would make this esteemed list. I just didn’t believe that I would be at this level just a short time after making Canada my home.”
The 2019 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Coach of the Year for the men’s swim team dedicated the honour to her parents Margaret and the late Barrington Beckford who met in England while he was a Royal Air Force member.
The World War II veteran, who received a souvenir coin from Barack Obama during the former American President visit to Jamaica in 2015, brought his English-born wife – she was a leading 800-metre athlete -- to Jamaica in 1958. They married eight years earlier.
She co-founded the Jamaica Netball Association in 1959 with late Jamaica Consul General in Toronto Margarietta St. Juste and boxing manager/entrepreneur Pancho Rankine.
“When it comes to community service, my parents gave a lot to Jamaica,” said Beckford- Henriques who coached the Jamaican team at the 2016 World Short Course Championship in Windsor. “I am a product of two fantastic role models.”
Barrington Beckford, who passed away in 2017 at age 92, was the recipient of the Jamaica Badge of Honour for Meritorious Service in the fields of Engineering and Volunteering in 2010 while his widow was awarded the Order of Distinction in the Commander Class two years ago for outstanding service to sport development, particularly netball.
Ainka Jess, who in 2017 started She’s4Sports that is a platform for women to freely express their sports views, nominated Beckford-Henriques who co-founded the Jamaica YMCA Speedos Swim Club.
“Jacky is a pioneer, leader and role model in Sport,” said Jess who was included among a diverse and distinguished group of 150 Black women featured in ‘HERstory in Black’ which is a digital photo series celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary of confederation. “There are a lot of women doing great things in sport, but we always don’t get to hear their story. Her journey as an international swim coach is inspiring. She’s a game changer and I hope her story will inspire young Black girls to participate in sport and follow their dreams.”
Jacky Beckford-Henriques was the OUA Coach of the Year in 2019 (Photo contributed)
Roly Webster, the university’s Director of Athletics & Recreation, said Beckford-Henriques is an outstanding role model in all facets of the department.
‘That includes her important role guiding our student-athletes in and out of the pool and her work around creating equity and inclusion,” he added. “I am not only proud to call Jacky a member of our team, but a friend and I am very happy that she could be recognized for all of her leadership.”
Beckford-Henriques represented Jamaica in regional swim meets and the University of Sussex where she pursued Physical Education and Teacher’s Certificate Studies. The St. Andrew High School graduate also completed a degree in Recreational Management at the University of Michigan before going into coaching.
Back in Jamaica after completing her undergraduate studies, she founded Tornadoes Swim Club in 1989, started coaching national swimmers three years later and headed the Physical Education department at St. Andrew for 10 years.
In her two decades as Jamaica’s national coach, Beckford-Henriques designed and implemented the country’s swimming program that produced Janelle Atkinson and Alia Atkinson (no relation), who are the only two Jamaicans to finish in the top four in the Olympics, and Angela ‘Dawn’ Kane who coached at Duke University for 16 years prior to her appointment last July as the university’s Director of Student-Athlete Development.
“To say that Jacky changed the face of swimming in Jamaica is an understatement,” said Kane who coached Jamaica at the 2007 World Championship in Melbourne, Australia. “I have known ‘Miss’, as she is affectionately known to us, since I was about six years old. My first and only coach while I lived in Jamaica cares about her athletes and makes it her duty to know them on a personal level and not just as an athlete. Her coaching helped me become an Olympic athlete and her mentorship gave me life skills and values that I carry with me today and played a part in me being a coach.”
Seven years ago, Beckford-Henriques joined her partner in Canada.
Nigel Henriques completed high school at Campion College and came to Canada in 1979 to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Waterloo where he’s an Associate Director of Systems in the Department of Advancement.
Close friends since age 10, they married in 2016.
Jacky Beckford-Henriques coached in Jamaica before moving to Ontario (Photo contributed)
Seeking job opportunities as she was preparing to make the transition to a new country, Beckford-Henriques reached out to the parents of former Jamaican swimmer Jonathan Wong who was in Canada.
They put her in touch with Andrew Cole who was the head coach at McMaster University.
“After a two-hour meeting, he said ‘I want you to work with me and I am going to recruit your son’,” she recalled.
Dominic Walter graduated from McMaster in 2017 and is a Geographic Information Systems Analyst with Esri Canada.
Cultural differences presented a challenge when Beckford-Henriques started coaching in Canada.
“There’s a lot more flair in the Caribbean and I had to learn how things work here and make the adjustment,” she pointed out. “Also, I had done predominantly just age-group coaching in Jamaica, dealing with participants up to 18 years. Here, I was coaching 18 and older.”
When Cole left McMaster after the 2015-2016 season, Beckford-Henriques ran the program for six months.
“I learnt a lot from Andy and we worked well together,” she said. “When I was thrust into the position of head coach after he left, I think that worked out well for me as I had to make it work.”
Beckford-Henriques joined the University of Waterloo in 2017 after Jeff Slater accepted a position with the Barracuda Club in the Bahamas.
“I had contacted him when I was looking for a job in Canada, but he didn’t have anything for me then,” she said. “However, he let me know there was going to be an opening after he made the decision to leave.”
Always seeking to support and nurture other people’s talent, Beckford-Henriques has two Caribbean nationals on her staff this year who will serve as Assistant Coaches.
Costa Rica-born Karin Browne, who represented Antigua & Barbuda in the 50-metre freestyle event at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, is pursuing a Master’s in Recreation & Leisure Studies while Trinidadian Jonathan Ramkissoon, who broke the OUA 100-metre breast stroke record in 2016, has returned to the university to complete a Master’s in Mathematics.
A member of the OUA Black, Biracial & Indigenous Committee, Beckford-Henriques is working on a template for a ‘Learn to Swim’ program for Waterloo’s BIPOC community.
“There’s no diversity in the sport and we must be clear about that,” she said. “I am a coach with 49 swimmers under my control. Swimming is a life skill and when you look at the number of drownings of Blacks in North America, it’s higher than other ethnic communities. The hope is for that template to be transferable to other universities and sports where barriers for BIPOC communities exist.”
The varsity swimmers will volunteer their time and the university has donated the pool.
Having parents who bred German Shepherd dogs inspired Beckford-Henriques love for canines.
She enjoys taking part in dog shows with her Cocker Spaniel and German Shepherd.
“When I am not working, this is what I relish doing,” added Beckford-Henriques whose brother, Alan, was unsuccessful last July in his bid for the Jamaica Olympic Association presidency.
