At Jeppe they name things after people

The news was received at Jeppe High School for Boys a few weeks ago that Dave Watson - an old boy and former parent - had succumbed to Covid-19.

Visiting staff and coaches to the school will all know that they are received and entertained in the Watson Pavilion, above the main rugby field. It was built with funds donated by Dave Watson and named after his late son.

They love naming things after people at Jeppe. Just about every structure has a name plate on it. It's a way of honouring past contributions and acknowledging present ones. There are the Martin Ledwaba stairs, for example, named after the legendary cleaner, turned lab assistant, turned teacher, turned school elder, who is leaving the school this year, aged 81, after 50 years of service.

Here's a column I wrote in The Saturday Star in 2010 about the unveiling of the Watson Pavilion and the naming of things at Jeppe.

Adriaan Strydom passed away a few years ago. I first met him in 1974. I  miss him. 

 A few weeks ago I attended the official opening of the new pavilion overlooking the rugby fields at Jeppe High School for Boys.

 It's a magnificent facility and it will be called the James Watson Pavilion, in memory of a boy who played first team rugby in 2000 and was headboy of one of the school's hostels. He was tragically killed in a motor car accident in 2005.

 He achieved some dubious fame in 2000 when he was airlifted to hospital after injuring his neck in a match against King Edward, and I remember writing at the time of how impressed I was at the professionalism with which the incident was dealt.

That whole affair must have been reassuring to parents concerned about their sons playing rugby.

The new pavilion is another example of how seriously sport is taken at Jeppe. When James's father Dave came with an offer to donate money to the school in his son's memory, the idea of creating a facility to benefit everyone in the sport was born.

Apart from the viewing deck up top where the dignitaries will sit, the building has new change rooms, toilets and a tuckshop. James's mother Jill had a lot to do with the design and she insisted that mothers who serve refreshments at matches are given a convenient and comfortable area to work in.

The opening ceremony was a dignified affair, and very touching.

Sport has always had a certain sentimentality about it. That's one of the things that makes it appealing. Sportspeople like to name things after people; it somehow gives a sense of permanence to those fleeting moments that enthralled us all.

As I stood on the deck of the James Watson Pavilion, I looked down on Jeppe's main rugby fields: Collard Field on the right and White Field in the left. Jack Collard and Jake White were the two most successful coaches in the school's rugby history - Collard in the 1950s and '60s when Wilf Rosenberg and Des Sinclair wore the black-and-white, and White in the '90s, when Jeppe ruled the Joburg roost.

We all know what White went on to achieve, while Collard stayed at the school until well after retirement age and had a profound influence on the lives of thousands of young men.

To the left of the new pavilion, above the astroturf hockey field - named after former coach Warren Boden -  is a hill called Collard's Folly. It is made up of the sand and rubble that was removed to level the area when those rugby fields were first laid.

Collard's idea, apparently, was to put cricket nets up there and have the boys practice with the best view in Joburg. Unfortunately, he never reckoned on the pile subsiding so the net surfaces cracked and eventually disappeared - hence the name of the hill.

My old friend Adriaan Strydom, as loyal an old boy, ex-parent and supporter of Jeppe as any school could have, tells me there is also a Jake's folly. While he was the coach at the school, White decided it would be a good idea to create an area for the exclusive use of the first team to warm up in - an early sign of the sort of attention to detail and player-centric attitude that was to bring him so much success later on.

So, an area was cleared below the old swimming pool, but it turned out to be too small for the backs to run their moves on, and it was too much out of the way. So it is now a weed-choked patch of ground called Jake's Folly. It's still out of the way, but as the shadow of Collard's Folly fell across Collard and White fields that afternoon, it could be clearly seen from the deck of the new James Watson Pavilion.