Career
That Howard soccer team posted a perfect 19-0-0 season record, a record which still stands unbeaten and unmatched by any other Collegiate soccer team after over 35 years. Richard’s defense-splitting dribbling foray down the left flank, shortly after the start of the fourth overtime in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship game, left two Saint Louis University defenders faked-out off of the field as he centered a crossing pass which beat goalkeeper Rob Valero and left teammate Kendu Illodigwe with an easy tap-in into the open goal. Prior to taking up a full scholarship to Howard, Richard, while still a schoolboy in the middle of the 1971 Jamaican high school competition, was “pegged” for National duty and scored on his debut with the senior Jamaican National team against the Haitian National team to break a 3 year goal scoring drought in international competition suffered by the Jamaican National team
That same year, Richard led his Wolmer’s Boys High School team to the triple crown of Jamaican High School soccer championships – Manning Cup (corporate area), Walker Cup (corporate area knockout), and Olivier Shield (symbol of all-island schoolboy supremacy) -- a feat which made his school the second in history to do southern
Richard went on to represent the Jamaican senior national team on 27 occasions scoring 11 goals. During the 1970 high school season, Richard dismantled the Jamaican high school goal scoring record for a single season with a 23 goal total which lasted as the record for 27 years until it was broken by Kevin “Pele” Wilson.
When Richard completed his high school career he had established (1) the single game record (6 goals versus Meadowbrook High School), (2) the single season record (23 goals), and (3) the career record of 48 goals. In 1967 Richard led his JC Colts (Under 14) team to the corporate area championship game where they lost to Excelsior (XLCR) High School.
At Howard, Richard led the team in assists and was the second leading scorer from 1972 to 1975. the Howard team was on probation in 1973.
Richard was selected to the All-American All-South first team for the 1975 season. After Howard, Richard was drafted by the Connecticut Yankees of the American Soccer League (Advanced Systems Limited) and played for several years and for several teams including the Washington District of Columbia-based Jamaica “Nats” in various leagues (professional and semi-professional) through the 1987 season when he retired from the game. In many of those seasons, Richard’s teams went undefeated and he led the league in scoring most of those years.
