Even in these times of high octane sports extravanganza like the Indian Premier League (IPL), Indian Super League (ISL), Indian Volleyball League (IVL), Premier Badminton League (PBL), Pro Kabbadi League and a host of franchise tournaments organised at the state level, the majority of young children in the country, even those living in the urban areas, do not have easy access to sports training facilities where they could give expression to their latent sporting talent. The roadblocks on the path of young children toward sports initiation are many.
First, most parents themselves do not have a clear view of how sports could provide a successful career for their children or serve as an additive to a successful career in any other field. As a result, many children are dissuaded at a young age from spending more time for sports, other than for leisure and general physical fitness. This despite there being numerous examples of how successful sportspersons have had significant academic accomplishments, entrepreneurial success and high standing on the corporate ladder. Take the case of India’s cricket icon Anil Kumble who branched into sports tech business after bidding adieu to his enduring Test career. It perhaps helped that he was an engineering graduate, having done his B.E. from Rashtreeya Vidyalaya College of Engineering (RVCE), Bengaluru.
Ravichandran Ashwin is another leading Indian cricketer who has had sound academic grounding, with a B.Tech degree in Information Technology from SSN College of Engineering, Chennai. In one of his interviews to Cricinfo.com R Ashwin spoke about how be balanced his highly demanding cricket training sessions with engineering studies. The offspin wizard is sure to extend his innings into non-cricketing fields by leveraging his academic and sporting excellence.
In 2020, U-14 national table tennis player Aneeha D’Souza, as reported in a daily, scored a perfect 100 in her 10th Standard examination — another instance of a sports achiever attaining academic excellence.
Success on multiple fronts that these eminent sportspersons achieved early in life could well be the case for so many more, if only children had unconditional access to sporting facilities and coaching and mentoring services offered by trained and certified professionals.
Unfortunately, most schools themselves are failing in spotting and honing sporting talent on a mass scale. Although many schools in the metropolitan cities publicise the sports infrastructure that they have in order to attract student admissions, once the children are enrolled as students they do not enjoy unfettered access to those facilities. Instead, schools are seen to pitch those facilities to parents as add-on facilities that can be accessed along with coaching services in lieu of additional fee payments. While it might be fair to an extent to levy a user fee for the facilities, for after all the educational institutions do need to maximise their own revenue sources to sustain the school maintenance and operations, what is missing in many of these institutions is the intent to identity and develop talent, instead of catering to demand on a first-pay-first-serve basis.
It might not be too off the mark to state that some schools tend to shine the light on the sporting accomplishments of their students only after those players have done the hard yards only their own steam with minimal support and guidance from the school administration.
Schools are ideal nurseries for sports talent management, but somehow there is a lot left to be desired on this front.
That said, some schools have for years been nurturing sports talent and have played an instrumental role in the formative years of great sports champions, like G V Raja Sports School in Thiruvanthapuram, St. Joseph’s Boys High School, Bengaluru, and St Columba’s School, New Delhi.
I had the opportunity of visiting the Mathakondapally Model School in Hosur, Tamil Nadu a year ago, and I was truly amazed to see the high quality sports facilities that have been developed on the school’s expansive campus.
On a higher plane, Khelo India, the National Programme for Development of Sports, is a pioneering initiative for sports development at the grassroots level, helmed by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. This programme is guided by the axiom: “Playing sports inculcates team spirit and develops strategic thinking, analytical thinking, leadership skills, goal setting and risk taking”.
The Khelo India programme, which has 12 verticals covering aspects like playfield development, community coaching development, talent search and development, sports for women, promotion of rural and indigenous sports, etc., has been envisioned an ecosystem for developing a world-class sports powerhouse in India.
It is hoped this programme will be sustained with adequate resource allocations year-on-year. More importantly, it need to tie in with several other existing sports development programmes run by state governments and private corporates. An integrated approach will bring about a sea-change in India’s sports development, and enhance the country’s dominance in world sports.
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