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Veteran volleyball player on a different assignment

Interaction: Senior Indian volleyball coach G.E. Sridharan addressing the physical education students at the Maruthi College of Physical Education in Coimbatore recently.

Coimbatore: Senior Indian volleyball coach G.E. Sridharan for once stepped out of his role as a coach and spoke to the physical education students on team building on the Maruthi College of Physical Education premises recently.

Organised by The Hindu, the interactive programme left the 200-odd students quite enthused and pleased.

Mr. Sridharan stressed the need for sound planning to build a champion team. “Team building is not done overnight. It takes a long time – a minimum of eight years, if one needs to hit the top bracket.”

The Arjuna Awardee cited Japan as a fine example. “Japan was not a strong team when they first hosted the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, but an eight-year plan helped the team’s cause in the 1972 Munich Olympics.”

He said that besides planning, one should also learn the art of implementation. “Chalking out strategies is easy but implementing it in an effective manner is what really matters.”

Talking about his favourite sport, Mr. Sridharan said, when it comes to volleyball, they pick players with good height.

“A minimum of 190 cm for boys and 170 cm for girls is required. We first look at the physical frame and then conduct a battery of tests (speed and agility) on them. Only when we are content do we start off with our training programme.”

Infrastructure, medical facilities, diet restrictions, climatic conditions and administration and finance were the other areas that the chief coach spoke.

He also pulled out a few interesting incidents in his life, as a player and a coach, to signal the message loud and clear.

One interesting incident that sent the student crowd in raptures was the Indian team’s ‘climatic’ experience in Iran. “Before we boarded the flight, we did gather information about the weather over there, which they said was 25 degrees Celsius. We were pleased because it was not an unusual climate. Most of us even left our woollen jackets back. Surprisingly, when we reached there it was biting cold. We found out later that it was minus 25 degrees. We were favoured to win the gold, but ended up with just the bronze.”

He urged the students to be a role model and jot down every minute detail in their effort to mould a champion material.

“If each one of you can shape up one State or National player then medals will start coming our way automatically.”

After an hour-long talk, Mr. Sridharan effectively tackled the volley of queries that came his way from the students.

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