Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
A vision for sports
|
The recently held 23rd National Sub-junior Aquatics Championship showcased the infrastructure at the Jain International Residential School. It is now hoped the institution will churn out champion sportspersons of its own
|
PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.
BUILDING SUCCESS The team at Jain Academy of Sports Excellence: Archana Vishwananth, Director; R Chenraj Jain, Chairman, Jain Group of Institutions; and Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) A. K. Jha VSM, Executive Director
The recently held 23rd National Sub-junior Aquatics Championship at the Jain International Residential School (JIRS), near Kanakapura, was special because of the red carpet treatment meted out to the competitors. The kids had best of facilities in terms of food, accommodation and a magnificent ten-lane pool. The meet was thus billed the "Five Star Nationals" and it is doubtful whether any future meet can come anywhere close to it.
The vision
It takes a vision to set such high standards, but for R. Chenraj Jain, Chairman, Jain Group of Institutions, nothing but best will do. Jain is single-handedly striving to change the face of sports with his enormous input into infrastructure, building a talent pool and funding major events.
"Personally I wouldn't like to take much credit for the success of the meet, but what gave me immense satisfaction was the fact that the facilities we had were put to optimum use by the youngsters. Swimming, in many cases, is an option for economically backward parents, which would help their children to get some recognition and later aid them in pursuit of high education through sports quota. I think, the facilities that we offered at JIRS really inspired them to give their best and may be they would expect the same facilities at the other meets as well."
Jain firmly believes that producing future champions is not the task of government, parents or the sportspersons alone. He wants partial, if not total involvement of NGOs into that effort. The Jain Academy of Sports Excellence (JASE) that he has set up is an example of that effort. He has created a world class facility complete with an aqua complex, a massive indoor stadium with facilities for squash, billiards badminton, table tennis, basketball, volleyball, a cricket field fit for grade one matches and a golf link besides tennis courts with synthetic surface, hockey and football grounds.
"Some are born champions, some are made but the common denominator remains the same, they all require best of training facilities and encouragement," says Jain and he believes that India is nation of sports champions.
"Proportionally there are more youngsters in India than anywhere else and if we give them the facilities and run professionally designed programmes, we can produce international champions. When a nation like Australia with two crore people can produce 50 Olympic champions, why can't India with 100 crore population? It is not hard to find talent, but if only we nurture them and train professionally we can produce champions."
JASE is run by professionals who know their job and who were champions in their own right such as Archana Vishwanath, Director, who was a former international table tennis player and Wing Commander (retd.) A.K. Jha, Executive Director. It has a set of top coaches including visiting pros like Enrico Piperno (tennis) and S. Pradeep Kumar (swimming). Jain also aims to give an international flavour by tying up with sports academies in Singapore and Australia.
"The biggest bottleneck in Indian sports is infrastructure and we at JASE in our own way have cleared that to a good extent. The task now is build a set of high quality sportspersons."
If an Olympic gold in 2012 is a long-term goal, the short-term target for JASE is to produce 50 players of national calibre in individual sports. TO aid in that effort Jain plans to rope in international trainers.
Jain hopes that a lot of talent will emerge from the free school that he runs side by side with the international school.
"Rural kids have hunger for success and they are very agile. Even in our international school we have 50 to 60 children mainly chosen for their sports abilities and their parents are fully capable of supporting them for next 10 to 15 years if they wish to go all out in sports. We also have exchange programmes, which helps our wards to hone their skills abroad."
Another major initiative is setting up an international cricket academy in partnership with the KSCA and plans to have a golf-training programme with an international golf company, Taylor Made.
"The issue (cricket academy) is still in the preliminary stages and what is being proposed is that KSCA will look after the cricketing aspects while we cater to the academic needs, besides providing our facilities on our campus."
Role of parents
Though Jain has put in a lot to produce a stable of talented sports persons, much depends on the role of the parents.
"I think parents play a major role and they should understand what it takes to be a sportsman and should truly back the efforts their wards. So, you see, it all becomes a collective effort. The need of sports is being recognised and even the CBSE is taking note of it. I think over period of next five to 10 years, sports should get its due in Indian academic set-up."
Managing sports professionally is another issue that Jain stresses upon and he says autonomous sports academies and schools must be set up using the IIMs as an example.
"The world over sport is professionally managed and run. There has to be accountability and sports should be free from politics for sound administration. The sports associations should have a clear-cut budget and goals, and the managing committees should have longer terms to execute their plans. The captains of the corporate world should join this effort. I have taken this as a social responsibility and I wish others also view it the same way, and support sports in a big a way."
KALYAN ASHOK
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
