And The ‘Academy’ Award Goes To...

Attending sporting farewells over the years has become a professional hazard for scribes. It is difficult to disguise a yawn listening to the predictable sound bytes during the final adieu of sporting heroes. Dripping with nostalgia, it is usually the Oscar-like thanks giving, where everybody from the third cousin of their maternal uncles to their doting spouses are given credit for their glorious journey.

Karnam Malleswari

But don’t, for a minute, think this is an attempt at ridiculing their intentions. These guys might even pass a polygraph test which would justify their honest intentions. But reading between the words, one can decipher that what they are really trying to say is: ‘‘I won’t spend my retirement days grafting plants in my backyard garden. I still want to be on the circuit.’’

And the magnanimity of their gesture comes with a cultured plea for magnanimity from other quarters. It is a humble way of asking the Government or some private organisation to donate land for a coaching academy and also wishful thinking of attracting some corporate help in their ventures.

In cricket’s case, one just needs to shake any tree around the country and a dozen-odd former player-turned-coaches will fall down

Be it some world record-breaking cricketing demi-god, a multi-medalist athlete, unsung-all-their-lives hockey hero or a top star of an unglamorous sport like weightlifting, that ‘‘give away’’ line is unfailingly repeated when the time comes to hang their boots.

As for cricket, one just needs to shake any tree around the country and a dozen odd former-players-turned-coaches will fall down. Players, who had pounding hearts, sweaty palms and numb brains in crunch situations today teach kids about temperament and composure. But then no one is complaining. Blame it on that boy wonder from Shardashram School who is a cult hero today. Visions of their tiny tots one day becoming Mark Mascarenhas’ favourite has meant parents queuing up outside coaching camps. As for the credentials of the coach or the accountability, who cares?

Ramesh Krishnan

What VRS is to bank employees, coaching is to former cricketers and for other sports too; life away from the sporting arena is comfortable. Prakash Padukone, Vijay Amritraj, Ramesh Krishnan and even Mahesh Bhupathi’s father attract hordes of green-behind-the-ears hopefuls for the ‘get that magic’ touch. And with illustrious names like Pullela Gopichand, Aparna Popat and Leander Paes among their alumni, these star academies even boast of long waiting lists.

This ‘‘giving back to the game’’ phenomenon is so contagious that not just orgotten players but even people in different arenas have been bitten by the bug. The man who got disco to India in the ’80s, Mithun Chakraborty, sadly does not wear his dancing shoes when he goes to his academy but puts on football spikes. The star’s passion for soccer won over his other love and made him open a football academy at Kolkata. I.M. Vijayan, another footballer with the recently-acquired silver screen connection, too plans to open a football school down south. That will be in the vicinity of another academy by the first lady of Indian athletics, P.T. Usha.

I.M. Vijayan

It is a bandwagon, on which everybody is hopping. And with sports at last getting the status of a viable career option, there are still a lot of seats to be filled. But the price is high and so are the odds of being taken for a ride.

The question now being asked is do the ‘star’ academy produce stars? It is contentious. We had heard that stars are not made, they are born. The coach of the biggest sporting icon of India, Sachin Tendulkar, happens to be Ramakant Achrekar. Does Achrekar has a Test record or, for that matter, even a first class record? The answer is a big no! It is an open and shut case.