We very well know how we were motivated to play sports in our younger days. Nowadays, its even more tough for a kid to go and play outside. Parents would prefer to send their children to tuition classes or make them sit at home and study. Although they would not mind if the kids play on their desktops/laptops the whole day ,which takes a toll on their health as well. As I have mentioned in my previous post, creating a league and making it glamorous will not motivate our children to take up a sports of their interest. Proper grassroots planning and evaluation are need of the hour to develop budding players. When I am speaking of grassroots, I am speaking of the age group between 8-14 years.
Developing grassroots are more important than developing a senior team. Why? The reason is simple: Senior team players are matured and have little scope of improvement, neither of which is happening in our country. Let us take the case of football. The FIFA ranking of our national team is 152 ( as per latest rankings). Their has been no plan what-so-ever for improving the rank of the National team as well as to improve the grassroots condition. Who to blame? The self crowned custodians of Football, the officials of the federation or the lack of enthusiasm of some politicians at the highest level.
You very well know the U-17 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by India. For that, a team is "built". How much success this youth team will attain , the world cup and time will tell. This team was being built from 2014 onward following massive trials at various cities around the country. Its less than one year to go for the world cup, according to reports coach Nicoli Adams wants to conduct trials even abroad. This is the condition of youth development and sports, that despite having a huge pool of talent, we have to look for our players even in a different country. If we had a proper youth plan , this would not have happened.
The same goes for other sports as well. What needs to be done, is to encourage schools to take up sports seriously, not just to win or participate in a tournament. Schools can mould/create a lot of youth players who can contribute to our senior teams in future be it at athletics, football, cricket, tennis etc. But as they say studies are more important. Honestly, there is a way to streamline both studies and sports. There are many school sports events conducted by CBSE and KVS, students should be motivated to participate in such events.
That's all for today!
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My previous post on Grassroot Sports in India was published in my personal blog, which I have imported here as well and can be read here : http://hivsports.blogspot.in/2016/07/grassroot-sports-in-india-myth-part-1.html
Picture Courtesy : Google Images , upadhyay.co
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