With his class ten board exams just a week away, Latif hasn’t attended a single class this semester. The only two days he showed up this term were last week, for graduation day practice. Sans school uniform, the 16-year-old makes an appearance today to watch an inter-school junior cricket match.
However, Latif isn’t just another truant high school student. He’s Bangalore’s most promising prospect to play for the Indian cricket team at the next world cup.
“I miss a lot of classes because of my sports involvement. This term, I was in Kerala for two months at a cricket camp,” says the student of St. Joseph’s Indian High School, who has been playing state since he was 10.
His school is known for having produced some of the country’s finest sports people, including former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid.
“The cricket season runs all year round, so most of our students attend only 10 days in a month,” says Vincent Paul, the sports secretary at St. Joseph’s. “Some of them don’t even attend any classes, because of their sports schedules.”
How do the students then, manage to graduate at the end of the year?
“All our students who play sports are given full attendance for classes,” Paul says. “Each student has letters that come straight from the director of the Department of Public Education, permitting them to take off from school. So they have to be given attendance, without any problem.”
Paul disagrees that their academics are compromised as a result.
“The class teachers help the students catch up,” he says.”They keep track of these special students and give them extra classes.”
Latif manages to get a 50 per cent in his exams each year. While his coach calls Latif their “finest cricket all rounder,” Paul admits that he is just an average student.
“The 50 percent is an achievement for him, given his sports involvement,” Paul says. The trophy case in his sports room is filled with silver, and three young boys in school uniform sit around a desk covered in paperwork next to it.
Shouldn’t they be in classes right now?
“Oh, those are our football, hockey and cricket under- 14 captains,” Paul replies.”They’re helping me file some health forms for the physical education department.”
Academic performance aside, Latif is sure that cricket is what he wants to do in the long term.
“My coach has helped me and physical education teachers have really helped me so far,” he says. “I want to play cricket all my life.”
Trishul K.V thought along the same lines as well when he was sixteen. He began playing basketball since he was 13 and did very well at the high school level. He represented the state for several years and even made the men’s under-21 team when he was just a freshman at college. But just a year after having graduated from college, he now works for a logistics company.
“The government sports authority does little to help budding talent,” the lanky 22-year-old says. “If you want to get a good job, you have to think outside sports.”
Trishul laughs when you ask him about his attendance record during his college years.
“I think it was a little over 10 or 11 percent,” he says with a shrug. “We never attended class because of the number of matches we played in a semester.”
Trishul admits that there are no real “extra classes,” in college to help students like him. Most of them “attend group study sessions and get class notes off other students.”
“Private institutions like colleges definitely push sports students,” he says. “We get into the college on sports quota, pay minimal fees and some students at the pre-university level are even pushed through in exams despite poor performances.”
Once they’re out of college though, Trishul says, things change.
“You just can’t make it on your own. There isn’t any help from the sports system to keep playing and make a comfortable living.”
Previously, every public sector company had a certain quota of jobs reserved for sports people. However, these opportunities are slowly disappearing now.
“There are fewer jobs for us in the government sector these days,” says Xavier Vijaykumar, the veteran striker who currently holds a job with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and plays for their Indian League football team.
“The reduction in sports quotas are definitely a very disappointing thing,” he says, adding that coporate sponsorship is probably the only way forward.
The government-run Sports Authority of India (SAI) says that this is an issue with the central government.
“The central government has reduced the percentage of jobs for sports people in public sector companies,” says M. Mathai, an official at SAI. “They say that there’s a scarcity of funds or something.”
But the sports quota jobs, some say, are hardly satisfying.
“Even if you do get a job with sports quota, you just don’t get the respect that other employees do,” says Trishul.” You’re treated like just another sportsperson and not as a regular employee.”
Given the crumbling infrastructure and widespread corruption, playing sports for a living in India is really putting your neck on the line. Adnan Agha was quick to understand this. The tennis prodigy has been playing since he was eight and apart from playing at the nationals, he also played in two Indian Tennis Federation international events. However, when he got to college, Agha was almost forced to hang up his tennis racket.
“My parents wanted me to do engineering, so it became really hard to keep playing tennis,” Agha says. “While the engineering college took me in on a sports quota, they don’t want me playing sports and would rather I focus on the course.”
With college running till five, Agha has little time to make the daily training schedules. And then, there are sports injuries that have sidelined him. Agha hasn’t played in the tennis circuit for three years now, after a string of injuries to his shoulder and wrists.
“Tennis isn’t a viable future in India, especially since there’s no funding. I come from a middle class family and this is something I’d need to continue in the sport,” Agha says. “The tennis federation does nothing for the sport, at this level.”
Educators agree that schools either “push the child too hard or suppress their sporting potential” with an overdose of academics.
“Our schools need to strike a healthy balance between academics and sports,” says Mary Alexander, who has taught high school for over three decades. “It is particularly disheartening when the government does not ensure that these are systems in place.”
“Just last week, I read about a group of national level swimmers who would practice in an apartment, by lying down on the floor and swinging their arms and legs about!”
There is a certain hint of regret in Trishul’s voice, when he reminisces about his college years.
“I loved playing ball and wouldn’t ever trade that away,” the former star forward of the Jain College team says. “But on some level, I feel like I missed out on a normal college life.”
Meanwhile, Agha looks at making a comeback in tennis over the next year.
“I’m starting again and trying for a tennis scholarship at an American university,” he says optimistically. “That’s the only way to go about it. If I get spotted by the scouts, I’ll be a shot away from playing in the Davis Cup. ”
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