Basket ball used to be a favorite past time for many at REC NIT Calicut. It was a favourite past time for me too. As we enter the Main Building on the left side used to be the lone basket ball court of our times. Way back in 1983 there were discussions about setting up a fiber glass basket ball court which must have come to fruition now. There were quite a few who played basket ball during our times. Chellamuthu a sturdy six footer and my senior by a few batches had represented the South Zone. During my first year I used to play very regularly with senior students like Martin and Placid Sam. Placid Sam Iam told later was the regional head of BPL.
I got some basic initiation into this game as a student at school and in the summer of 1980 had some formal training under the aegis of the ITI Sports club through a sports camp conducted by Mr. Somkumar who was a Karnataka State player and in the coaching sessions we were trained on faking, screening, dribbling, various kinds of shots and passing. This training stood by me in good stead. The sports club had issued certificates to the participants but I failed to collect the same due to some reason.
I regret not being a regular player for REC Calicut but was annointed the captain of the semester team and were runners-up on more than one occasion. playing for REC Calicut would mean taking protracted breaks from the educational process which was an unwelcome idea for me at that point of time as it would detatch oneself from the formality of education. I was sent for once in 1983 as the college team was to depart to Ooty for a tournament and I politely refused . George John , Jacob Simon were all players on our semester side and I remeber another lad from Chennai who was in civil engineering whose name I fail to recollect now. Playing in the rain was a very interesting exercise with occasionally some one falling after slipping off some marshy patch.
I very distinctly remember a match in 1983 where we were playing our junior semester and with just 30 seconds left both the teams had scored an equivalent amount of goals.The ball was in my hand ..and it was almost centre court..and i could sense the defences of the rival team were very stiff and I could see many of the positions in the front asking me for a pass..i could somewhere sense the futility of making a pass at that crucial juncture... and from the centre took a very long set shot and it was a goal and I more than very vigorously cajoled the entire team from preventing the rival team from making any advanced into our side and i took on the responsibility of covering one of their key players and before long the 30 seconds had elapsed and we won the match. had I not made that decision at that juncture we would have lost or more precisely a defanite result would have been delayed. The talk of the hostels during the several ensuing days were my goal and how it helped our side win the match.
I think sport is an important component of an Education system. I noticed a very startling co-relation at REC Calicut in that most of the students who maintained very high grades hardly or never participated in any sport. Is this pointer to suggest that to maintain high grades one must avoid sports. I could not resist sports at that age and the path of no sport was not an option acceptable to me on any count. I think the Universities of the world must inculcate in their final mark sheet a colum that would be indicative the sport in which the incumbent participated in a formal or non-formal setting so that any man who likes a game would continue playing it with due assurance that his passion and occupation with the game is very much in the scheme of things and as one goes through the academic records recorded somewhere is a pointer to the sport that must have without fail shaped the overall persona and attitude of any person in question.
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