While the nation basks in the glory of the Indian hockey team scripting history at Tokyo Olympics by winning a medal (bronze) after 41 years, absence of even a single player from Kodagu in the current team has become a talking point among sports aficionados in the State.
Kodagu has a legacy of producing outstanding hockey players who have played for India in the World Cup and the Olympics and they include M.P. Ganesh, B.P. Govinda, Arjun Halappa, A.B. Subbaiah, M.M. Somaiah, and Len Aiyappa, to name a few.
It is rare for the country’s hockey team not to have a player from Kodagu, as it was during this Olympics. Experts say that a series of factors are at work as a result of which there is a decline in the number of players from Kodagu breaking into the national team.
Focus on academics
Mr. Ganesh, who played for India in the World Cup, Olympics, and Asian Games, said the shift in focus from sports to academics was a factor for this decline though both sports and academic are not mutually exclusive.
Though Karnataka in general and Kodagu sportspersons perform well at the junior levels, parents do not allow children to pursue sports beyond a certain age. Their intention is to get children admitted to professional courses through the sports quota, he added.
“Karnataka has reserved 91 seats in various professional courses for sportspersons. But once they secure admission, we don’t see them in the national camps as the focus shifts to academics,” said Mr. Ganesh.
Besides, the drive to excel in sports has waned to an extent due to the fact that many among the new generation of Kodavas are not given to hard work, said the Arjuna award winner. “During our times, we had to walk 5 to 6 km daily to reach our schools and hence, physical fitness was a natural attribute but it is not so in the present generation,” he added.
A unique hockey festival
The Kodava Hockey Festival, held every year since 1997, draws nearly 300 teams which is a record for any tournament. This is testimony to the continued though latent interest in the sport. But veteran B.J. Cariappa says it is not competitive enough for budding players to break into national team. For that, players have to work harder, have to be coached better, and be exposed to national-level tournaments where the competition is more stringent, he added.
B.J. Cariappa, hockey coach for junior men’s team, faulted the system run by officials which, he said, was not accountable. Apart from creating additional facilities and infrastructure which was the need of the hour, there was a lack of accountability among officials and coaches, according to Mr. Cariappa.
“I have visited a few training centres where trainees were not attentive and the coach wasn’t serious,” he added, pointing out that in one such centre the sole reason the coach was in Kodagu was for its pleasant weather.
