No tomfoolery: A departure from the academy model

Coach Tom John (in the background) watches his trainee Ajay Jayaram at the India Open Superseries

In what might set the trend for future training programmes of competitive players in India, six international players have joined senior coach Tom John at a club in Bangalore for professional training. The model is unique in the sense that it breaks away from the standard template of competitive players training at well-endowed academies run on the national camp model.

Academies in India are run on a socialist template that was borrowed from the examples of the Asian powerhouses of the Seventies. They are usually built on land leased from government at minimal cost, and run through a combination of private funds and government money. Even when players are charged, the cost of training is subsidized, and most international players usually come up the ranks paying next to nothing. The academy caters to at least 20 competitive players of various age groups, and all the services the players need, such as coaches, physios and nutritionists, are provided by the academy. The Padukone Academy was the first to set this model – and although there have been some variations, the model has essentially remained the same.

Former England coach Tom John, who was associated with the Padukone and Gopichand Academies earlier, decided to strike out on his own after a stint with the Uttar Pradesh Badminton Academy ended prematurely. Without a sports complex of his own to work out of, Tom was forced to consider low cost alternatives, and finally settled on renting four courts from Koramangala Club in Bangalore. Six of his trainees from the Padukone- and UPBA days have either joined him or are about to do so. Among them are internationals Anup Sridhar, Ajay Jayaram, Aditi Mutatkar, Jacqueline Kunnath, Prakash Jolly and Mohit Kamat. Each of them pays a fee that covers all the expenses of training. As Tom will accompany his trainees to some of their international tournaments, this model is unique in badminton because it resembles the more professional systems of tennis or golf.

“In badminton it’s not common for players to pay for training, but in tennis it is, you know,” says Tom. “Every international tennis player has his own coach and trainers and hitting partner, so they’re used to paying for a team.”

“I’ve worked for other academies in the past, and people have been saying I should start my own academy, and be able to do what I want to do,” says Tom, who has worked with the likes of Morten Frost and Yang Yang while he was in England. “I’ve always started at academies and things have gone well for a year, or year-and-a-half, and the owners have changed the parameters of what I had to do. I wanted to give time and energy to the players I choose to work with.”

Ideally, says Tom, he’d like to have his own complex of eight or ten courts, but “you’re talking big money, and unless you have a big sponsor, that sort of thing is not possible.” This is therefore a ‘second-best option’.

Among Tom’s trainees, the highest-ranked is Ajay Jayaram, who narrowly missed on qualifying for the Olympics. The others – such as Anup Sridhar and Aditi Mutatkar — are not at the top of their game, but Tom believes he can make a difference to their careers.“We have some who are ex-internationals who are searching for their form… but as a coach your job is also to help players if they still want to perform at a certain level. If you believe they can achieve that level it’s worth it. So someone like Anup should be able to get into the 30s (ranking)… it’s early days, but we’ll see. We have a lot of young players coming up; it’s good for the senior players not to hang their rackets too early.”

It will be interesting to see if Tom’s model is adopted by coaches who will offer a more personalized training programme at higher costs, and if there are takers. Players who want to excel, and can afford to pay between Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 a month, might well opt for this model, for it means being able to train away from other prying eyes, and to fashion a programme that suits them, besides of course having a lot more attention from their coach. It’s time badminton players followed the professional methods of their tennis-playing cousins.