Justifying the most overused word in sports development

I’ve almost developed a Pavlovian response to the word ‘grassroot development’. It is by far the most overused word when it comes to sports in India. It has got to the point where every time I hear the word grass root I get transported in some wild everglades of a swampy rain marsh forest with shoulder high grass and crickets cricketing all around and snakes swirling through around my ankles. Grassroots *shudder*

Nothing wrong with grass roots development, only the word is too damn overused. But yeah, the blatant overthrow of the word only serves to highlight the extreme importance of grass roots development in our country. ‘Catch ‘em young’ is a common theme which may have pedophilic overtones in its wording but is an integral part of development of sports everywhere.

To scout, spot and harness talent to its maximum potential, the earlier said talent is looked at, the better.According to Adille Sumariwalla, President of Athletics Federation of India, grass roots development is the need of the hour in athletics. He believes that unless focus is not laid on the junior athletes, Indian athletics will see a serious dip in performance in the coming years.” The governments new initiative, OPEX 2020, ought to bear fruits soon. Hopefully by Rio we shall see its results. I hope they start with junior athletics coaching camps. Since the last few years, owing to CWG and Olympics, focus has only been on seniors. The junior program has suffered immensely”. Similar sentiments have been echoed by Vijay Kumar Malhotra, President of the Indian Olympic Association.

There are a lot of shovels at play here to try and unearth the talent from the grassroots. A new initiative is to be undertaken – Marks for Fitness. Under this initiative, students will be awarded marks on the basis of their fitness level, up to a maximum of 3 percent. A commendable initiative, in the wake of the preparations for 2020, one must say. There are a number of other initiatives under taken by the government and organizations alike to focus on grass root development activities across various sports. After the Indian team’s disastrous Olympic outing, Hockey India is planning a development programme for children aged between five to eighteen years. There are a number of other organizations in the country that focus on imparting athletic training to children as young as 3 and 4 years. It is imperative that such programs take off and are supported in a country like ours.

The biggest bane of sports in India has been the lack of a sporting culture amongst the people, especially the younger population. The key objective of the National Sports Policy of 2001 was to instil a sense of national pride amongst the younger generation. According to a recent survey conducted across 6 metros of the country, only 25 per cent of children play outdoors every day. More than 90% of the kids found obese did not play any outdoor activities. An alarming statistic, for a country with a population of 1 billion plus. Alarming, but true. Making the need for grassroots development all the more imperative. We don’t just need to catch the talent at an early age, we need to instill a sports culture which stresses on keeping our kids healthy so they can grow and develop into healthy adults.

If we want to improve sports in the country, one way to do that is by employing physical education teachers who have been sportspersons themselves. They know how to enjoy the sport they are playing, how to train to win competitions, what to eat and what not to eat and so on and so forth. By doing this we are virtually hitting two birds with one stone. Employing ex athletes in the education sector provides the sportspersons with incentives to train and compete as well. They know that they have a job waiting for them. On the other hand, students benefit from receiving education from experienced teachers, one’s who have already been there and done that.

We have debated about this before, whether to scour talent from grassroots or to put focus completely on the top level athletes:https://www.sportskeeda.com/2012/08/27/should-we-spend-more-on-scouting-or-supporting-olympic-talent/

The government has recognized that its best to stress on the development of talent at grassroots level. The initiatives highlighted above serve to give credence to that. So while the word grassroots is grossly overused, that only serves to highlight the importance of it. So while the word is indeed overused, it is justified.