A perspective on sports in IIIT

Recently, the college participated in the ARENA tournament hosted by BITS Pilani Hyderabad from 6th to 9th February. The following article attempts to articulate my experience and thoughts about sports in college as a member of the Badminton team.

As we set foot on the synthetic mats of the high ceilinged badminton courts, loud cheers erupted from the corners, cheering on the home team. The audience’s emotions moved as fluidly as the players gliding on the court. Our small entourage got ready to play their matches, staring down a giant. Not only the players in front of us, who had trained with blood, sweat and tears on that very court for the past few years, but the whole crowd, whose emotions they carried. The audience’s cheer alternated with the resonating voice of the shuttle rallies, and before we knew it, it was all over. We were out of the semi-finals, having been run over in straight sets, seemingly without having had a fighting chance at all.

Sport allows us to connect with something bigger than ourselves. The sportsman spirit in my experience has been about the humility to realise that the game transcends me or my teammates. As we set foot on the court, we give up everything – the expectations of our coaches and supporters, the anxiety of performing, the pride in our abilities – all for a dance with the opponent. A dance that demands utmost sincerity, leaving us with only gratitude and solidarity. 

As someone who has represented the college, and spends a significant amount of time every semester participating in multiple sports in the interbatch and interhouse tournaments, I truly believe that sports are a transformative experience that would be interesting for everyone to at least try. Not as a Sunday morning hobby that one does to connect with their corporate buddies but something that they actually dedicate themselves to. Unfortunately, the former is exactly what sports (and though it is a conversation for another time, a lot of cultural activities) in our college is heading towards. 

Though we love congratulating the people who do well over mail threads, there is a general feeling of disappointed acceptance among students about the way things are when it comes to sport. The basketball team, probably the pride of our college, practices on a court infamous for sending its participants to leg surgery. The football team plays on a ground where a sliding tackle is a scraping tackle for your knee. The tennis court suffers from the same slippage and dimensionality problem whereas the cricket matches are held in a ground where the concept of third man and fine leg haven’t been invented yet. The badminton courts are similarly unplayable for any serious sportsman because of the dimensions, the weather and the ground which it is made on. All these things coupled with the sting of defeat sometimes transform into anger and envy – about how good we could be if our potential was not bound by artificial constraints..

The problems do not just end there. There are systematic issues which add layers of friction that make taking part in tournaments discouraging. Not even getting to things such as 85 percent attendance (which are nuanced discussions that this article is not the right place to handle), there are simple things such as getting leave approval for only one external tournament a semester, or taking exceedingly long for allowance reimbursements after the tournament. These are things which could be fixed by a few people in leadership making decisions that put just a little bit more trust in the students’ judgments.

It is not all a bleak picture though. Unsurprisingly, for the sports we actually have facilities we can work with such as basketball and table tennis – we do rather decently in competitions. I would like to specially mention the basketball and football teams in this regard who are regularly trained by passionate coaches from PEC, which is inspiring to see. The sports council (from an outsider perspective) also seems to be trying its best to represent the voices of the student community a bit better.

This article is more of an opinion piece, perhaps partially coloured by my emotions at this time. But, Ping! is first and foremost about the students’ voice. So we want to hear from you. Please fill out the form about your experiences with sports in college (regardless of the level of interaction you have had with it): https://forms.office.com/r/1wpxYhs3Zi.

In the meantime, if you have something to tell us, do write to us at ping@students.iiit.ac.in/pingiiithyd@gmail.com.