Remember the bike

First, the facts:

In 1997, Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with late-stage metastatic testicular cancer.

The cancer had spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain.

Post diagnosis, his mother was told to be prepared to lose her son.

He was given a 40% chance of surviving the treatment.

Post-treatment, he did not have enough strength to ride his bike up a small hillock.

From 1999 to 2005, Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven straight times.

Read that again: Seven straight wins.

In what is known as the world's toughest race.

And now, the USADA is stripping him of all his titles because of doping charges.
 
I don't know if he cheated. As a sports fan, I don't really care. And here's why:

Let's say he did cheat. How much of a difference would doping have made to his performance? 10%? 20%? 30%?

Does that really matter to a guy who has just recovered from intense chemotherapy? Someone who is competing with other "normal" athletes who have been training hard while this guy had chemicals going through his body.

And is it possible to win seven times consecutively?

Even if he doped, it means he reached a level where he could be at  70-90% (depending on which option you selected earlier) of the fitness required in the world's toughest race. For seven consecutive years.

I don't know if he cheated. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. But remembering the doping is missing the bigger point.

Remember Lance Armstrong - who was not supposed to live in 1997 - for what he has been able to prove:

That if you want it bad enough, it can be possible.

Remember the bike.

Life lessons from kids at play!

Have always been  pleasantly surprised at how kids play, how they make a game out of nothing at all, how they make up the rules - and then modify them - as the game develops.

All this without any training. No adult supervision.

As adults - and especially as parents, we think that we know it all (as compared to the kids) - and that we have to "educate" our kids on our "way of life".

As a parent, every incident is an opportunity to reinforce a particular life-lesson:

"See? I *told* you to be careful"

I was wondering if any of the kids could articulate their "way of life" for adults, what would they say?

Here goes my shot at their way of life:

1. No rules:  We don't need well-defined rules to play a game. We will make them up as we go. Then negotiate and re-negotiate the rules. And that works just fine for us - even if we do sulk occasionally when the rules don't go our way.

2. No limits: Why does cricket have to be played with a bat and a ball? A rolled-up piece of paper and my hand will do just fine, Thank you.  We love a lush green playground - but the space in the living room works well too. We will define and re-define our own games.

3. No enemies: We will have fights. We will hit each other. We will call each other rude names. Very rude ones. But we will still call each other to play the next morning. And we forget our fights within minutes. Sometimes within seconds.

4. No end: So what if we just travelled the whole day and were about to doze off a few minutes ago? There is no end  to play. We want to play more - and then some more. And we always have the energy to play.

5. No ROI:  So what if the amusement park we like is 2 hours away - and if we leave now, we will only get 30 minutes to play. We don't calculate fun as a Return on Investment.  If we can have fun, then it is worth any investment.

6. No goals!: We play because we want to have fun. Not to get fit, not to play for the country or represent the school, not to lose weight! While having fun, if any of that happens....cool.

7. All Fun: Fun doesn't mean that we have to be laughing, giggling and shouting. When we are fully engaged with our friends, stretched to our limits and know how to play our game - we have fun.

Wonder how life would change if we had these rules for the adult "way of life"! :)

How do we win more Olympic Medals?

Now that we have had our "best ever" Olympics performance, we are celebrating our champions - and rightly so. Given the margins between a podium finish and oblivion, we should probably spare a thought for the multiple contestants who missed a medal by a whisker. And celebrate them as well.

And as with every large sporting event, the public post-mortem into our Olympics performance has also begun. "Make sports a part of school curriculum" - says Gagan Narang.
"Corporate participation" , "Set up Sports Schools" - many others.

So, I tried to analyse the various solutions with a single goal: How do we win more Olympic Medals?
1. Sports Schools:

Great idea. But will you send your child to a sports school? A school that first trains your child in sport - and then covers academics. Most parents: Not really.

For the infrastructure and quality of training that is required, the cost of training (& educating) a child in a sports school will be at par with fees that some of the International schools charge in India. 

So, you need rich kids. Or you need a government or a corporate sponsor.

Most senior sportspersons will tell you this: The critical ingredient for success in world sports: hunger.

Unfortunately, hunger to succeed in sports is typically inversely proportional to a family's current income level.  Most athletes doing well in sports in India do not come from a financially comfortable family. There are a few exceptions - but not enough to draw a trend. And most of those exceptions are in sports that are expensive to play in the first place! So, we have a "sampling bias" - as they call it in statistics.

The Sports School idea will work onlyfor those kids - and parents - who do not have any other option. Education is either not an option - or they feel it is not really going to get them out of their current context.

Success in Sports has to be the only way out.

2. Corporate Sponsorships:

Great idea. But after the euphoria around Olympics and the angst about the level of Indian Sports has passed, the reality of business kicks in.

Corporates need an ROI. In an Olympic Medal context, there is no financial ROI. You can only have a goodwill and brand exposure if the athletes you support do well. And to get a decent ROI on the level of investment per athlete, you would need significant media coverage.  This requirement automatically restricts the kind of sports corporates would invest in.

The athlete representation market in some sports - like football - present a better ROI opportunity for Corporate Houses but I am staying with winning Olympic Medals for now.
Some initial estimates suggest that it costs between 25 to 75 Lakhs to support a budding sportsperson over a few years - depending on which sport you choose. In some sports, these numbers are annual numbers. Of course, there are more expensive sports as well!

We should choose sports that probably require lesser investments.

Success in Olympics (as in other spheres) depends on so many things coming together at the right time. For every 10 kids selected and trained for the Olympics, we should only assume 2 will get a medal.

With these realities, The Chairman of the corporate sponsor has to be committed - and remain committed for 10-15 years before any results come in.

No Marketing Head can take such a decision.

3. Sports as a Career:

Sports as a career will make sense when it starts to pay well. Like it made sense for some of us to become engineers, MBAs, doctors, architects, entrepreneurs etc.

Note that we are discussing playing the sport as a career  - and not careers associated with sports like sports marketing, sports events, sports coaching etc.

The sources of money into sports:  a) Sponsorships. b) Government grants.

For Sponsorships: Refer point 2 above.
For Government grants: To be fair, jobs have been given to former players in PSUs, Banks etc. This is still a large incentive for the kids for whom sports is the only way out.

But maybe the folks most vocal about India's performance at the Olympics do not see this as incentive enough.

Most sportsperson peak between 20 and 26. In some cases (like cricket), they continue till much later!

At a time when most other professional careers are actually starting to mature (30-35 yrs), these folks have "retired"!

What job options does a player have after the sports career is done?

The "Sports as a Career" path is just too risky for anybody who has even half a better option!

4. Make Sports an integral part of the School Curriculum:

Guess what? It already is. Physical Education & Sports are already a part of the School Curriculum. Have been for ages. Remember the "compulsory PT" we used to have as kids?

The problem is the spirit and the quality of its implementation in schools wrt
- adequate trained PE/sports teachers
- adequate play spaces
- adequate importance given to the sports curriculum
- adequate focus on assessing every child
- adequate importance given by parents to their child's progress on the PE/sports front.

This will only change if parents demand better quality sports programs from the schools.

The school context - with its constraints on time and space - just does not lend itself to producing Olympians. The level of training, infrastructure, trainers, intensity, individual attention and focus required for sporting excellence always conflict with the inherent goals of a school system.

If we get kids in schools to play regularly, get fitter, pick up the right skills at the right age, we will have a larger pool of talent to choose from. And then we increase our chances of success. But that is a way to build a healthier, fitter nation. And the right way to build a system that will keep generating potential Medal winners.

But it is also a  much longer route to winning more Olympic Medals!

5. Existing Talent:

During the London Olympics, if our athletes had performed to their personal best, they would have qualified for the semis. And on that day, "hey, you never know!". So, it is not that we do not have the talent, body structure, diet etc etc.

The talent exists. In plenty. It needs early identification and support to make that jump from an "almost there" to a Gold Medal.

So, to summarise my formula for winning more Olympic Medals in Olympics 2020:

1. Sports Schools for those kids who have the hunger to succeed in sports. For whom sports is the only way out. Fully sponsor their education, boarding & training from 12 yrs onwards. Supported by corporate houses who have a 15-20 year vision.

2. Assured jobs for these kids after they finish their sporting career.

Interestingly, this is what the government tried to do. But failed at execution.

Question is: Can the Corporate Houses take up the challenge? And then execute better?

Till then, we should be happy with the successes that are coming inspite of the "system". And celebrate all the Olympians for the struggle they have gone through to reach this level.

Excellence in schools?

The other day, a good friend started a discussion about how this particular school is "mediocre".

And that got me thinking about excellence in schools - whether in the academic context or in sports.

There is a lot of debate about how the current schooling system started - and whether it's goals are relevant in today's context.

Have read articles about how the Industrial Revolution created the need for schools - to take care of the kids while the adults worked in the factory.

Also to ensure that kids stay out of trouble and dont create trouble for others. And yes, also to teach the kids about the alphabet, how the world works etc.

With increasing competition and dependence on academic credentials for jobs and opportunities to move beyond your current socio-economic context, the after-school "tuition" model came in.

The school environment - with 35-45 kids in a class - is designed to ensure that all kids get a good foundation on a wide range of subjects. In today's context, excellence - in say, Maths - currently defined  by getting selected for the Maths Olympiad or getting into IIT requires significant after-school efforts by the student. (Not my definition of excellence. Just what I have understood of how parents and schools  define excellence) Very rarely have we seen academic excellence come about only due to in-school efforts.

Similarly, in sports. All school teams and performance sports endeavors are done after-school and on weekends. It is just not possible to provide the kind of time and individual attention required for sporting excellence during a class with 35-45 kids in 35-40 minutes, 3 times a week!

If you want "excellence", schools can only provide you the foundation, the flexibility in time table, examinations etc.  You have to do the rest yourself.

And therefore, I wonder if we should be using "foundation" instead of "mediocre". Because that's what schools are designed to do. Ensure kids have a good academic and sporting foundation.

Indian Sports & The Fallen Heroes.

As the London 2012 Olympics is starting to show the reality of Indian sports in the global sports context, questions about why Indian with its population has not been able to win medals have resurfaced again.

This cycle happens every time there is a large sports event: The media hypes the Indian participants, the public builds expectations ("A billion prayers" "The nation wishes them" etc etc) - and finally we get a performance that, unfortunately, is more often than not, unimpressive.

At the same time, there are ongoing media reports of how "society" has ignored so-and-so Gold medal winner and so-and-so World Champion.

Which brings me to the point of this post: Why is there an expectation that society or the government should take care of former athletes?

Each one of us chose a career based on options we had. These options were a function of our performance (in academics, sports, dramatics etc) and our skills (analytical, relationship-oriented, detail-oriented etc).

Some chose sports. Others chose engineering, medical, accounting etc.

In many cases, the loans taken to fund a medical or an engineering seat are equivalent if not much higher than the total cost involved in parents ensuring their ward gets trained in sport.

Some of the kids who chose sports as a career turned professional. Some played for the country. Some won medals. Many got jobs in the government because of their performance on the sports field.

If it was just another career choice - as much as engineering, event management, medical etc, why do former sportspersons have this moral high ground about how the government & society have forgotten them?

Is it because of all performing arts were once supported by royal patronage? And we are seeing a hangover of that era continuing in today's "democratic" context?

Sports heroes are a society's real heroes in some sense - after the armed forces. Their actions can lift an entire society. Their values (dedication, focus, teamwork, performance etc) are fantastic and every society would like them to be ingrained. So, the hero worship when they perform is understandable.

Maybe the problem is that the "hero" definition is based on performance. So, hero worship depends on performance. And when they do not perform - or cannot perform once they retire, society needs to find new heroes who are worth worshipping.

Society is just moving on to new heroes. In the process, maybe inadvertently, ignoring the fallen heroes. And therein lies the source of the problem. The fallen heroes still think of themselves as heroes but society needs heroes who perform today.