Hooping for a Good comeback

MUMBAI, Oct 1: An easy smile lights up the six-year-old's face when you ask him his name. ``Aravinda,'' he answers. ``De Silva?'', you as...

MUMBAI, Oct 1: An easy smile lights up the six-year-old’s face when you ask him his name. “Aravinda,” he answers. “De Silva?”, you ask, and the smile widens a few inches.

Pointing to the multi-coloured ball tucked under his arm, you exhibit the redundant intelligence only adults are blessed with, “Do you like basketball?”

The smile touches the creases of his eyes. “Yes,” Aravinda answers emphatically, his eyes brimming with excitement.

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The Dharavi boy is one of 130 rookies training at Our Lady of Good Counsel, Sion. The club, in hibernation since 1994 after an interim management suspended basketball, renewed its activities on June 21 this year. There could be no better news for basketball lovers, especially in these troubled times, when the sport has suffered a massive erosion at the grassroots.

After all, didn’t Good Counsel give India a constellation of international stars Shubha Puthran, Sitalakshmi, Ananthalakshmi, Shobha Iyer, Pratibha Kumar, Radha Iyengar and Priscilla D’Souza? Veteranbasketball coach G Parameswaran, who founded the club in 1965, says he is happy the club is active again. Though he does not remember the year, he admits the club’s establishment was largely an accident. “I was a NIS coach responsible for promoting the game, and was scouting for schools. I chose Good Counsel because it was close to my house. Fr. Sylvester Dias was the principal then. He took interest in my proposal and we got going,” says Parameswaran.

However, Good Counsel’s growth into a club of national reckoning was no accident. Its destiny was carefully plotted by one man, Esmero Figueiredo, who continues to be coach today.

Under Esmero, a Nagpada sharpshooter who represented India in 1965 and 1967, the club won the state schools tournament in 1972, and went on to win the women’s Federation Cup in 1980. Now, after the four-year lay-off, Esmero has set his eyes on doing it again.

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He says, “When you concentrate on the basics, you reap results. We were the first club in the country, in 1972, tointroduce mini boards. I now have 130 primary boys and girls who practise every weekend. On schooldays, 80 secondary students turn out. Sadly, few girls in the secondary have shown interest.”

Radha is there to help him at weekends. Her son Mohit, a first grader, is among the bright-eyed trainees. “It is great that the club has started again. It is good my son gets to learn under Esmero Sir. His basics will be strong,” the international, a Central Railway employee, says.