Dr Asangba Tzudir
The six-day 3rd Edition of North East Games 2024 saw more than 3000 athletes from eight North Eastern states competing in 15 disciplines being held at 12 venues across three districts Chümoukedima, Dimapur and Kohima. The overall champion was bagged by Manipur, the third in a row since its inception with a total tally of 130 medals (G-52; S- 38; B-40). The host state Nagaland came second with 134 Medals (G-48; S-42; B-44), a higher medal count but could not surpass Manipur on the Gold Medal count. However, the fact that Nagaland had came 5th in the previous editions shows the remarkable performance by the state athletes bagging second place and it is indeed a laudable achievement considering the fact that Northeast region is becoming a powerhouse for sports and sportspersons in the country.
Now having ‘successfully’ hosted the 3rd edition of the North East Games, it is now time for Nagaland to host the National Games. The state of Manipur has already hosted the 30th Edition of the National games way back in the year 1999. One can imagine the condition of sports infrastructure in the state during that time. This also shows the widening gap between Manipur and Nagaland in the field of infrastructure and sports. While grassroots development is of paramount importance for the development of sportspersons and most importantly infrastructure, hosting the National Games or creating a sports policy with the target to host the National Games will really serve as a push factor to work towards this end objective.
That, there is an urgent need for developing a comprehensive sport policy and which tantamount to nurturing talents of young people who are naturally endowed and also skilling young people professionally. While the focus of the policy should be on the grassroots, the policy development should be influenced by a range of actors including not only the State government taking the lead but inclusive of intergovernmental agencies, as well as local communities and grassroots organizations like the respective tribal sports organizations. Piecemeal policies are not going to work and so the policy calls for inclusive and quality development across the districts in Nagaland. It is also high time that the state government think about Sports College/s in the state.
Any sport is an art playing it requires developing the right art because the very understanding of ‘art’ today has evolved beyond the ‘way’ of playing sport, that it is about the ‘ways’ of playing sports. The ‘ways’ of playing sports needs to be addressed by identifying the inborn talents and then skilling through proper training so that a particular discipline of sport becomes an art for a person, that, ‘quality’ and ‘value’ of the ‘way’ of playing a particular sport is developed. To learn anything requires at least a certain gift of learning, while the most marked, most firmly implanted individual aptitude can remain unproductive, unappreciated by others unless it is awakened by certain outward circumstances or some favorable environment or fed from certain well-springs of a culture.
While infrastructure development should form the core of the policy, sportspersons also needs to be given workshops and trainings so that they are professionally developed with the right personality, temperament and attitude, and also the desire to work hard and to win. These aspects define the difference between winning and losing irrespective of whether it is an individual event or a group event. And especially in team events the team that is able to produce and execute a balanced teamwork will win.
The real test of personality, determination and hard work comes in group events. For instance, winning a football match depends on the number of goals scored often dependent on the strikers, the number of goals saved by the goalkeeper, the smart tackle of the defenders, the forwards and midfielders creating the passes and the technique of the play. All these things and more come into play towards the delivery of a balanced team effort. However, the game will never be won if each player selfishly tries to score goal. Each player has its own part to be executed so that the right amount of energy is delivered. And we end up giving more credit for the win only to the player who scored the goal.
Such one sided focus on the individuals performance like on the goal scorer or the six hitter, etc often ingrains a wrong psyche in the minds of players as well. Unmindfully, we also celebrate individual’s performance and brilliance over the collective efforts of the team. This is also the reason why Nagaland needs a lot of training and preparing, and personality development so as to excel even in the team events. In team events, it is about the production of quality where winning is greatly determined by the techniques and the dissimilarity in the modes of operation, and the dissimilarity of the agent’s capabilities. These are issues that need to be addressed while building and imbibing the spirit of ‘teamwork.’
(Dr Asangba Tzudir writes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com).
