Rishiraj
When we speak about Nagas in sports we cite examples of Dr. T. Ao, who led the Indian football team at the 1948 London Olympic. He is credited for affiliating the Nagaland Football Association and Nagaland Badminton Association at the National level. A medical student he had the prowess for football, though he won individual championship trophies in athletics during his medical courses at Calcutta University. He is still a father figure for all the sportsperson and admired by all the Nagas for making them proud. Nagas are equal to their counterpart and have the undying capacity to compete in both national and international events, as it is evident since they are found in almost all the sports discipline
There are only some sports where the Nagas are yet to make a major breakthrough, because of poor infrastructure and their lack of awareness about other sports. The Sports authorities must try to create awareness of such. Recently some of the Nagas church Leaders including International Sports Minister church leaders have returned after attending 1st Advanced International Sports Leadership Training at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This shows they can balance their religious duties along with the sports, while some excel only in a particular field. The Nagas have proved the blended quality themselves according to the situation as we saw last month Football for Bible Trophy, where 16 churches took part.
One of the best things that the Nagas have been doing is they are trying their luck in every sports whether it’s a popular or yet to be popular, they have equal passion for every games. The Nagas have made a very deep impact at least in football since we can find them in all the leading clubs of the country and also made a name in not so popular games like Sepak Takraw which has been introduced internationally not even a decade ago and they have been selected for Guwahati National Games after they participated in Senior Men’s and Women’s Sepak Takraw Championship at Chandigarh. The Nagas have been very much helpful by the annual sports week in schools and colleges which can really be a big boon in their future, they also must utilized all facilities provided by the state as well as central govt. in the form of state hostel and SAI hostel where they are trained by qualified trainer without spending a single penny instead the hostel used to even provide their pocket money at least in a month. There are many upcoming sportspersons as we saw when some of the students from Christian Higher Secondary School, Holy Cross and Delhi Public School took part in NIIT Mind Championship Academy National School Chess Tournament at Guwahati .Those students must be given adequate training for bringing good name to the Nagas in future.
Nagas have participated in all the sports level and are well recognized in the National level, though they might not set record but “the most important thing for a sportsmen is not to win but to take part”. Nagas are very must active in sports we all know through the sports pages of local dailies where we can find some events happening in and around the state daily and may be they are trying to produce another pride like Dr.T.Ao.
