Bengaluru: When S Pradeep Kumar was named in the list for the Dronacharya awardees on Monday, it marked the ultimate recognition for a man who has dedicated his life to the sport of swimming.
Having spent close to three decades at the Basavanagudi Aquatic Centre where he moulded and inspired youngsters into Olympians, Pradeep was over the moon when bestowed with the award for excellence in coaching.
“I’m very happy and satisfied. It’s always nice to get recognition for your work,” he said to this newspaper. With the likes of Nisha Millet, Rehan Poncha, AP Gagan and Sajan Prakash, who participated in the Rio Games, all rising to Olympians under his watch, Pradeep feels the way the forward is to get parents and corporate companies involved in the sport.
“Government can’t do much, what we need is commitment from the corporates and involvement from the parents,” he stated. “Parents should realise that it’s a great thing to produce a champion. We can have lots of engineers and doctors but to have a champion in the house is something different and these days there are a lot of options in life after the sport also.
“Look at someone like P.V Sindhu, the popularity and money that they get after such a performance is huge,” remarked the experienced trainer. The coach even has a road map for corporate involvement. “My suggestion is one company should take one Olympic sport and run it like their company and we (coaches) will make champions. These corporate companies have such huge turnovers that they should be able to spend for the sport to give back to the society. What we need is initial investment and support and we can go forward from there,” he opined.
