Opening the doors to success

Sports

Last week in our discussion with Sunil Jayaweera who to my mind is the man who introduced a whole new era of thinking and then was responsible in making it a reality and saw that the products that came from backdrop schools were also given a life there after.

In short I call it hope and livelihood. As a result of that method the good athletes did not end up as mere school dropouts with nowhere to go. I remember this very paper dug into a story about a young female athlete who did impressively well during the national school games and we followed up the story. Many people from various quarters and many walks of life came up with offers of help for her in equipment and money. Sadly the only thing that did not materialise was an offer for her to pursue her career and make a living from the gift that she was blessed with.

Ironically the Ministry of Education did not have plans for athletes with special gifts and neither the government machinery while the private sector only looks at proven stuff from which they could harness their bottom line in the guise of providing a poor athlete some form of employment. Sad to say but it is the hard truth.

This is hilarious. While having the chat Jayaweera was explaining how he allocated a sum of Rs.1250/- per month per child who enters one of the 24 sports schools that he created in all the districts of the country in 1989. He points out this same allocation still continues for the children who enter these sports schools even after twenty years. He asks how can that a sum be relevant after a lapse of twenty years. At the same time he also points out the present Minister of Sports Gamini Lokuge is talking about setting up a sports school in his electorate for the benefit of the children in that area. While welcoming that move Jayaweera says sadly it is not the call of the day for athletics when you are in search of the replacement of Susanthika Jayasinghe and company who were world class athletes. He says towards that the minister must moot a meaningful plan and see where and what has gone wrong and take meaningful steps to remedy the folly, rather than taking ad hoc measures that would only take the sport a few steps backwards.

Jayaweera also points out; the minister is on the wrong track as a result of the wrong people giving him guidance. He points out the people manning the sports council – Dr. Maiya Gunasekera, Hemasiri Fernando, Indra de Silva, H.U. Silva, Satharasinghe and B.L.H. Perera may not be the correct persons to guide him in this endeavour. He points out that Hemasiri Fernando is the head of the Olympic Committee while B.L.H. Perera is essentially a university level person and how could persons of that nature know the burning issues of a poor village athlete and what should be done to open the right doors for them. Then he also reminded that both Susanthika Jayasinghe and Damayanthi Dharsha came from very remote backdrops of the island and they did come into the limelight as a result of the right doors being placed at the right places by the very state machinery at that time.

Now let us take a U turn and go to another chapter where the village lad turned this missed opportunity into the soothing ‘feel good’ story.

By the early 1990’s the schools athletic machine had begun to churn out its products and the production line was working at top gear. With this new found fame and fortune the village had found a new solace – a definite avenue to get to the World at large. They saw it in Dharsha’s winning.

They saw the Amerasekera’s winning and they saw that the worm had turned. The village lad who had learned to live in the background and had just adjusted their very lives to it now had found the key to open doors in the big city. Alas the irony! They also saw their city slowly crumbling in front of them.

At the same time cricket was always a passion in Sri Lanka. But, once again it was the status quo that they played no part in it. It remained the domain of a few selected schools.

However at the same time that Jayaweera was focusing on his athletic transformation Sri Lankan cricket was given new wings with its graduation into the ICC main section.

Then as they watched sporadically they saw names like Athula Samerasekera, D.L.S. de Silva, Graeme Labrooy, Pramodya Wickremasinghe, Dulip Liyanage, Champaka Ramanayake Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Chandana gradually breaking shackles.

The lid opened out with Sri Lanka’s World Cup win in 1996. In Sri Lanka the game, elevated from an amateur pastime (or else it may have been a bit more serious than that.) into a big business. From that point onwards no school, no individual mattered it was just “if you can deliver the goods you are in it, if not you are out”.

Now as the Lankan cricket forum transformed into a more professional unit, it were the village lads that took a more prominent role in this formation. Then came the time of recognizing talent rather than where you came from. So the doors began to open for the likes of Tillekeratne Dilshan, Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando, Tharanga Paranavithana, Suranga Lakmal, Chamara Silva, Tharanga Lakshitha – the list is far too long to mention them by name. Nevertheless this would have been a near impossibility a half a century ago.

So thanks to people of the calibre of Sunil Jayaweera who pioneered in directing the village lad proved that they too were a valid part of the sporting brethren, now they have become an integral part of sports. When their doors to the future was closed in the sphere of athletics they looked and worked their way into a different line of activity where could break their shackles of poverty.

What our plea to our rulers is that Sri Lankans are a very sports savvy race and would do well in most of them if the right opportunities are provided to them.

PS: The village lads have found way according to the above, but the future Dharshas and Susanthikas are now lingering at home without a hope for the future for them or our proud nation.

E-mail

views[1]