Taking long hops to make impact

Shabana Patel was engaged in her regular duty as a physical education teacher at National Girls High School and Junior College, until the Junior NBA program made her a skilled basketball coach last year.

Under ‘Train the Trainer’ program of Jr. NBA conducted by Reliance Foundation, Shabana was selected last year after overseeing a day’s training session she conducted at her school under the supervision of NBA coaches from USA.

She then joined a basketball training program and was one of the eight coaches from India who were selected among hundreds of other coaches in the respective eight markets i.e. Kolkata, Chennai, Kerala, Punjab, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad to attend NBA China Games in China. She was the only coach selected from Maharashtra.

The selected ones conducted the Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA program to the best of their abilities and got the NBA experience by going to China earlier this month to watch the Global Games between Dallas Mavericks and Philadelphia 76ers.

“It was a great experience to visit China through Junior NBA program and witness matches between NBA teams there. I interacted with many top coaches and learnt a few techniques. I want to share that experience with my students and coach them,” Shabana said.

Before Jr. NBA Program, Shabana was conducting athletics, Kabaddi, Kho Kho and other activities for her girls that could fit in their small playing ground. But after basketball coaching, she ensured a basketball post with net was erected in the school, so that girls can get the feel of the new sport.

“I was selected for coaching program after US based coaches gave me the task to conduct a one day training session at a school. I had played basketball in school and during by BPED training, but never coached outside. They had screened about 400 schools in Mumbai and I was selected for three-four months coaching program at St. Dominic Savio School in Andheri,” she said.

Shabana made her mind to teach basketball at her school, but considering that the girls were from a small Urdu medium school, she didn’t expect instant response from her students, “I thought it would take time to bring girls to play basketball. But as soon as I finished training, we erected the post in our school with a net and many girls came forward. We formed a school team soon,” she added.

Shabana wants now to participate in inter-school activities on a regular basis. “Since our girls wear head scarves, they are allowed in some tournaments and are refused to participate in few tournaments. We also have been hesitant to participate outside in other sports as well. But now I feel we have a good basketball team and we are looking forward to regular participation in inter-school and other competitions,” she said.

Besides Shabana other Indian coaches that travelled to China included Jose Sebastian (Thiruvanathapuram), Ravi Kumar (Bengaluru), Ganesh Prabhu (Chennai), Ishwar (New Delhi), Tua Ghatak (Kolkata), Ibrahim Rose Khan (Hyderabad), and Ravinder Kaur (Punjab).