| Monday, Sep 22, 2008
Making play work for you
Sport can be a passion, and also a career. For those with the
aptitude and fitness, many sporting areas offer job and prestige.
If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, according to
the proverb, how about all play that is all work at the same
time? For students working at their play, career prospects are
steadily on the rise.
Cricket, handball, softball, basketball, athletics, tennis,
volleyball, kabbadi, throwball, hockey, swimming, badminton,
boxing, football — you name it, and the sport is being
practised at the YMCA College of Physical Education grounds
at Nandan am in Chennai every evening. For these students, their
passion could become their career.
“There is a growing field of opportunities for our students,”
says Sheila Stephen, principal of the city’s only physical
education institution. With parents and students recognising
the importance of games and exercises, many schools and colleges
are taking their physical education departments seriously.
However, there is more, according to Dr. Stephen. “Apart
from the traditional option of becoming games teachers, they
can make their mark in a growing fitness industry.” Toward
this end, students are given training in fitness management.
“There is a huge demand for personal trainers, fitness
trainers and gym instructors,” she says. “That’s
where the money is.” In fact, the college even offers
an M.Sc in Fitness Therapy and Nutritional Care.
Other innovative courses include a postgraduate diploma in Therapeutic
Recreation and a Bachelor of Mobility Science, which is recognised
by the Rehabilitation Council of India, to train physical education
teachers for special schools. Such students will learn how to
use their play to help heal others bodies and minds.
Of course, the majority of the 450 students who enter the YMCA
College each year are still coming for the basic physical education
degrees — B.P.Ed. or M.P.Ed. degrees for graduate students,
and B.P.E and D.P.E. programmes for high school finishers.
These are the students who spend four hours every day playing
in the college’s excellent sports facilities spread across
the historic 62-acre campus — this is the same campus
that the Indian contingent to the Olympics trained at way back
in 1924, coached by the college founder Harry Crowe Buck.
But even these students don’t spend their entire day on
the playing field. For three hours every morning, students sit
in the classroom learning the science essential to their profession
— anatomy physiology, exercise physiology, biomechanics,
kinesiology, sports psychology and sociology. Every afternoon,
a few hours are spent honing computer skills. On weekends, compulsory
courses include soft skills, fitness management, sports nutrition,
sports rehabilitation, adventure sports and sports for the handicapped,
apart from optional programmes in karate, tai chi, silambam
and other traditional sports.
Dr. Stephen says that apart from physical education and fitness,
the range of career options include coaching and refereeing
for professional sports, community extension services —
identifying talent at the grassroots and organising village
sports — as well as organising sports, fitness and adventure
activities for corporates, especially in the IT sector. The
college placement cell has no dearth of options.
The college is one of 13 physical education institutions in
the state affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Physical Education and
Sports University (TNPESU), apart from private universities
such as Alagappa and Annamalai University which also run physical
education programmes. Since its inception four years ago, the
TNPESU has also been expanding the education options related
to sports.
Courses in sports technology
Engineering graduates in civil, computer science or electronics
streams are eligible for the university’s new master’s
and M.Phil. degrees in sports technology. “We have two
streams, in information technology and infrastructure management,”
says vice-chancellor R. Thirumalaisamy. His vision is to train
entrepreneurs in the science of the modern synthetic materials
that make up today’s sports infrastructure — from
astro turf hockey fields to flexi cushion tennis courts —
as well as the electronic equipment used to cover, referee,
judge and display modern sports. “Very few modern facilities
are available for practice grounds today. If the technology
is taught here, we can produce more modern facilities for our
sportsmen at a fraction of the cost,” he says.
The sports management department of the university offers MBAs
in sports production management as well as sports marketing
management. Other departments include sports biomechanics, kinesiology,
psychology, exercise physiology, sports nutrition, advanced
coaching, yoga, and of course, physical education. Together,
they churn out the host of professionals who make up the sports
industry today.
Clearly, for sports mad students, there are a host of career
options clubbing work with play.
Courtesy: The Hindu - Education Plus
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