Jalandhar: The Under-19 boys team of Government Senior Secondary State Sports School has won the silver medal in the 68th School State Volleyball Championship held at Sahoke village in Sangrur district. The championship which began on September 17, ended on September 20. After 21 years, the school sports team has won a medal in the state-level championship. The players have now been selected for the national-level camp and most of them are from humble backgrounds. Amritpal Singh, India’s youngest third level coach with the Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB), trained the team.
“I must say that the players are hardworking and their attitude towards the game is positive,” he said. The coach has also been at the Punjab Institute of Sports (PIS), Mohali from 2016-2019. “I ensured that the players are given professional and advanced level training,” he said. The players stay in the hostel of Government Senior Secondary State School of Sports – Punjab’s oldest and most prestigious sports institute which is home to players from all over the state.
Its foundation stone was laid in 1961 by Pratap Singh Kairon, the first chief minister of Punjab. The hostel was also built the same year. The new hostel, built in 2015 replacing the old 1961 building, was supposed to be the icing on the cake for the school. Ironically, the hostel is now in a very poor condition. Huge cobwebs hang from the ceilings of the hostel rooms. There are no coolers, just old fans that spin slowly and hardly move air. Hockey Olympian Pargat Singh, now an MLA from Jalandhar Cantt, blames the Punjab government for the “poor conditions”. “I lived in the old hostel in the 1980s. The new hostel is in a very bad condition. It is clear that the government is not paying attention to sports at the grassroots level, which is very sad,” he had earlier told The Tribune.
