Punjab: Sarabjit Singh, famously known as ‘Happy Coach’ in the sports world of Jalandhar, has been associated with the Sports Department since 2009. According to Sarabjit, his aim in life is to prepare a great player who inspires the coming generations to include sports in their lives. Gurindervir Singh, an athlete who recently became the fastest runner in the country, has been trained by Sarabjit Singh. Both of them have been together for 10 years. Gurindervir has received the title of ‘Flying Sikh-2’ due to his achievement of setting a new national record of 10.20 seconds in the 100 meter race at the Indian Grand Prix 1 in Bengaluru. Sarabjit is very happy that Gurindervir, who met him at the age of 14, has now become a star. Sarabjit’s journey started from Sai Das Public School in Jalandhar, where he started participating in sports. He used to participate in ‘walking’ events and used to go to Guru Govind Singh Stadium daily. In 1991, Sarabjit won his first gold medal at the Junior Nationals event held in Odisha.
His passion for sports was evident from the fact that he would train in walking in the morning and compete with runners in the evening. “This helped me master walking and I became a good runner as well. This was a rare thing as hardly any athlete is equally good in both the events,” he told The Tribune. Sarabjit said that in the North Zone Athletics Championships held in Jammu in 1993, he stood first in both the walking event and the 100m relay. “Nobody could believe it. The coaches started calling me ‘aathva ajuba’ (eighth wonder of the world).” Sarabjit then started coaching students of government schools, Nehru Garden and other colleges at the Guru Gobind Singh Stadium. “My students started performing well at the national and international level. I was approached by Khalsa College, where I was earning Rs 3,500 per month.
I cannot tell you how much satisfaction I get whenever my students achieve something,” he said. The coach shared an interesting anecdote when he was approached by someone to give fitness training to lawn tennis players at an academy in Ludhiana. “When I was earning Rs 3,500, I was offered Rs 35,000. But I did not work there because I did not want to give up athletics,” Sarbjit said. In 2009, he joined the sports department as a coach and within a year, two of his students qualified for the Commonwealth Games held in Delhi. “In the Open National Athletics Championships held in Bengaluru last year, my team representing Punjab won a gold medal in the 4x400m mixed relay event,” he said. Players Jashanpreet Singh, Jagmeet Singh, Twinkle Choudhary and Gug Kaur trained under Sarabjit Singh. As both his students Twinkle and Gurwindervir Singh have qualified for the Asian Championship, Sarabjit says he wants to see them win and inspire others to take up sports.
