'Need to improve infrastructure'

Despite some recent high points like the foray of the National Basketball Association (NBA) into India, the state of the sport in the country remains low, and McCormick blamed it on the lack of basic facilities. “The biggest impediment in India is the lack of facilities. I had to try and train 92 girls with just two rings today, and that’s just not possible. India needs time and it needs a good system to work with in order to improve the sport in the country,” McCormick said.

McCormick, presently an instructor in the Department of Exercise and Sports Science coaching students for special Olympics in the US, underscored the need to have a correct system in place. “You cannot go on saying ‘fine we have a million people out of which atleast one of them will make it to the big league’. That’s what China did and what do they have now? There needs to be some direction in the approach and some system in place, this is where the Federation needs to step in. The Federation needs to hire someone like Horst Wein (German instructor) or me.”

McCormick, who was brought here by Leap Start, an institution based in Bangalore that focuses on children’s physical education, hoped his visit will have some positive impact. “It’s impossible for me to make a drastic impact in the little time that I’ve been here. But I’m sure that some of the information that I put through to coaches and the children through clinics will come in use in the future,” said McCormick, who arrived in India on July 4. The American went around the City schools attempting to impart some information to players and coaches, and his tour ended on Friday with a visit to the Delhi Public School, South.

Talking about the basic ideology behind his widely-received programme, McCormick said: “See, we cannot train eight-year-olds like we train 18-year-olds. An eight-year-old will have an entirely different bunch of things motivating him as compared to what motivates a 18-year-old. Basically, my programme, works on training an eight-year-old to make him more receptible to training when they turn 18.”

“Coaching in most countries is just a mix of random things, that’s just not good enough. There needs to be a more scientific, organised method, that’s where my programme comes in,” he added.