Rest in peace Saini Saab

Photo_G. Rajaraman

In the death of Joginder Singh Saini, Indian athletics has lost its acknowledged Guru and a father figure. The 92-year-old coach passed away at Patiala on Sunday, March 1.

A man with an abiding love for athletics, Saini saab, as he was popularly known, showed his willingness to contribute to the sport well into his 80s and even in his 90s. Whether as a coach, NIS chief coach, the senior National chief coach or the Junior National Coach or later as an advisor to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), he showed a commitment that many a younger coach or administrator might have found hard to match.

A National meet without him being around was unimaginable. Old age never dampened his enthusiasm. He travelled across the country to be at the spot where athletics action was. Whether it was Delhi or Ranchi or Hyderabad or Visakhapatnam or Bangalore or Chennai, he made it a point to be there to witness athletes perform and to lend a helping hand to the federation and the organizers.

Those days

He would often compare performances in such meets with those of the Indian stalwarts of the 1960s through the1980s and 1990s. Milkha Singh, Makhan Singh and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, Sriram Singh and Edward Sequeira and Hari Chand and Shivnath Singh often figured in such conversations. So, too, T. C. Yohannan and Suresh Babu and  P. T. Usha and Shiny Wilson.

“Remember, Eddie (Sequeira) did 3:43.7 (1500m) in 1966. No one could better that for nearly 30 years,” he would remind one often.  (Bahadur Prasad bettered that mark in Madras in 1995 with 3:38.00 and it was later bettered by Jinson Johnson at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 with 3:37.86. In 2019, Johnson improved it further to 3:35.24).

He was always full of admiration for Hari Chand and Sriram, too. He would often recall their feats in the Montreal Olympics whenever one brought up the topic of middle distance and distance running, his favourite area in athletics. (Hari Chand’s 10,000m record of 28:48.72 stood as National record for 32 years before being bettered to 28:02.89 by Surender Singh at Vigo, Spain, in 2008. Sriram’s 800m record of 1:45.77 at Montreal lasted for 42 years before it was bettered by Jinson Johnson with 1:45.65 at Guwahati).

Mr Saini romanticized athletics and athletes of an era when facilities were rudimentary, incentives meagre, information about the sport scanty and recognition hard to come by. He was also fully familiar with the current Indian athletics standards and the often-fluctuating form of the leading contenders.

The one great quality he had as a coach or chief coach was his ability to communicate, with athletes and with other coaches.  Almost everyone acknowledged this ability of his, none more than the former junior national coach, the late Suresh Babu.

“He is an excellent communicator, not many have that quality to drive home a point while addressing a group of athletes,” Suresh once told me. Sadly, Suresh’s life was cut short at 58 and what many of us looked forward to in having the former Asian Games long jump champion as the chief national coach of the senior Indian side did not materialize.

It was Saini saab who brought Suresh back from a period of inactivity on the coaching front. He was very keen that the transition from junior coach to senior would be smooth and at the earliest for the outstanding athlete of the 1970s. Suresh’s untimely death in 2011 when he was acting as the chef de mission of the Kerala contingent in the National Games, brought an end to such plans. Saini grieved along with the rest of us in the death of a dedicated, knowledgeable and capable coach.

Amidst the “bashing” that Indian coaches received from the top administrators of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) in recent years, Saini backed them. He was proud of many stalwarts of the past and at the same time always remembered the contribution of the Indian coaches, too.

“I told our coaches, speak up now. If you don’t you may never be able to. When they belittle your efforts, it reflects on the whole lot of us, it was humiliating for me since most of them had graduated under me or had worked with me,” he said after a meeting that analyzed the 2018 Asian Games performance.
(Five of the six individual gold-medal-winning Indian athletes in 2018 had trained under Indian coaches).

Respect for other coaches

He had high regard and respect for coaches of his era, late Ilyas Babar (Sriram’s coach), Ken O. Bosen (Throws expert at NIS). He would often also praise the contributions of O. M. Nambiar (P. T. Usha’s coach) and the late A. K. Kutty (M. D. Valsamma’s coach).

“Nambiar and Kutty were good assets for Indian athletics”, he said once.

He would seek information about coaches and athletes, their welfare. He kept in touch with C. M. Muthiah’s family till the latter breathed his last in Bangalore last December.

It was Mr. Saini who advised Gurbachan Singh Randhawa to give decathlon a try, Randhawa, who was to place fifth in the 110m hurdles in Tokyo Olympics 1964, beat Muthiah in the decathlon in 1960 National in Delhi. Randhawa went on to win the Asian Games gold in decathlon in Jakarta in 1962.

“He was sharp, he remembered everything from the past. He had this capacity to get across a point to people”, said Randhawa as we talked about Saini saab the other day.

One episode stands out for me. It was Asian Games year 2018. One was writing about India’s athletics prospects. Naturally, a chat with Saini saab was a must. As I started recalling medals from the past games, he reminded me about the 1978 Games in Bangkok where Indian athletes took eight gold medals, the country’s best to date.

“Let me recall our medal winners”, he said. I had the list, but wanted to listen to him. He reeled off not only all the names of the gold winners but also that of the silver (7) and bronze (3) medal winners. He was the head coach with the team. “We had just two coaches including myself”.

“Such memory sir?” one posed. “Of course I do remember all of them”, he said.

Saini saab was concerned about the doping menace among Indian athletes. As the junior national coach he had once in the 90s dumped more than a dozen athletes from an Indian team for doping offence when it was scheduled to compete in the Asian junior championships.

Much later, he realized doping had come to stay in Indian athletics. Just like many of the keen followers of the sport at home, he put much of the blame on foreign coaches though he did accept that some of the Indian coaches, too, had gained “specialization” under them.

Despite having done a course in Berlin in the 1960s and gained from it, he was not a fan of “training abroad” or foreign coaches.  He was concerned about the stagnation levels, especially among the 400 runners despite training in Europe in 2016 and 2019.

Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh honours J. S. Saini at a function in November 2019

He was conferred with the Dronacharya award in 1997. He was honoured, along with several other Punjab sports personalities by the Punjab Government last November.

“I have received more honours than I deserve”, he said a day after the he was honoured by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh at Kapurthala. He made light of the seven-hour up and down road travel needed for the awards ceremony.

But then that was nothing compared to the regular 12-hour up and down road travel he undertook rom Patiala fto attend selection committee and other meetings of the AFI in Delhi for years, even after turning 90. He didn’t attend the last one in February, though.

In November, 2018, he was advised to have a pacemaker. He managed quite well after that, cheerful and ready to engage one in athletics talk. Alas, it was not his heart that failed him eventually. A bull attacked him near his residence when he had stepped out for a walk. He suffered serious injuries, was hospitalized and passed away a few days later.

I have lost a friend and guide, Indian athletics its Bhishma Pitamah.  Rest in peace Sir.

(Updated March 13, 2020).