Till I can hardly see,
Muscles becoming feeble,
My heart beats the slowest,
The last drop of blood is evaporated,
I will be with Hockey for one final time.
Two each of Gold and Silver at the games. One Gold and two Bronze in the World Cup. Four Gold, two Silver and three Bronze medals at the Champions Trophy.
Hold on! I’m not listing out the medals won by different nations at various games. Would you believe if I admit those were achieved by a one man who was part and parcel of his national team? Oh boy! Yes! I’m making a point about the most capped hockey player ever hailing from the northern Dutch village of Egmond aau den Hoff. He goes by the name Teun Floris de Nooijer, an all-time great of the game with least exaggeration whose magic was witnessed and enjoyed in the midfield.
It might be a bit tough to say that I’m not going to talk about his speed, his craft in passing the ball, his picturesque skills with the stick, and his very quest for consistency. But I’d like to tell you a few points on the amazing Aademy he runs. And I promise you I’d write on him very soon.
On another note, you might’ve now understood what made me put those five lines in the beginning. The one peculiar quality of hockey players I adore personally is that they leave the game only when they breathe their last. They get involved with the game as a mentor, an administrator, or running an academy. T F de Nooijer has been testimony to this, establishing a hockey academy with the support of Dick Willingenburg and Pieter Stenfort.
So, apparently there is this basic human reaction to fear. It’s called the fight or flight response. When something scares us our first response is to run, very fast, in the opposite direction. The second response is actually much harder. It’s where you ignore every instinct and instead of running you stay and fight”. – Dance Academy.
Courtesy: letterop.com
What’s so special about this Hockey Academy?
The first thing is that they believe in the zeal and passion burning within ourselves. If one does really possesses this then he can certainly scale greater heights. They also stress the point that every human is a born champion and that no one is born to lead an insipid life. If one identifies his/her own gifted craft, they would astound themselves.
One has one’s foibles and affirmatives; their limitations abruptly understood; and the dream of the Academy, the need of the hour, lures me always. Neatly, they are optimistic, they’ve set high standards; those performance oriented goals. They trust in making a difference to those who believe in them and in return believe in themselves.
As the saying goes “Rome is not built in a day,” this Academy did not happen all of a sudden. There was meticulous planning in framing a base to carry out marvelous work in a successful manner. They believe in interaction with the participants, which even I feel helps to discover the hidden problems. The intellectual brains have had never–ending discussions on how to shape the future of budding talents approaching them. After all the drama takes off in shaping out a schedule, the Teun de Nooijer Academy, focusing on issues like Ignition, A Great Day, Experience and Leadership. Let us find out how these really work out.
1) Ignition: T de Nooijer takes the audiences back into his own saga of ebbs and tides. It generally lasts nearly four hours. The legend will be showing the images of his games and his life; narrates how he fought lonely battles when down and out; stresses on the mental approach, on the dreams one has, and how best those dreams can be realized and ends up with a few catchy inspiring quotes.
2) A Great Day: This can even be termed as a day off the daily routine. The academy emphasizes on team outings to cheer up participants either by taking to a nearby beach or to a city area or even to some serene locality nearby. Predominantly more efforts are put to discuss something special which they don’t do regularly. It aids them to come back afresh with a stoic and positive frame of mind with a great will to perform even better.
3) Experience: This hardly lasts for five days involving people in groups up to 12 persons. Majorly used in management and line teams, this aids in personal approach and concentrates on skills to work as a team, participate with others, understand and improve themselves towards performance oriented goals leading to the best of the results.
4) Leadership: Last but not the leas for the above goals to be successfully implemented, one has to possess good leadership abilities .Leadership qualities will lead us to glory. This aims at the directors and the managers. One is taught how to make out the tiniest of the mistakes, work on them with a proper plan, and deploy them successfully on the field. The behavioral aspects needed to analyze the positives in a lost game are taught here, something which I trust will surely lead to development. This leadership program has emerged from the broad international experience T de Nooijer has had in his playing days.
Thus it’s clearly evident that the Academy strives for excellence. And its mantra is “a systematic scheduled action plan.”
And, hence, we at The Sports Column wish all happiness and success for this most treasured human being in the history of the game, Field Hockey.
