Corporate goal

Former hockey captain Viren Rasquinha’s recent stint at the Indian School of Business turned out to be the best year of his life, he tells Neha Bhatt

If he was fiercely aggressive on the field, 29-year-old former hockey captain Viren Rasquinha, resting his hockey stick for the time being, is playing it cool now. He has swapped his sports gear for a business suit, reserved his on-field enterprise for round-table conferences, and as COO of Olympic Gold Quest (OGC), a specialised sports management company, Rasquinha has made a crossover few successful sportsmen at the peak of their career would consider making.

 

Luckily for Rasquinha, fresh out of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad with a degree in marketing, it has been a smooth transition. “I haven’t played hockey seriously since I joined ISB and I don’t feel a vacuum,” he says. “Life as an international sportsperson was brilliant. I gave it my 200 per cent effort while I was at it. But I was quite sure I wanted to quit while I was at my peak,” adds Rasquinha, who was a midfielder in the Indian hockey team. He has often been asked why he gave up the game for an MBA and the corporate world. The Mumbai lad is straightforward. “I believe that you are respected more when you leave while the going is good. An MBA is something I have always wanted to do. I wanted to be in a corporate setup. Hockey gave me an identity and then I wanted to move on to bigger things,” he says quietly.

Back then, “bigger things” meant making it to the pitch. It was the sight of a cheering crowd at a packed stadium that made Rasquinha want to be right in the middle of the field. “My father would take me and my brothers for matches and I would just watch the crowd, the excitement and the energy. That’s what really generated my interest in playing. I took a simple decision, without thinking much — I was good at both football and hockey — I pursued hockey,” he says. Rasquinha’s parents were more supportive and carefree than most would be, letting him do as he wished, never forcing him to study. Even then, Rasquinha managed remarkably well through school, making it to the merit list. But being a Bandra boy, Rasquinha’s inclination for sports wasn’t for a minute surprising. “Bandra has a big culture of sports and my school (St Stanislaus High School) has given the Indian team many hockey players. And even though I come from a family of engineers and doctors, we have always been a sports loving family,” Rasquinha says.

He was talented and determined, but there were many hard days. “Making it to the team and staying there, being captain and dealing with injuries — it’s a constant struggle even if you’re good. You have to prove yourself every single day,” he pauses, “but now I realise you have to prove yourself every single day at work, too.” The sight of a 40,000-strong crowd at a Chandigarh stadium — where he played his first match as captain in 2004 — more than made up for the pifalls. “It was a great feeling to lead the Indian team onto the field as the national anthem played. The rush of playing to a packed stadium isn’t there in any other job,” says Rasquinha. He savoured the days as an international hockey player, the thrill of travelling all over the world, and then the magnum opus — leading the team at the Olympics at Athens the same year. “The new age sportsman,” as some called him for the mix of talent and fierceness he brought to the team, had made his mark.

So, it was with some apprehension that Rasquinha entered the classroom at ISB, Hyderabad. “I was used to living out of a suitcase, so I was worried about how I would do there. It turned out to be the best year of my life. I didn’t know a single person in my batch when I arrived, but by the end of the course I got to know all 440. And of course, how to be a good manager,” he chuckles. It helped that Rasquinha has a decidedly easy air about him, modest and understated, hardly of the lofty kind one would imagine a sportstar to have. “Censored incidents” made the year memorable, he jokes, but that’s obviously off record.

“ISB calmed me down. I have always been an organised and disciplined person but here I learnt to be a leader. My interest was also in research and analysis. The workload was heavy, but it put things into perspective — I have gone through far more difficult things in my life as a player,” says Rasquinha. So, there was no difficulty in knowing what aspiring sportspersons could possibly need in their training years — encouragement, guidance and infrastructure.

As head of OGQ, a company that supports selected sportpersons from across the country, Rasquinha is no coach — he says he lacks the patience to be one — but a role model, nevertheless. “We need more role models whom a sportsperson’s parents can point towards and encourage their children to follow,” says Rasquinha. Fresh out of ISB a few months ago, he was happy to choose the OGQ offer from Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone over another management job he had landed in Delhi. The OGQ venture was too close to his heart to refuse.

Working out of his home in Bandra for now — “it’s not as relaxing as people think,” he says — Rasquinha is strategising to bridge the gap between top Indian athletes and those in the world. “In the six priority sports we have identified — boxing, wrestling, badminton, athletics, shooting and archery — we are helping 12 selected athletes train for the next Olympics.” The 2010 Commonwealth Games is a stepping stone for these athletes, and Rasquinha is working to ensure they get their best shot there. It’s all about how a sport is managed, he offers, and if managed well, any sport can be turned around. “The BCCI made cricket popular. So, we shouldn’t grumble about any other sport not getting its due,” he says — not even hockey.

There were good days. There will be better days.