If you happen to look into Tejas R's bag, here's two things you are bound to find- a football and a pack of sweets. Indeed, the 23 year old's great passion for the game of football is rivaled only perhaps by his love for kids. And this was evident as he spoke at length about his vision for his academy -Sparky Football Academy, when he was down at BITS Pilani, Zuarinagar recently for a freestyle football performance at Spree 2016.
Although Tejas began playing football at the age of 13 and went on to win many state and national championships, on the insistence of his parents he enrolled for an engineering course. However, football managed to reign supreme. “ I remember watching Baichung Bhutia's last match for India again German Club Bay Munich and was embarrassed that they lost against a club,” he recalls. This incident motivated him to start thinking of how he could change the football scene beginning right from grass root level. “ During my travels I noticed that football was seen only as a recreational activity. Children didn't know how to tie their shoe laces properly and there was no sportsmanship,” he says. This prompted Tejas to do some ground research and come up with a curriculum which would seek to change things around. “ After failing my engineering exam, I was held back for a year and I decided to use that year to apply for coaching positions while working at a call centre side by side. I sent mails to different academies but faced a lot of rejection with people viewing me as a kid with no experience,” he remembers. Tejas then came up with a new idea. ' I began working on my freestyle football moves uploaded a video of the same and sent it out to different academies,” says Tejas. While he did manage to land a stint at an academy, Tejas wasn't entirely satisfied with the style of teaching and decided to venture out on his own and do his own workshops. Apart from this the youngster also won the Indian Football Freestyle Championship in 2014 and was kicked with Manchester United player Dennis Irwin presented him with the award. But Tejas wasn't done yet. His next focus was on getting underprivileged children under his gambit too. “ This was tough as for these families basic needs like food and an education is more important than football. But I managed to get a team of 16 students and got a kit for them through crowdfunding,” says Tejas. Thus was born Sparky Football, an NGO which seeks to use football to make a difference in society. “ The academy seeks to create a way to make these kids sustainable and help them become self reliant. It focuses on holistic development of the children,” informs Tejas. In fact Tejas now teaches two groups of children- the elite and the underprivileged and some of the underprivileged group have done so well that they now coach the elite group. “ Thus in this way, the academy also seeks to create professional opportunities for them and help them to make their own future,”says Tejas, who is also one among six in the world to have been certified by the Coaches Across Continent, which is an NGO which has partnered with UN. Tejas was also one of the youngest TedX speakers when he was chosen to speak on the platform in 2013. “ My dream,” says the determined youngsters, “ is to see the kids I train set an example for others.”
