Saboo Award for city sports teacher

Saboo Award for city sports teacher
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, October 6
Satinder Walia, a sports teacher with St Stephen’s School, Sector 45, has been chosen for the Tara Chand Saboo Excellence Award for the Sports Teacher – 2003. Satinder received this information from the chairman, Jan Seva Trust, Mr R.K. Saboo.
The jury that chose Ms Walia for the award consisted of eminent personalities, including Justice N.N. Goswamy (retd), Mr H.K. Dua, Editor-in-Chief, The Tribune, Dr T.N. Kapoor, former Vice-Chancellor, Panjab University, and Dr P.S. Chari, Surgeon.
The award, which comprises a trophy, a citation and Rs 20,000, will be given on October 10 at the CII Convention Centre, Sector 31. Justice O.P. Verma (retd), Governor, Punjab, will be the chief guest.
Popularly known as ‘Ladi’ among the hockey fraternity, Satinder (50) had been an international hockey player of repute. Ms Walia started representing Punjab in the year 1967. Then she shifted to Chandigarh and played for it in the nationals. In 1973, she again migrated to Punjab and began representing Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, in the Inter-University Hockey Meet.
In 1976, she captained the combined universities hockey team in the Senior National Women’s Hockey Championship. In 1971, she represented India in the International Women Hockey Meet held in New Zealand. In 1975, she took part in the World Women Hockey Championship in Scotland. She also represented Indian veteran women hockey team in Delhi in 1987.
Later, she joined St Stephen’s School in 1993 as hockey coach-cum-Punjabi teacher. The school team won the under-14 hockey matches in the inter-school tournaments for three consecutive years, 1999 to 2001, under her supervision.
She said her school Principal, Mr Harold Arver, had great love for sports and had asked her to prepare girls’ hockey team capable of winning laurels at the state and national level. She said now hockey was gaining popularity among parents and children. She hoped that more and more children would take to hockey in future.