Divya Singh’s typical week is busier than your typical week.
When the 33-year-old isn’t coaching India’s best youth basketball players, she is living the life as one of the four sisters of India’s most popular basketball family, the Varanasi’s Singh Sisters (the youngest of whom – Pratima – was engaged to star Indian cricketer Ishant Sharma recently). When she isn’t busy with personal or professional business, she is putting up shots on the court every morning, keeping her own skills sharp. When she finds time on the weekends, she’s flying to Mumbai to talk NBA on national TV for Sony SIX’s ‘NBA Around The Hoop’.
And as she shifts with sublime ease from one role to another – player to coach to TV personality – she continues to evolve as a trailblazer in sports and a role-model for youth athletes in the country.
Divya credits her work ethic and professionalism to lessons she picked up during a Masters in Education course in Delaware, Ohio, from 2008-10. “I’ve worked closely with NBA programmes since,” she says. “My work culture has been affected from working in the USA. My degree had a focus on Sports Management, which helped me a lot. I’ve been able to shift into coaching and management after my playing career and understand how they are different.”
The course in Delaware was a fork-in-the-road moment for Divya, who until then, was one of India’s finest basketball players in her prime, and a former captain of the women’s national team. But at just 26, she decided to pause her playing career to pick up coaching, managing, and teaching skills. It was a scholarship opportunity she couldn’t say no to, and ever since her return to India in 2010, Divya has made the transition smoothly from full-time star player to a promising young coach.
“I was playing at my peak before 2008,” Divya says, “I was top scorer at nationals for a couple of years. Playing basketball was more important to me than coaching. But the US trip taught me a lot of things. When I returned, I was invited to help out with coaching with a Junior National camp in Trichy, and I’ve been focusing on rising as a coach ever since.”
Since then, Divya has coached as a head coach or assistant at the Asian Games Senior Women’s team, the South Asian Games Senior Women’s team, U16 Boys at the 16 FIBA Asia Championship, and the Lusofonia Games. She has been an assistant to national coaches Pete Gaudet and Francisco Garcia.
“I’ve continued playing a little, too,” she adds, “I played for an NBA event in Delhi. But only once, since you can’t play six or seven hours a day, it’s hard to be back on the court full-time. I have other coaching responsibilities, now.”
Divya’s unique approach as a player, coach, and leader has led her to plotting more ambitious projects for Indian basketball in the future. She is already involved as one of the coaches at the DIME Initiatives Basketball Academy in Greater Noida. Now, Divya is hoping to start her own academy in Muzaffarnagar in her home state, Uttar Pradesh
“I want to improve basketball at the grassroots level,” says Divya, “There is a shortage of uniformity of the basic skills in basketball coaching in India. We’ll hunt for talent, put players in hostels, and plan to have children stay and study there. There is a lot of untapped talent in Uttar Pradesh, players who are strong and athletic. I learn from my experience as a youngster in Varanasi: when you have a proper coaching centre, young kids will definitely raise their game.”
With her handprints all over the rise of basketball in India, hopefully Divya is able to inspire a whole new generation of change-makers like herself in the future of the sport.
You can follow the writer KARAN MADHOK on Twitter @Hoopistani.
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