OMAR BASRI
SPORTSMAN IN THE SPORTLIGHT Fresh off their first place victory at SUNIG, we catch up and get to know team captain and team manager of the NTU Floorball Men’s Team, Omar Basri. TEXT Mariam Hakeem PHOTOSNTU Floorball Team
Introduce yourself to the here! readers. Hi, I’m Omar, I’m a third year student in NIE and I’ve been playing floorball for the past 3 years in NTU. Describe yourself in three words. (nervous laughter) Can we skip this question? Hmmm, I’m very shy? Haha, that’s one. What hooked you into floorball? Floorball is a fast growing sport - it’s developing very well in our secondary schools and JCs. In the past 5-6 years, it’s been introduced as A, B and C Div sport. And one thing about it is that it’s very easy to pick up and it’s a fast paced game, so it’s great. Tell us more about NTU Floorball. We have our men’s and ladies teams which compete in the IVPs (the Inter-Varsities and Polys), competed by the 4 universities, 5 polytechnics and 1 combined ITE, and we recently took part in the Singapore University Games (SUNIG) which is the first time NTU Men won something in particular. Apart from that we are also active in the sing floorball league, whereby in the last division both NTU teams our alumni and current team were promoted to division 1 which is the premier division - a double promotion for both of us. So it’s been a good year for us boys. NTU Floorball did excellently at SIM Floorball International, clinching first place. What do you have to say to the team? After being in the team for the past 2 years, I strongly believe that one key characteristic of this team is that we are made up of very hardworking players, definitely less skilled as to the teams I’ve played with before since we have a very new and young team, but the passion to play and prove themselves on the court is very high, so to a large extent the passion makes up for the lack of skill and they’re willing to prove themselves. For you to keep up any sport, you must have passion, or you start to slack and everything goes downhill from there... Chances are you’re just gonna stay for a hall place since yeah, we’re all under the IVP scheme. So, yeah, remain passionate, enjoy the sport a lot. Would you credit the team’s victory to your leadership? (adamantly) Oh, no no no. Honestly, no. Like I said, this team is very young because last year half our team graduated… And also because of YOG, our facilities were taken up and our academic year was pushed back, so unlike the other universities, which had a longer preparation time because they had facilities available and because their year started earlier, they would have all their Year 1s training with them for much longer. So the odds were very much stacked against us, because of the lack of facilities and the fact that our tryouts were much later. So, our victory… I strongly believe was due to a team effort.
How do you balance training and studies? How do I balance ah? I balance it all by... Having a lack of sleep lah, basically. (laughs nervously) But honestly, it’s just good time management, you can’t waste time doing lots of things. I mean, my training days are fixed on Tuesdays, Saturdays, matches on Sundays... So you just have to be very disciplined about it. Do you think that floorball is not as recognized as other sports? I noticed it’s not in Inter-Hall Games (IHG). Floorball was actually introduced in singapore in 1996 or 1997 but only recently was it recognised by (the Singapore) Sports Council as a sports event in the school calendar... And we do see floorball featured in sports shows like Sports@SG, so yeah.. With regards to why we’re not in IHG, well that’s something we have to ask the hall sports secretaries because they’re the ones to decide which sports to exclude and include. Basically, from what I hear it’s firstly an issue with equipment and secondly, most of them view floorball as a complementary item with regards to hockey, but even though we see some similarities between the two sports, they’re very different. I would love to see floorball as a formal IHG sport. What sports do you play other than floorball? (laughs) Hockey! Interesting, given your previous answer. (chuckles) Yes, yes. What advice would you give a new floorball player? Just be passionate about the sport, and be willing to learn. It’s a pretty easy sport to pick up, so you just need some time, determination, and you’re good to go. Describe Floorball as a sport in three words. Fast-paced. Aggressive, and.... Fun? No lah, fun sounds lame. And... It’s not-hockey? (laughs)
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