NEW SPORTS DAY SEASON OCT 31, 2004 
 

POSTPONED TO FEB/MARCH  NEXT YEAR 2005        

Download Sports Day 2004 Application Form

§                   New Season New Teams. There will be a complete team reassignment next year to kick off the new season, commencing with Sports Day on October 31, 2004. This reshuffle is primarily to accommodate those families who wish to belong to the same house color.  We do hope to keep each team for at least 2 years, thereafter.

§                Same Family May Choose Same Team. Since there is a high demand for people of the same family to be on the same team to keep families together, members of the same immediate (nuclear) family may opt to be in the same house color.  The next season’s Sports Day application form will allow applicants to apply together as one family.  Members of the same immediate family that wish to belong to the same house color should submit their names in the same application form (if you have more than 4 in your family, simply attach a second form). Since it makes our job of team assignment much more difficult when members apply as a family, we do request that if your family does not feel strongly about being on the same team, please do not sign up on the same form as a family.

§               New House Color Membership and Sports Day 2004 Applications. The house membership and sports day applications are on the same form.  Members who do not wish to apply for sports day, but want to get a house color, should use the same form -- simply do not fill the sports day section for each person not participating.  Membership fees will be FREE this year, but you do not get a T-shirt, of course.  Sport Day application will cost 200 baht, which includes a free T-shirt.  However, members who do not register for sports day and  will not have to pay anything, but, therefore, will not have a house color can purchase their T-shirts at a later date for 100 baht.  Various media including email, web download, handouts will be used to distribute the applications.  However, all payments will be made at the Gurdwara or to an organizer as online applications will no longer be permitted.

§                 Cumulative Team Scores. The organizing committee had a debate on whether to have cumulative points for events like we did this year.  An alternative is to only declare the champion of each event and not total the score between events.  However, after a vote, we decided to stick to the cumulative score to keep the spirit of competition alive between events and maintain a level of unified continuity.

§                   New Points Distribution of 4/3/2/1.  A new scheme of points distribution will be given for each event where the house color points received for each event will be 4 points for 1^st place, 3 points for 2^nd place, 2 points for 3^rd place, and 1 point for 4^th place.  A team that does not participate (walk over) will get 0 points, but if they are at 4^th place after participating they will receive 1 point.  For sports day each event and each division/league will receive equal points of 4/3/2/1, but athletics will count as one event for each league of child, youth, women, and men.  Each seasonal event such as Antakshari or Gurbani Sangit will also be given 4/3/2/1 points for each league (children and adult). This is an attempt to keep the score distribution among teams always close to keep the competition alive.

§                Team Leaders. While making team assignments for sports day, the organizers will also select 3-4 team managers for each event.  Thus, there will be 3-4 different team managers for each house for each event: Sports Day, Antakshari, Bowling, Gurbani Sangit, Soccer, and etc.  Before each event planning starts, the team managers will be contacted again to confirm their availability to organize the event; i.e., to check if they are free during the period and not out of town. The team manager list may then be revised accordingly before the event planning. We will no longer have house captains.  This design will 1) take away from individuals the intense burden of being responsible for his/her team for an entire year, and 2) formally distribute and decentralize the leadership role among many members of the team for each event that they are experts at.  

§                 New Members. We will strictly adhere to a clearly auditable method of assigning new members to teams, to avoid incorrectly being perceived as biased.  Each team will be informed in advance to send a representative to witness the assignment of new members by a lottery system, based on the need of each team, event by event.

The section below is from previous Sports Day 2003:

Application   Captain's Manual   Scoring Manual   Score Banners   Checklist   Schedule    Rules Summary

Sports Day Red Players   Sports Day Green Players  Sports Day Blue Players Sports Day Yellow Players

SPORTS DAY NEWS STORY 2003                

Mirch Masala

… A Sports Day Story

All characters and names in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to close friends, relatives, or to persons living or otherwise is purely coincidental.  The point, in a nutshell, is: please don’t sue us.

Pohli awakens to what was once a sweet sounding melody of her alarm clock, which to her was beginning to sound more like a tune from hell, commanding her to get out of the comfort of bed. She pauses for a moment to figure out what day it was. “Oh, yes, Sunday October 25^th, its YTSA Sports Day.” The thought sent a bolt of energy through her, moving her zealously towards the bathroom door, only to find it already occupied by her husband Harpal Singh. 

“Ji, why are you taking a shower this early”, she asks, trying her best not to express any frustration in her voice.  She has been addressing him as “Ji” for many years now.  Not that she’s old fashioned and couldn’t address her husband by name.  Just that when they first got married, her in-laws appeared to sneer with disapproval whenever she called out for “Harpal”.  She once opted to address him as “Listen”, just to find out at her couples share party that “Listen” was enough to turn nearly all the men’s heads, as if a mobile phone went off for each man to instinctively respond. “Ji” was unique enough, she had decided, and, besides, her in-laws seemed to appreciate the show of respect associated with the word. 

There is no response from Harry in the shower, but Pohli is determined for Harry to understand that her question was not a rhetorical one. “It’s only 6:30 and we need to be at Bangna school at 9:00, what’s the hurry?”.  After only a few years of marriage, she had discovered this strategy of relentlessly bombarding him with questions until he was annoyed enough to respond.

“Pohli, my team asked me to arrange our own athletic heats at 8:00, and the Sports Day Ardaas is at 8:30.  I’m already late.” Truth is, Harry was very eager to attend sports day and the excitement had dragged him out of bed a bit too early.  

Harry finishes his shower and steps out of the bathroom, with Pohli moving in immediately.  He opts to do his morning prayers, the Japji Sahib, while getting ready and grooming his beard, instead of his preferred serene, meditative posture with a Gutka in hand. While his lips mumble the sacred verses, he could not keep his mind from wandering in anticipation of the day’s upcoming events.  This year Harry is in the Red Soccer team.  He is in team C, designed for beginners and older players, so at least he need not worry about playing along side those “rough, young boys”, the ones that now call him uncle.  He secretly wishes they still called him Praa, just like they used to only a few years ago.

Harry thinks about how he will be in Red for life since YTSA had just devised a new House Color scheme, dividing all members of the community into 4 colors. It reminded Harry of his childhood at St. Georges where he and his housemates worked hard to be the top-ranked, Cock House.  In the YTSA House Color, the cock house too will receive a big cup: the Guru Gobind Singh Ji Cup.

Pohli boisterously opens the bathroom door to announce her entrance into the bedroom, already sporting an athlete’s outfit.  She pauses to study herself in the mirror.  “Too tight,” she concludes to herself, and decides to change her T-shirt in an attempt to conceal the little bulges that other’s needn’t know she maintained.     She thinks of the good old days at Waverly, when she, lean as a model, had led her school house team to the top.  Harpal’s resounding conclusion to his prayer awakens Pohli from her lapse of daydream, as she is hit hard by reality staring at her in the mirror. Nevertheless, she still spends a moment pondering why her Green house captain assigned her to chair ball B team and not the A team. 

Sonia dashes into their room without even knocking,  “Dad, Nita says I have to remain in Yellow forever, is that true?”.

“Betay, I’m not sure, but the organizers want to split people for 2 years or longer so that next year the sports day will be easier to organize. Also, Sonia, Sports day is just the start of each year’s house color competition.  There will be lots of events, even drama and shabad contest during the year. Let’s see what the YTSA leaflet says, I have it right here: ‘We hope to extend the spirit of friendly competition and sportsmanship from the sports arena to other aspects of our community to foster friendship, improve spiritual awareness, and educate the community on our cultural and religious heritage, all this while having lots of wholesome family fun’. Isn’t that a noble cause, Sonia, I really like the idea.”

“That still doesn’t make sense, Dad, my yellow basketball team is so weak. We’re going to lose every year then and we’ll lose in the big basketball league too. It’s not fair, who divided these teams.”

“No, betay, they will keep adjusting the teams at each event as new players come in to balance it out.  It will be like the recruiting system used in the NBA.”  Harry knew very little about the recruitment procedure of the NBA, but figured it must be a fair one. 

Sonia didn’t know about the NBA either, but being from an international school, she was not about to ask her father about American basketball – she was embarrassed to know less than her father about this.   “Oh, good, as long as next time we have a better team.”

“Arey, Sonia, you’re ready already, why is everyone in so much hurry today?” asks the mother. Sonia too was excited about this third annual sports event.  She made quite a big fuss not to attend it during the first year, thinking it would be poorly organized and boring.  This year, she had just turned 14, so she was now going to be in the women’s team, playing with the big girls.  Besides, she will get to see Raj there.  Raj is her classmate who makes her heart beat strangely whenever she sees him, sometimes even to the point of making her queasy. Still, she likes to interact with him for some strange reason that she can’t quite comprehend.  Raj was playing basketball and, just like her, he too was in the Yellow team. To Sonia, destiny had a hand in putting them in the same house color.

“Put on this sun block lotion, Sonia, or you’ll become black. And go put on Amit as well, is he ready yet?” Pohli commands, as she completes putting a big load of cream onto herself. 

“You don’t become black, Mom, you become dark! And, yes, Amit is ready. Does he need to wear his own blue T-shirt or will they give him one?”

“No need,” responds Harry, “this year the children under 10 are getting their own T-shirts too.”

Just then Amit enters the room as if receiving a cue from a sitcom TV drama and starts his usual nagging, “Papa, I want to go to Footsol at NIST.  I don’t want to go to sports day.” Amit was referring to his indoor soccer league game he had to sacrifice to attend sports day.

“Amit, betay, this year they have lots of games for children: chair ball, basketball, soccer, running. You’ll really enjoy it.  Footsol is every week, so you can skip one week, na.”  Harry is very careful when addressing his son, to use “betay”, and not “puttar”. He used to say “Puttar”, only until Amit’s friends overheard it and started teasing Amit “Harry Puttar” as in Harry Potter. Since then, Amit made sure “Puttar” was no longer part of his Dad’s vocabulary.

After a hearty breakfast, the Singh family heads for the Thai Sikh International School.  The year’s event is attended by nearly 600 people.  The activities started at 9:00 with a track meet consisting of 100M, Relay, and some runs.  Pohli enjoyed the fierce, but friendly competition at the chair ball field.  Her Green B team did not enter the finals, but that was even better for her, because she was tired after the 3 round robin games with each team.  It gave her a chance to chat with her friends and do a bit of gossiping about each player, while watching the game.  The finals of the Women A and B chair ball were quite a spectator sport, with fans cheering on the sidelines and just having a good time. Pohli cheered hard for the Green chair ball A Team that was in the finals.  At the first half, they seemed to have bagged the win with a big lead, but somehow managed to lose to Blue by a slight margin due to a strong second half come-back.

Women’s basketball too had teams A and B to accommodate the number of people that signed up. Team A was designed to be stronger than Team B and had more points in the total sports day score. For Sonia’s Yellow basketball A team, the battle was quite fierce.  Three teams Red, Blue, and Yellow had equal points going into the finals, so a goal difference had to be used to determine the 2 finalists: Yellow and Red.  Sonia’s Yellow managed to get the gold in the basketball team A finals, something she didn’t think was possible.

To Sonia, fate also had a hand in the Men’s basketball where Raj’s team also came first.  She saw a part of his finals game too and couldn’t seem to contain her excitement each time he possessed the ball.  Raj also cheered her through part of her finals game, making her so nervous that she once even missed an easy lay up. But it was okay, her team still won. Now she’ll have lots to talk to him about.

With the many participants, soccer had 3 teams: A, B, and C. Harry was very tired running around the sun-baked field and was in a way glad his Red Team C didn’t make it to the finals to play yet another game.  He helped cheer his Red Team A soccer to their gold medal victory.

Volleyball got to play 2 round robins this year, because they had an entire field to themselves.  The Green team led after the 2 rounds of competition. A surprising tie in points between Blue, Red, and Yellow was decided by a game difference, which counted games for minus games against. Yellow went into the finals to meet Green and managed to win the volleyball championship.

Amit really enjoyed himself while he made new friends.  He played both soccer and basketball and even got a medal for the relay.  The Children's division (under 10) players were allowed to participate in more than one event, since their enrollment number was relatively low. The children were split into 2 age groups: Child for Ages 8-9 and Kiddy for Ages 5-7.  Everyone seemed to have a good time. Yellow was the dominant color in the Child and Kiddy grounds, winning gold medals in soccer, chair ball, and basketball.

The final team points per event are as shown below:

The day ended around 6:00 p.m. when the medals were distributed by the TSIS School principal. An announcement of the upcoming YTSA House Color events for the entire year was also made. The sports day was then concluded with an Ardaas at dusk, as darkness rolled in with the 6:00 p.m. sunset.

Harpal drives his aching body home, his family alongside. After getting on the main road, Harpal appears to have mustered enough strength to start a conversation.  “So, betay, maza aya, enjoyed your Sunday?”

“Yea, Dad, I had a great time, you should have seen the look on Anju’s face that time I shot a basket.  She didn’t even score one basket, just kept fouling me!”  

“Ji, how did they manage it again, it was really well planned, na, so many things going on at the same time,” remarked Pohli.   “I toh really like chair ball, I promised Bannu and the gang to include it in this year’s Happy New Year Party. Should be fun, na?” 

“Haa, Pohli.  I think YTSA has once again proven they can host big events, that too professionally, with 600 some people participating.  That is double the first year’s 300. Quite impressive, yar.  And the captains, how much work must they have put in to get all this running smoothly. All the time they spent making phone calls, planning games. Wah, they all deserve high commendation.”

“Ji, such good facilities they have, na, at Bangna school?  And those sweet children doing the Shabad and Ardaas, I really like the environment.”

“Pohli, can you give me money for the expressway, I don’t have any change,” asks Harry as he approached the tollbooth. 

“Ji, you can give them 1,000 baht bill also, they’ll break it for you.  You’ll just take my money and then complain I spend too much.”

“Don’t be so stingy, Mom, it’s only 40 baht.”

“Arey, Sonia, who was that tall, black loafer boy cheering so loudly for you?” Pohli quickly decides to change the topic, realizing she could not defend her decision to deny her husband a small change.  

“He’s Raj, my classmate from school.  Again, Mom, it’s called ‘dark’, not ‘black’.  You know without him the Yellow team would have lost the basketball finals. Fifteen years old, and he was the team star!” she proudly proclaims. 

“Wah wai, you seem to like him very much”, remarks Harry.

“Raj is Didi’s boyfriend”, Amit teases.

“Shut up!” responds the sister putting her hands over Amit's mouth.

“Arey, Sonia, talk to your brother nicely.  And Amit, stop teasing your sister, he’s not her boyfriend okay,” scolds Harry, his heart sinking slightly at the thought that his little darling daughter is coming of age with her apparent interest in boys. Maybe he should have heeded his father’s advice and put Sonia in an all-girls boarding school somewhere in an isolated mountaintop.  But then later where can he find an all-girls college, he continued reasoning to himself. He wishes he could put her in an island somewhere with no boys allowed.  He finally manages to convince himself that one day she’s going to have to learn to live in the real, co-ed world anyway, so why not start at a young age.

“Ji, you know this Raj boy?  He’s the son of Bhatia, the brother of the Sandu of Sukhothai Textile’s Puah’s son, the one that walks crooked, na.”

Sonia was lost by her mother’s family connections.  In her Physics class she was beginning to grasp the introduction to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but her parents’ puzzling “Theory of Relatives” had always been somewhat beyond her comprehension.  Harry, though, spent only a moment to trace the family links.  “Acha, acha, his father’s shop is Chai Yai Fabrics, right?  Their shop is having very good export business these days.  Sonia, he seems like a nice boy?!”

“Yea, Dad, soon as he’s rich, he’s no longer a loafer, right?”

“I never said he was a loafer, Sonia, that was your mother’s words.”

Pohli quickly interjected, “I toh think his mother should have given him some lotion to put. He’s already so black and then playing in the sun like that.”

“Mom, he’s dark, tall, and handsome, okay.  Dark is beautiful, unlike in your old generation, get with the program, Mom.  Besides, he’s beautiful inside too, and that’s what really matters.”

“That’s what they say, na, when there’s nothing to see outside, they then talk about inner beauty.” Pohli joked.

“Pohli, don’t be so shallow, wai, he must be a good boy, if Sonia thinks so.  You talk too much, no wonder your friends call you ‘Pohli the Zaada Boli’.” 

“Yes, yes, they call me Zaada Boli only, and then if I don’t come to a share party, na, they complain it’s no fun and even cancel it!”

“Today was so much more fun than Footsol,” Amit interrupted, “but the Yellow team was so strong.  We even tied them in soccer, but lost the penalty kick.” 

Everyone is happy to see Amit express his joy, because he didn’t do that very often. Just then Sonia’s phone rings, followed almost immediately by Pohli’s.  The two women start a conversation with their friends about their exciting day. Harry wonders why his phone didn’t ring as often as that of the other 2 women in his life, even though he was quite a big businessman.  As always, he also wonders what it is they had so much to talk about, with both their phone bills so much higher than his. The family returns home very pleased with the day’s events, although the two women were still on the phone.  At the dinner table, they feel closer to each other after spending a fun day together.  As this is a fictitious story, we can safely proclaim that they all lived happily ever after.