Mumbai: The evening of January 22nd saw the culmination of one of India’s biggest B-School Sports Festivals, SPRINT. An annual fixture on SPJIMR’s calendar, SPRINT has become one of those anticipated events on the circuit with widespread participation from across the nation. So what does it take to organise a fest of this magnitude spread over 72 gruelling hours? Let’s find out.
In its 10th edition this year, the team behind SPRINT chooses a theme to build the entire fest on. We have had some really interesting ones in the past, with the most recent one being “Wild”. This year, the team went on to choose “Passion – Junoon” as the central theme and the entire build up was around that. This was the genesis of the hashtag, #JungJunoonJeet, now widely popular across the different social media platforms. The teams to conduct the fest are chosen voluntarily by the incumbent team and then the baton is passed over officially. SPRINT follows a very horizontal hierarchy setup. There are only 2 designated posts per se, “The Convener” and “The Finance Head”. The whole and sole responsibility to drive the fest rest on the shoulders of these 2 able candidates, who are chosen from among the batch, by the batch.
The teams are then split into different verticals based on their interest and the requirement. The key verticals are Creatives, Events, Logistics, Marketing and Sponsorship. The actual work towards the fest starts about 90 days in advance to the actual fest. Like you would be aware, it is required that everyone on the team put their A game forward and back each other up wherever required.
In the lead up to SPRINT, there were various activities planned. It all kick started with the SPJIMR Premier League (SPL), an IPL format cricket tournament where the players from the batch were bid for by the owners and teams were formed based on the money allocated. This led to a wonderful start to the fest as it had the buy-in from the entire set of students. This was quickly followed up by the SPJIMR Football League (SFL) which tried to foster in the spirit of Junoon by pitching in teams across different sections to compete against each other and thereby, letting the desire for supremacy drive the entire event. By this time, the entire college had woken up to the idea of Junoon & SPRINT 2017.
Moving on, the team organised an event around the festive period of Makar Sankranti. There were the traditional kite flying, music and some scrumptious food for all participants. It presented an opportunity for the participants to reminiscence old memories and make new ones. This was followed by the actual event of SPRINT’17 – A 3-day sporting extravaganza!
Held over January 20th – 22nd, SPRINT’17 saw the participation of 570 athletes from 12 different institutes from across the country. There were 15 different events, ranging from Cricket, Football and Basketball to Lan Gaming, Chess & Carroms. The venues for the events were among the Bhavan’s Campus, Andheri Recreation Club and Andheri Sports Center. At the end of the event, SPJIMR managed to retain its crown as the overall champions of SPRINT’17 with the contingent from IIM Indore pushing them to the very end. The team from K. J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research finished third, with NMIMS Mumbai & TISS, Mumbai filling in the other spots in the top 5. It was an indeed an event to remember and one which was truly bigger and better than the previous editions of SPRINT. Here is hoping that the next edition only pushes the envelope further!
SPRINT. Here is hoping that the next edition only pushes the envelope further!
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About the Author:
This article is written by Lakshmi Narayanan Lakshmanan, SPRINT'17 Marketing Team and a PGP1 student of SPJIMR.