But it would be unfair to restrict sports to being a stress reliever only. In a b-school, it is an unsaid rule for the students to be more sociable to work together as a team. Needless to mention, group assignments and case study competitions form the part and parcel of the daily life of an MBA student. These require group leadership qualities to work towards achieving a common goal. This is where the role of sports comes into play. All students, in their capacity, have indulged in some version of sports through their childhood to adulthood. Infusing this nostalgia and experience in a b-school life improves the absorption capacity of what a student can learn from a b-school. It teaches us the basic tenets of being an MBA graduate like perseverance, working in a group, inspiring others and most importantly, mental agility. Students at XIMB understand these advantages and use the abundant resources that the college has to offer to improve this side of their personality through sports. After long lectures through the day, students can be seen working out in the gym, jogging on the long span of roads inside the campus. The floodlights at the football, cricket and tennis grounds light up in the evening to show enthusiastic students playing together and enjoying the “non- academic” banter.
Sportscom, the sports committee of XIMB; celebrates this energy of aspiring management graduates through “Athlos”. Athlos is an annual event which comprises of tournaments between several b-schools on various sports ranging from indoor sports such as table tennis to outdoor sports such as football.
This year, Athlos was held from 13th October 2017 to 15th October 2017. XIMB was host to reputed b-schools such as IIFT Kolkata, VGSoM (IIT Kharagpur) among others. This event was also special to the alumni base of XIMB as there was also an XIMB alumni team which participated in the tournaments. The event was inaugurated by the esteemed Chief Guest, Arjuna awardee cyclist; Mrs. Minati Mohapatra. The three-day long event saw active participation between students of various colleges who battled it out in various sports. The list of sports included basketball, football, cricket, lawn tennis, throw ball, volleyball, badminton, table tennis and chess. A quiz on sports was also conducted in the week prior to this which the students participated in huge numbers.
The tournaments showcased the balance maintained by b-school students both inside as well as outside classrooms. Not only that, it also proved to be a fruitful meeting of various students on a common ground – sports. The students admitted it to be a great idea for understanding each b-school’s culture to enhance their outlook of the greater picture about the management education system in India. To summarise, the event provided the best “grounds” for the amalgamation of the “Sports” in business and the “Business” in sports.
Monica Mishra
BM 1st Year
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