Prasad: Making news

Ranchi, May 17: After cricket and hockey, it is volleyball that is earning headlines for the state.

The newsmaker here is Bhanu Prasad. A Ranchi girl, Prasad is set to become the first volleyball coach from the state to be selected to train the Indian volleyball women?s team that leaves for Philippines on May 21.

India is participating in the Youth Asiad Volleyball Tournament to be held between May 24 and 31 at Manila.

The gutsy player made her presence felt even as a spiker of the unified Bihar and the Jharkhand team and later led the Ranchi University volleyball team.

Four years ago, she took up the job of an assistant sports officer in Lucknow and worked as a coach for the Uttar Pradesh state volleyball team. She soon distinguished herself as a dedicated coach but what pitchforked her into limelight were the three consecutive victories notched by her girls.

This was the first time that Uttar Pradesh had won three major national tournaments in a row. The team defeated Bengal in the senior nationals east zone tournament, beat the Punjab team in the senior national finals and then went on to grab the junior nationals trophy from the Andhra Pradesh team.

For Prasad, who is in her mid-twenties, her patience and hard work had paid off. She was, clearly, the winner.

?The best moment for a coach is when the players coached by her or him are selected to represent the country. For Bhanu, this moment came when Pinki Chaurasia and Poonam Choudhary (from the Uttar Pradesh team) were selected to represent the country in Sri Lanka and Russia,? said her mentor Shekhar Bose, the secretary of Jharkhand Volleyball Association and a coach of international repute.

Bhanu?s success got her not only a place in the national team, in last August, but also a promotion as the sports officer.

For the last six months, she has been working with 150 players at the national camp held at Vishakapattanam with the chief coach. Only 12 made it to the Indian team.