St Joseph’s Boys’ High School marked the inaugural of its new Loyola Sports Complex by Cricketer Rahul Dravid, former captain of the Indian Cricket team on 5th September 2015 with much fanfare.
The School also conducted its Annual Athletic Meet on the same day and the students put up a fine display of their talent and skills. Shri N A Haris, MLA was present in the event.
Sharing the dais with Rahul Dravid was a very impressive line up of famous sportsmen who had studied at the School. This included former Captain of the Indian Cricket team , Asiad hockey player Sandeep Somesh , National Basketball player Austin D ‘Almeida ,Olympian swimmer Hakimuddin Habibullah , Olympian Badminton player Anup Sridhar , National Golf Champion Trishul Chinappa and International swimmer Arvind M.
The Provincial , Rector and other senior members of the Society of Jesus which runs and manages the School were also present.
The Loyola Sports Complex is built at a cost of about Rs 16 crores. It houses a swimming pool, table tennis facilities, indoor cricket pitch for the first time in India, basketball court, snooker tables, activity rooms, class rooms, music rooms, conference room , food court and office for Old Boys. With these wide ranging and state-of-the-art facilities made available to students , the School is sure that the list of champion players will continue to be long in the years to come.
Welcoming the chief guest Rahul Dravid, Fr.Clifford Sequira, Principal of St Joseph’s Boys’ High School said “The presence of the former captain of the Indian Cricket Team Rahul Dravid will inspire thousands of our students to pursue their dream. The Loyola sports complex is the India’s first indoor school sports complex. We are very happy to have it in our school premises”.
Speaking on the inauguration Cricketer Rahul Dravid said, “Loyola Sports Complex is the future of thousands of sports students. This made me remember my school days and the beautiful memories spent here”.
“In life I had been asked to be a wicket keeper, sometime to be an opening batsman and when the captain was not there I have also worked as a captain for my team. But this is the first time that I had been asked to be the chief guest and replace the chief minister” said Rahul Dravid in a lighter vein.
