Pune: St Vincent’s High School in Camp which has been one of the hotbeds of basketball players have now a reason to boast of. It is the international standard indoor basketball court which was inaugurated at the school on Saturday.
This international standard basketball court is the first phase of a unique project to improve the sports infrastructure in the school initiated by the St Vincent’s Sports Vision (SVSV) alumni under the aegis of the Vincent’s Old Boys Association (VOBA).
The entire project has been funded by the alumni network of the school beginning with ex-students from the 1960s to 2018. The biggest contribution so far has come from ex-student, Francis Santan D’souza (Batch of 1967) of INR 67 lakhs. D’souza was present at the inauguration function on Saturday.
Previously, ex-students from the school’s 1982 batch funded and constructed a swimming pool, the 1988 batch improved the football infrastructure and the 1990 batch built an open air basket-ball court for the school.
The present project has been guided and blessed by the Pune Jesuit Provincial Rev Fr Andrew Fernandes, Rector Fr Kenneth Misquitta and Principal Rev Fr Francis Patekar of the St Vincent’s High school.
The school management stated that this first phase which is complete, involved developing the Fr.Oesch indoor hall into an international basketball facility with NBA grade playing surface, with the potential to play badminton in the future.
The second phase would involve developing a state of the art, international standard athletics infrastructure, which would include a world class synthetic track with space allocated for throwing and jumping events.
Similarly, the third phase which would run parallel to the above phases is to put in place a coaching structure which would enable the school to spot and develop talent among its students.
