Tata Power’s Clarence Lobo, a #DronacharyaAward winner, tells #TataReview about his journey & how hockey that transformed his life and earned him the national honour given to India’s best sports coaches. #TataPeople #PowerOfSport https://bit.ly/2WZHBFk

1. January-March 2019
TATA PEOPLE
THE PLAYERS’ COACH
Tata Power’s Clarence Lobo, a Dronacharya Award winner, tells Cynthia
Rodrigues about the journey that began when he received an offer to coach the
Tata Sports Club team
As a young boy, Clarence Lobo used to play football for his school. If you had asked him then what
he saw himself doing in life, he would have unhesitatingly spoken of a career in football. “Football is

2. my first love,” says the senior technician at Tata Power. “It was the game I saw myself playing all my
life.”
Yet it was hockey that transformed his life and earned him the Dronacharya Award 2018, a national
honour given to India’s best sports coaches.
HOW IT STARTED
Clarence’s elder brother Gilbert was already playing hockey for Tata Power when Clarence won
himself a place on the company’s football team. On one fateful day in 1980, the sports commanding
officer, Kher Singh, was short of players for a hockey match. Spotting Clarence, he asked him if he
played hockey. “A little,” Lobo replied.
The footwork and agility he displayed netted the team one goal and impressed Mr Singh. It was at Mr
Singh’s insistence that Clarence began training for football in the morning and hockey in the evening.
He was still confused about where his vocation lay. But slowly, he says, “I got hooked on to this lovely
game called hockey”. He began focusing entirely on hockey.
Over the next few years, Clarence played hockey for the senior Bombay team and was even called
for the India hockey camp, “I was the standby for two tournaments with the Indian team until I got
injured. My knees required surgery,” he says.
Following the operation, Clarence put all his energies into playing for Tata Sports Club in various
tournaments. It was in 1993 that Clarence received an offer to coach the Tata Sports Club team, and
that, he says, “was my turning point.”
“I went on to become the Bombay coach for the nationals,” he says.“In 1998, I became the junior India
sub-junior coach. I also coached the under-21 squad for the World Cup. Thereafter I coached the
senior team for over 8 years.”
Through it all, he has led teams to several reputed tournaments, including one World Cup, two
Champions Trophy tournaments, one Olympics, one Commonwealth Games and one Asian Games.
One psychological boost that never fails to energise players, Clarence says, is listening to the national
anthem.

3. COACHING STYLE
Clarence owes his coaching style to Ric Charlesworth, Australian hockey legend and a former
technical director for the Indian hockey team. He picked up a lot from Charlesworth’s style while
working as his assistant during a few tournaments. He was also influenced by Cedric D’Souza, who
he describes as the best Indian hockey coach.
“A good performance on the field is a mix of 50 percent of team work, 25 percent of fitness and
technical ability and 25 percent of tactical moves,” Clarence says .“These are elements you build over
time, but the most important thing is to motivate the players and get them to gel. As a coach, I need
to know the playing style of my players and that of the competition.”
A good coach, he adds, puts his players through the paces during training, but remains calm during
the match: “A coach who shouts while the game is on is wasting his breath. The players are worked
up and can barely hear over the noise in the stadium. The right time to talk to them is during half
time.”
The other crucial thing that sets a good coach apart, he notes, is creating an atmosphere where
players want to play and perform to their fullest capacity. He recalls one time when his Tata Sports
Club team lost a match: “They couldn’t face me; they felt as if they had let me down.”
MAKER OF KHEL RATNAS
Clarence, however, had never considered applying for the Dronacharya Award until several friends
and well-wishers advised him to do so. The application had to be endorsed by letters of
recommendation from players he had coached. The testimonials from his “boys” turned out to be a
listing from the hockey hall of fame with names like Dhanraj Pillay, Viren Rasquinha, Dinesh Tirkey,
Sardar Singh and Sandeep Singh — recipients of honours like the Khel Ratna, Arjuna Awards and
Padma Shri.
BEYOND THE FIELD
Currently, Clarence coaches the Tata Power, Maharashtra Police and the Comptroller and Auditor
General’s office teams.
The coaching of the police team,in particular, is close to his heart as the players often come from
economically backward backgrounds and hail from the interiors of Maharashtra. He trains them for
the All-India Police Games, where he has led the team to two victories. Winning a medal in these
games assures the players a promotion.
Clarence also helps them improve their English-speaking skills, because, above all, he believes that
a coach must manage his players, going beyond perfecting their game, to resolving their conflicts and
problems.
Clarence hopes to busy himself with more such efforts post-retirement. He says, “There is nothing
like sports to build one’s personality. I hope to join an NGO and teach kids to play hockey.”