| President of Squash Rackets Association of Perlis |
3rd May 2003 |
Dr. Abdul Wahab bin TanSri Khalid
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Interviewed
by
Ahmad Rizal bin Che Din
Written by
Tricia Chuah
Edited and Approved by
Lt. Col (Rtd.) Wong Ah Jit |
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My first attempt to meet Dr. Wahab was during the first Sports
Excel in KL…but I was unlucky as he wasn’t there,
and I ended up with Sergeant Allan instead for a chat! Yeah,
I know, tell me about it! So, the Webmaster conducted this
interview. He went to Perlis, the Land of Paddy Fields, and
had the opportunity to meet the passionate, Dr. Wahab. A great
man, who is endless in his effort to raise squash in Perlis
we had a great conversation about squash, squash and squash
over lunch. Here goes… |
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| How did you
get involve with squash? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
After my first introduction to squash in 1997, I fell in love with
it. It’s a beautiful and intelligent game. Before that, I was
playing tennis. And then, some factories, which I was attached to,
needed squash players. They knew I played tennis and thought tennis
and squash were similar so, since then I went with squash. Never regretted
it. |
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| How did squash
begin in Perlis? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
Actually squash is unheard
of in Perlis. Since we had some people playing squash, I said ok…why
don’t we set up an association? Then, I approached Peter and
he was very helpful in getting us to set up the Perlis association.
We tried many things to make it popular like inviting our super stars;
Nicol David and her sisters, Ong Beng Hee and Tricia Chuah, to give
us a hand in our clinics. It was successful after that as the enrolment
got bigger and bigger each year. Once, we recorded 170 participants
for the Under 12, which was a big figure. After that, we continued
pushing the state government to help and support us. |
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| What about
the squashathon? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
Our last big effort was to
do something different. Since we could not organize international
events due to our lack of facilities, we organized the Perlis Squashathon
2000. We invited players throughout Malaysia who was free to come
over. Tricia was around as well, again! And we got schools to participate
by playing non-stop squash for 30 hours throughout the night. Officials
of the National Book of Records witnessed it. So, that was something
we did to make squash better known, locally as well as in Malaysia. |
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| What other things did you do to promote
the game? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
We
have organized tea functions to get to know parents. According to
the Maktab Perguruan, we were the first to organize squash clinics
for lecturers in teacher’s training colleges throughout Malaysia.
We had lecturers from Sarawak and other states sending their lecturers
to participate in squash clinics. We were hoping that they’d
go back to their respective places to promote the game locally. And
from there, we tried to get squash into the co curriculum of the teacher’s
training program so that they would graduate with a degree, and as
well as a certificate for level 1 or 2 in squash. If this can be done
throughout Malaysia, imagine the numbers of teachers qualified in
coaching. It’ll be tremendous! The idea was there. |
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| What’s your current goal for the
state’s squash development program? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
Well, if we can get to see
our players to be among the elite national players, that would be
good. Right now, juniors are at the stage of development. So far,
we have managed to produce 1 or 2 who are now attached to the Bukit
Jalil Sports School. If they’re good, we don’t keep them
here because it’ll just kill their interest and prospect. I
think when the Penang Squash Academy starts running, Penang will be
our choice instead because it’s nearer. |
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| What are the
necessities to achieve that? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
It needs good coaches, good
coaching, active association, good fundings, and courts. If we have
fundings, we don’t have to depend on the state. If the state
wants to come in and help, that would be much better. |
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| Aren’t
the government helping out by building a sports complex? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
Yeah…they’ve shown
us the latest plan of it. It’s very nice compared to the previous
one. It’s beautiful! Of course for now, it’s sufficient
but if they want to go international, they will have to have more
courts. If we have 170 participants for the clinics…where do
they go from there? How to fit them into the squash courts that we
have? We have 3 courts around and 2 at the Maktab Perguruan…that’s
it, and very limited usage as they don’t allow us to use it
everyday. That’s why we’re doing things and constantly
urging the state government to come up with squash court because…if
we continue promoting, it comes back to square 1. And at the end,
the public will get turned off, you know…there you promote but
there’s no place to play. So, the one that kills our effort
is the lack of facilities. |
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| How was the development
program when it first started? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
I think there was just a handful
of players, and all the funds were personal. I have been giving out
free balls, racquets and covered court fees. This is an effort of
Dr Faizah, my wife, who has been behind the scene and mine. She’s
done a fantastic job helping the locals and enticing them to play.
Not just that, you’ll find that presents and prizes will be
given by her as well. If there were 100 prizes, she would wrap all
of that herself, personally! Her support is to that extend! She spent
time, encouraged, and took kids to KL for events. She took them to
the Petronas Science Center, the movies…something they can look
forward to. But not all of them stayed on, they just dropped off like
that. And then the following year, they’d look forward to go
KL again. So after some time, we stopped adding the privileges that
they had. They’d go KL and that’s it. |
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| And
now? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
: I think now with Matthew
as our coach, our program is going on the right track. We’re
trying to get him to be a full time coach and SRAM has been trying,
helping us out in getting one. We’re going more professional
about it; more discipline and better training quality. We’ve
done a lot. We had spent so much money promoting, and now we have
a very good, hardworking coach, you know, but the state government
does not compliment all this. I think what we want to see now is the
support from them to come up with sports facilities. |
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| How regular are the
training sessions conducted? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
Practically everyday but because we are
spending more hours a day, we are cutting down. Sessions are 3 to
4 hours a day, from 3 to 7p.m. Our coach Matthew has divided the time
so, there’d be about 8 students per session. Before, we had
20 kids in a court! So now, the coaching is better organized. |
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| How many players are
there now in the program? |
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| Dr. Wahab : |
70 to 80 kids. Quite good but what I want
to see is quality. |
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Continue |
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