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Flight is something that plenty attempt, but few attain. And the ones who manage to sustain their flight are fewer still.
To many, NBA legend Michael Jordan redefined ‘hang time’ with his ability to seemingly stay afloat mid-air for just that little bit longer than his contemporaries could. But close to a decade before Jordan even set foot on an NBA floor, a genius from the remote, obscure village of Peravoor in Northern Kerala had started defying the laws of gravity.
The name of Jimmy George will conjure images of a tall man rising majestically above the net and sending down a thunderous spike much to the delight of the assembled audience. He was one of those players who was just a joy to behold when in full flow.
George is one of those little known Indian athletes who contributed a great deal to the sport in India. The wizardry at his disposal was almost unparalleled and it made him one of the most delightful volleyball players to watch for not just people in India, but also those from other countries.
His ability to almost eternally stay in the air while going for a smash was the stuff of legend and was the standout draw for volleyball supporters every time he took to the courts. Rising head and shoulders above, his leap tended to dwarf the rest of the players on court, seemingly elevating him to a heavenly pedestal that somehow seemed to be reserved only for him.
Post the swoon that accompanied his majestic ascent came the reverberating thump of Jimmy’s spike that almost inevitably got his team the point or at least close to a point.
He came to be known as the ultimate exponent of power volleyball in his time as well as a remorseless executioner when it came to pulling off smashes. His command on ‘hang time’ was such that he could pause for that extra second that he stayed suspended, to survey his options and decide where to place his thundering smash.
Playing career
Jimmy George was born into the famous Kudakkachira family in Kerala and picked up volleyball from a very young age thanks to his father, himself a volleyball player who had played competitively for Madras University while studying law there.
He played for the St. Joseph’s High School in Peravoor before becoming a part of the University of Calicut volleyball team. He shifted to St. Thomas College in Pala in 1973 and then went on to play for Kerala University four times between 1973 and 1976.
His university side won the All India Inter-University Championship in each of the four years that he played for them. He captained the side in 1973. Then in 1976, he suddenly quit medical college and opted to join the Kerala Police team.
His meteoric rise was noticed by everyone and he soon earned a spot in the Kerala national team at the age of 16 in the year 1971.
It was in 1979 when his international sojourn began. He took a break from the Kerala Police team that year to go play in the Middle-East with Abu Dhabi sports club where he spent three years. Then came one of the most significant decisions of his career, when in 1982, he left to Italy to play for Coletto Club in Treviso, Italy. He guided Trevisco into Italy’s top league, the Serie A, in his very first season.
He played a season there before returning to India and playing some more, including his last Nationals at Kanpur in 1985, before being almost inevitably drawn back to Italy, this time to play for a different team Arrital.
From there he would sign a contract with the Eurostyle-Euroslba team in the Montchiari region of Brescia.
Untimely demise
Jimmy died in a car accident in Italy on November 30, 1987, at the age of 32. The news came as a complete shock to everyone as the overwhelming feeling was that the jaws of death had unwittingly swallowed up one of the volleyball world’s foremost geniuses.
Following his death, the Jimmy George Foundation was established. The foundation in 1989 instituted the Jimmy George Award which was to be given to the best sportsperson from the state of Kerala.
The foundation is also instrumental in giving away cash awards at St. Joseph’s High School, Peravoor, and at Devagiri College.
The government of Kerala rechristened the indoor stadium in Trivandrum as the Jimmy George Indoor Stadium. At St. Thomas college, Pala, where Jimmy studied and played, a volleyball stadium was named after him. So was another stadium in his hometown of Peravoor. Since 1989, the Kerala Volleyball League of North America has been organizing the Jimmy George Super Trophy Volleyball Tournament.
If the dedications and appreciation within India were big, then the tributes that flowed in from Italy just went to show the reverence with which he was remembered in the country. An indoor stadium in Italy was dedicated in his memory at Montichiari, Brescia, and an annual junior tournament is organized in his memory.
And the lasting impression that Jimmy’s game had left in Italy could not have been better exemplified than from the fact that the indoor stadium at Montichiari, Brescia, was named after him, even before Trivandrum offered its salutation with its own stadium.
But the best of them all came in a quaint little town in Italy near the city of Milan where Jimmy once played with the local Coletto club. A street near the club’s headquarters was renamed Jimmy George!
It was the moment that Jimmy George was institutionalized in Italy.
Legacy
Jimmy George (fourth from left) with his brothers and parents
Jimmy played for India’s national volleyball team in the Asian Games in Tehran (1974), Bangkok (1978) and in Seoul (1986). At the campaign in Seoul, he helped the team win the bronze medal.
He also played a starring role in India’s success at the India Gold Cup International Volleyball Tournament at Hyderabad in 1986.
At the age of 21, George became the youngest volleyball player to win the Arjuna Award. He was given the G.V. Raja Award in 1975 and won the Manorama Award, for the best sportsman of Kerala, in 1976. Later on Jimmy was honoured as the best sports person from Kerala of the 20th Century.
He also received the recognition of the best player in the Gulf Region while playing for the Abu Dhabi sports club between 1979 – 1982. He was rated amongst the top ten attackers in the world in the 1980′s. Another feather in his cap was that he became the first Indian player to have played for a professional foreign volleyball team, and he had quite a successful time while there.
Jimmy’s extraordinary ‘hang time’ had an air of mysteriousness and awe surrounding it. While many were left exploring how exactly he pulled off those levitational leaps, some of his teammates tried explaining it.
“He had what is called the absolute jump — more than a metre above the ground — which in the 70s and 80s was very rare in India. It still is,” was what Jimmy’s former team mate Ramana Rao had to say.
“Volleyball is all about defying gravity, but Jimmy’s was the most stylish jump because he managed a little air-rest where he could stop in flight for a fraction of a second,” he added.
He was also one of the first to bring the jump-serve into the Indian team; something which had previously been unused in the Indian setup.
His peers also remember Jimmy to be a man with huge reserves of mental strength.
“Besides his jump, what was also several notches above any other Indian was his tremendous mental power,” national coach G.E. Sridharan had to say.
Sridharan said that Jimmy George was no ordinary attacker and believed that his explosiveness was down to his mental toughness.
“Jimmy was into meditation well before it came into Indian sport. When he came to the court after his quiet thought, we could just watch the stored energy explode. The whole mind and body came as one when he jumped into the typical body arc.”
Jimmy’s transformation from a meditative monk to an explosive attacker also lifted the team to new levels.
India benefited greatly from Jimmy’s Italian stint, winning an Asian Games medal at Seoul in 1986.
His teammates also remember Jimmy for the enthusiastic and endless rounds of blind-chess and memory games that he used to indulge in, in between matches.
Back home in Kerala, amongst the current generation, the memories of Jimmy George are those that they have witnessed through the old videos of him in action. Jimmy’s brother Sebastien, who played with Jimmy in his last match in India, carries with him tape compilations of his brother’s games which he takes around to be distributed amongst schools and colleges.
One piece of information that was and still is not known to many though, is the fact that Jimmy was a good swimmer too. He was twice the Calicut University champion – in 1971 and 1972 – and managed to bag four gold medals even.
However, with volleyball taking much of his time, swimming was left behind.
But, one would say, that the world was better for it.
It truly cannot be contemplated how well Jimmy may have fared in swimming, but as is common with most champion sportspersons, they seem to be in possession of an innate desire and tireless motor that propels them to success in most endeavours that they undertake.
Jimmy George, literally and figuratively, stood head and shoulders above everyone else during his time. In his quick ascent into the spotlight and his lavish skills as a volleyball player, Jimmy had made the jump into becoming a superstar.
He may not have had manic fans lining up on the streets, waiting to greet him or gatherings going hysterical on his mere sighting, but for a large group of volleyball fans in India and abroad, he managed to thrill and excite, in the process giving them the ultimate gift any sportsperson can hope to offer – moments of happiness.
It is said about sporting icons that when they are remembered in their home country, they represent the achievement of moderate to extreme success. But when they are remembered and honoured, as well if not more, on foreign soil then they have truly achieved something beyond just sporting success.
Jimmy George was one of those names whose legacy and achievements will be forever immortalized in the history of the sport.
