The Making of an All Rounder – a conversation with Dr Buddy Reid

Correspondence to Dr Sanjiva Wijesinha Sanjivasw@gmail.com

Surgeon Dr Buddy Reid – one of the finest all round sportsmen Sri Lanka has produced – recently celebrated his 83rd birthday. During his University days, Buddy won the National Table Tennis championships of Ceylon three times, played Cricket for Ceylon, sang in the University SCM choir and played clarinet in a dance band called The Neurones.

In 1965 he graduated as a doctor -and a few years later he captained our national teams in both Cricket and Table Tennis, was player and coach of the Table Tennis team as well as Secretary of the Table Tennis Association of Ceylon. He raised a family with his wife Peace – and became a specialist surgeon.

In conversation last week with Ravi Rudra and Manilka Wijesooriya, Buddy spoke about his life and career – and gave us an insight into what it takes to be a true all-rounder.

Question-What goes into the making of a sportsman?  

Parents play a vital role. The most important first gift parents could give a child is a ball and the next few gifts should be more balls of different kinds. The parents should then play with the child as often as possible, showing that the most enjoyable thing in life is playing with a ball. Once a child has come to know the joys of catching, throwing, bouncing, hitting or kicking a ball he is well on the way to becoming a sportsman. Play with other children will make him a team sportsman – which will then lead him to a well-adjusted attitude in sports and life.

What matters most is enjoyment and enthusiasm.  Some may be happy to just play socially while others have the desire to go on to serious competition.   Pressure from parents won’t lead to a happy achiever. It is the enthusiasm of the player himself that leads to achievement.

Enjoyment should be the aim, irrespective of the level at which you play. Sportsmen like Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena would need to score a 100 to gain the same degree of enjoyment as an Under 14 schoolboy player hitting just one ball for four. All are winners as long as they enjoy the game.

Question –      “How do you balance studies, sports and other interests such as music?” 

As we know, studies or sports alone could take up all of an individual’s time.  I personally found that the best way of achieving the maximum in multiple fields was by good time management – which meant

1. Make maximum use of the time available

2. Use each activity as a relaxation from the other

3. Study everything – including sports.

4. Concentrate on only one thing at a time.

From the age of about 13 years, my typical day consisted of school followed by cricket practice until 6.00 pm, followed by Table Tennis up to 7.50 pm. I would then run the mile from the Table Tennis club to meet my father’s deadline of being home by 8.00 pm for the family dinner. This was followed by homework which I always completed before hitting the pillow.

 Studying everything I did, including sports, enabled me to arrange my thoughts better and utilise all available time. During University days I summarized each chapter of a text book into a single page of an exercise book and then summarized that page into a single page of a small notebook which fitted into my shirt pocket. Whenever I had a moment to spare – for example, waiting for a bus or halted at the traffic lights on my bike, I would flip open the notebook in the shirt pocket and in a minute with the notebook I would be revising two hours of the original chapter of the text book. In this way I made use of all the “in between” moments.

In Cricket I would study the reasons I got out. I would then go over the corrected stroke over and over again, faster and faster – perhaps fifty to a hundred times – until it was ingrained in me to the extent that I played the correct shot automatically next time.

In Table Tennis, I made notes in exercise books.  In the first half of the exercise book I wrote down techniques I had learned by playing or watching other players. The second half of the exercise book had the names of players I had played against recording their weak and strong points.  I noted what they did against me and what I had to do to overcome them. Reading this before a match enabled me to be prepared and one step ahead the next time we met. There was an index of strokes and an index of players for quick reference.

Concentration was very important. The secret of doing many things in a day is to do only one thing at a time, applying full concentration to the activity being undertaken at the time. You cannot solve a maths problem while thinking of cricket. Once the final school bell rang, my concentration switched to watching the ball.

Music served as a means of bonding with my team mates, restored the spirits after a loss on the field and was a means of relaxing after the concentration required for the main activities.  In summary, the keys to success are Enthusiasm, Enjoyment and Time management.