Cricket to Crossbars

Tejaswin Shankar’s Unlikely Rise to NCAA Prominence 

A Story By Dave Devine of DyeStat

 

The school children were excited to meet the new teacher. 

Tejaswin Shankar, 14 years old at the time, was among them. He figured the new instructor might help him improve at cricket. 

Shankar was already on the cricket team with many of his schoolmates at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya School in New Delhi, India, an ambitious teen seeking the additional coaching that might mold him into the formidable fast bowler he aspired to become. 

“Like any other teenager, any kid who wants to be a sports-person,” Shankar recalled recently, “I also wanted to be a cricketer, because the game is so popular in the country. When we heard a new teacher was coming to our school, I was really excited to meet him. I knew he could help me become better.” 

The school already enjoyed a strong cricket tradition, with former batsman Ajay Jadeja among its most well-recognized alums. Shankar and his friends hoped the arrival of Sunil Kumar Patial, the new physical education teacher, would help them extend that proud reputation. 

But Patial, a former 100-meter sprinter, had other ideas when he watched Shankar racing after classmates during a recess at school. 

While Shankar figured his height, strength and speed made him a natural candidate to confound batsmen on the cricket pitch, Patial saw, in those same attributes, the promise of a gifted track and field athlete. 

The new teacher invited his young charge to meet in the morning before school for additional training. 

When Shankar arrived the first day, expecting to work on strength, agility and coordination in service of his cricket dreams, Patial made a pitch for a completely different endeavor. 

“He was like, ‘You can run well, you can jump high…,’” Shankar recalled, “and I said, ‘Well, I don’t really think about it, because I want to do cricket. I don’t know anything about this sport of track and field.’” 

Undeterred, Shankar continued the morning sessions with Patial, convincing himself that the general athletics training would benefit his aspirations on the pitch. 

Eventually, Patial steered him toward a specific event, one the coach knew little about. 

“My coach said, ‘No, you can run good, you have good balance, you can do the high jump.” 

Suspect of that assessment, Shankar nonetheless cleared 1.70 meters (5 feet, 7 inches) on his first attempt, using a rudimentary scissor step. His reliance on that outdated technique wasn’t solely owing to a lack of familiarity with the event; a flop was out of the question because the teenager was landing in a sand pit. 

“The first time I saw a (modern) high jump pit was when I was a state champion,” Shankar said, “Then the Fosbury (Flop) really helped me put more height to my jumps.” 

But even as Shankar began to explore the basics of track and field at school, he was encountering resistance at home. 

His father, Hari, expected his son to bend his athletic gifts toward glory on the cricket pitch. When he learned of the early morning sessions with Patial, geared toward athletics, he discouraged Shankar from attending. 

Shankar’s mother, Lakshmi, quietly intervened on her son’s behalf. 

“My mother used to sneak me out of the house before (my father) woke up in the morning,” Shankar said, “because training with my coach was disappointing. He didn’t like me to do track and field.” 

The elder Shankar’s opposition extended beyond the impact on his son’s cricket future. He had deep concerns about the doping culture endemic to international track and field. 

“For that reason,” Shankar said, “I had to make sure he didn’t know that I was still training.” 

By the time Shankar was shattering school and regional records, his father had fallen ill with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow. 

“He didn’t see me compete; he never even really saw me train.” 

After his father’s death, Shankar persisted with his efforts, eventually turning to the Internet when he and Patial felt they’d exhausted their limited expertise. 

“All he could do for me, he did,” Shankar said. “But after a point it got really specific in terms of what I need to do to increase my height, because I was doing well at the state level. We didn’t have any high jump coaches in my part of the country, so I thought we’d go to YouTube and look it up.” 

The YouTube search bar delivered the best jumpers in the world to Shankar’s laptop. 

Barshim and Bondarenko. Drouin and Kynard. 

He’d watch for hours, make notes, and then return to Patial and attempt to explain what he’d seen. 

“We just made a plan — a program — out of that,” Shankar said. “He used that to train me and it turned out we did well.” 

His first breakthrough came at the National School Games in 2014, when he cleared 2.07 meters (6-9.50) and broke the national schoolboy record. 

“That was a big jump,” he recalled, “That’s probably when I realized I could jump high.” 

In September 2015, competing in Apia, Samoa, he became the Commonwealth Youth champion at 2.14 meters (7-0.25), again setting a record. 

“When I broke that record, I realized that if I stick to what I’m doing, I can really do well.” 

 

*          *          * 

Shankar’s ascent continued unabated through the winter of 2016, when his personal best qualified him for the World Under-20 (formerly Junior) Championships, to be held that summer in Bydgoszcz, Poland. 

Seeking a more experienced coach, he recalled that a long jumper friend had spent time in the United States, training with retired American high jumper Jamie Nieto. 

The friend connected Shankar with Nieto, and within a few weeks, the 17-year-old had joined the two-time Olympian’s training group in California. 

Arriving at the end of March, Shankar soaked in the expertise and structure provided by his charismatic new coach. Some days, he couldn’t believe that Nieto, an athlete he’d studied extensively on YouTube — a jumper whose left-side approach/right-foot takeoff matched his own — was now instructing him on every aspect of the discipline. 

The future looked bright for the tight-knit high jump group. 

And then, on April 23, 2016, tragedy struck. 

Nieto was wrapping up a morning session at Azusa Pacific University’s track by performing a few lighthearted backflips, something he’d done countless times in meets and practices, when one of his feet slipped as he took off and he failed to complete the flip. 

He landed on the track apron with all of his weight on his neck, immediately losing feeling in his arms and legs. 

“I was right there when he had his accident,” Shankar said. “The spinal injury that left him paralyzed.” 

The four athletes present scrambled to assist their coach. 

One of them called 9-1-1. 

On recordings of the call, measured voices in the background implore the 39-year-old: You’ll be okay, coach. You’re gonna be okay… 

Nieto was airlifted to Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center, undergoing a lengthy surgery to remove a disc from his neck and fuse his C3 and C4 vertebrae together. Doctors told the anxious training group in the waiting room that their coach’s accident had left him partially paralyzed. It was unclear if he’d ever walk again. 

Even as Nieto vowed to recover fully, beginning an arduous recovery process that drew national media attention, his young Indian protegee was left drifting and distraught. 

Still only 17, Shankar was deeply shaken by the accident. 

“I don’t care about the training,” he said, “but that was a shocking incident. When you see someone, literally, so injured in front of you. I really reconsidered everything about life — not about training — but, how anything can happen to anyone.” 

Shankar lingered in California until the middle of May, winning the Oxy Invitational with a relatively modest leap of 2.13 meters (6-11.75), but eventually elected to return to India. 

“It was,” he said, “a heartbreaking moment.” 

 

*          *          * 

In the familiar environs of Delhi, Shankar turned his attention to the upcoming Asian Junior Championships in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, before a final push toward the IAAF World U-20 Championships in late July. 

Even from a distance, and around his own rehabilitation, Nieto tried to ensure that Shankar’s training continued at a high level. 

But a groin injury before the Asian Junior meet relegated Shankar to an unceremonious sixth at that competition, and then the aspiring high jumper suffered a near-tragedy of his own. 

He and his younger brother were in a motorcycle accident. 

“It had been raining,” Shankar said, “and the road was slippery. We just skidded, went down, and I landed hard on my right side.” 

Badly bruised and “very stitched up,” Shankar withdrew from the World U-20 Championships. 

“I was really upset about it,” he said, especially disappointed to forfeit an opportunity to compete against international jumpers he believed he could match over 2.20 meters. 

Unable to jump, but eager to reframe the setback as an opportunity, he focused on weight training in the ensuing months, determined to improve his core strength and stability. 

When he returned to competition in the fall, his jumping had reached another level. 

At the Indian Junior Nationals in November, Shankar claimed his first senior national record, erasing Hari Shankar Roy’s 12-year-old outdoor mark with a 2.26m (7-5) clearance. 

That leap positioned him third on the IAAF World Under-20 list for the year.                            

Shortly after, on a visit with his friend (and ascendant Indian javelin star) Neeraj Chopra, Shankar ended up discussing his educational future with Chopra’s coach, a well-traveled Australian named Garry Calvert. 

Shankar allowed that he’d most likely attend university in India, but Calvert suggested he explore the possibilities of competing in the NCAA system, in the United States. Shankar knew almost nothing about college sports in the U.S., let alone how to access the recruiting process. 

When Calvert asked if he knew any American college coaches, Shankar produced a single name: 

Cliff Rovelto. Kansas State. 

Considered a high jump guru, Rovelto had mentored Nieto post-collegiately, and had also coached stars like 2012 Olympic silver medalist Erik Kynard and 2011 World champion Jesse Williams. 

He’d produced five collegiate champions on the men’s side in 10 years, including 2017 outdoor champ, Christoff Bryan. 

Although the Australian javelin coach had never met Rovelto, Calvert fired off an email to the address on the Kansas State Athletics website and included a video of the 2.26 record-setting jump. 

Several months later, Shankar received an unexpected phone call. 

He almost didn’t answer. 

“The Caller ID said USA,” he said. “I also knew from the +1 (country code), and I was surprised because I never get a call from someone in the United States. I didn’t know if I was supposed to pick up, or what if it’s a spam call. I could have disconnected, but I’m so glad I didn’t.” 

On the other end of the line was Rovelto, offering a scholarship to Kansas State. 

He’d watched the video, done his research, and although he’d never recruited an Indian athlete before, he was convinced Shankar could be successful at K-State. 

Sight unseen — without an official visit or campus tour — Shankar accepted the offer and became just the third Indian track and field scholarship athlete in NCAA history. 

 

*          *          * 

When Shankar traveled to Kansas for the first time in mid-August 2017, the flight routed through Chicago. From the air, that midwestern city seemed familiar, comforting even. 

It was expansive and bustling. Cosmopolitan, like other places he’d lived. 

Los Angeles. 

Or Delhi. 

Manhattan would prove to be another story. 

“For miles in the sky, from the plane,” Shankar recalled, “I could see nothing. It was just flat, no buildings, no nothing, and I was like, ‘What am I going into?’” 

When the plane dropped to the tarmac at Manhattan Regional Airport, around 5:45 p.m., he noticed a single person working the runway. 

Found only one baggage carousel inside. 

“Coming from New Delhi,” he said, “one of the biggest cities, I really felt like there was no one there. I was literally seeing no people.” 

It took a while for that initial impression to abate. 

In the meantime, Shankar — soon dubbed ‘TJ’ by his track teammates — kept drilling into his motivation for making this unlikely journey. 

“I was just excited that I would get to work with Coach Rovelto,” he said. “Excited that I could train with the same coach that Jamie did.” 

That partnership, aided by K-State alum Kynard serving in an assistant coach/training partner role, has paid almost immediate dividends. 

Indoors, Shankar elevated the Indian national record to 2.28m (7-5.75) at the Big 12 Championship meet, tying him for the third best in K-State indoor history. 

In March, he returned to India for the Athletics Federation Cup in Patiala, where he secured the national title with a jump of 2.28m (7-5.75), matching his indoor best and raising his own outdoor record by two centimeters. 

Next up was the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Carrera, Australia, in April, where Shankar tied for sixth at 2.24m (7-4.25), an admitted disappointment after his otherwise steady ascent. 

A national collegiate-leading mark came shortly after his return. 

Channeling the Commonwealth frustration onto the apron at Texas Tech’s Fuller track, the 19-year old soared 2.29m (7-6) at the Corky/Crofoot Shootout for a meet, facility and new Indian national record. 

“TJ had a PR, but honestly I do not think he jumped exceptionally well,” Rovelto said in a K-State release. “That is a big positive, because when he puts it all together he will do something special.”

At the time, it was sixth best jump in the world, sixth highest in Kansas State history. 

It also came at a price. 

“Although I jumped high,” Shankar said, “I injured myself in the process.” 

Feeling like he’d muscled the jump, rather than sailing over the bar with technical proficiency, he strained his neck on the landing. 

While most high jumpers typically land in the pit on their upper back, Shankar tends to over-rotate on the descent, especially on higher bars, crashing his entire 6-foot, 4-inch frame onto his neck. 

“The way I land, it can be hard on my body,” he concedes, “but I always landed like that.” 

He realized, early into his time at K-State, that the flaw might present a liability long-term, but was reluctant to make changes mid-year. 

Now, it’s among the things he and Rovelto have identified for adjustment as Shankar continues to develop. 

“I’m also working on my curve,” he said, “and my run-up — trying to come from a stand, rather than jogging into it. Learning more about what my body is actually doing at each phase of the jump.” 

Even as the learning unfolds, the competitive opportunities have continued. 

Still nursing a sore neck, Shankar was third at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, then qualified easily at 2.16 (7-1) from the West Preliminary for this week’s NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon. 

“TJ has a great work ethic,” Rovelto said this week on a TrackTown Live Pre-NCAA interview. “He’s embraced working hard, which is a big part of it. He’s also been a very good student. He wants to understand why you do what you do. For someone as young as he is, that’s a little bit rare.” 

If Shankar should match his national standing and claim the high jump title at Hayward Field on Friday, he will become only the third Indian to win an NCAA track and field title, and the first since discus thrower Vikas Gowda (a four-time Olympian for India) won for North Carolina in 2006. 

If that happens, it will be both a promising beginning for a rising collegiate freshman, and the culmination of a long, unlikely journey for a former schoolboy from Delhi, first noticed as he loped after a classmate at recess. 

“Coming here,” Shankar said, brightly and full of understatement, “I knew that if I train and work hard, I might possibly do something good.”