Raipur in Chhattisgarh has hosted many national and international tennis events, including the Champions League featuring international stars. Yet, it is hard to visualise a girl from that place making an impact in the US Collegiate circuit (NCAA) and building the base for a career in sports administration.
Aayushi Chouhan, who graduated from the Delaware State University recently, has done just that by winning the NCAA’s Career Development Award for student athletes.
“I was the first student-athlete from Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference to receive this award. NCAA selects one male and one female candidate every year for this award,” said Aayushi when contacted in the USA.
The award helped her attend the Careers in Sports forum in Indianapolis.
‘Helpful experience’
“I, along with 200 talented student athletes, was selected to attend. It was conducted at the NCAA’s Headquarters where I hope to work in near future. We had college sports administrators from different Universities. I am currently working in inter-collegiate athletics,” she said.
The award helped her attend the Accelerating Academic Successs Programme in New Orleans. “This had about 200 sports administrators. The experience was priceless.”
Having started with table tennis when she was five and then moving to tennis, thanks to her father Rupendra Singh Chouhan’s coaching, she travelled with mother Bhawna across the country for tournaments.
Aayushi had diversified into soft tennis and competed in the World championship. She also represented her state in squash in the National Games in Kerala.
“I came to the Delaware State Unviersity in January 2016 on a 100% scholarship from the then coach Dave Marshall who is currently with the Bryan brothers. I graduated with Summa Cum Laude Distinction (with highest praise), a 3.94 GPA on a scale of 4.0. I was the sports management departmental scholar for three consecutive years and was also named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) for 2019. I represented my University at the National Football League (NFL) Careers in football forum in Atlanta and won the first ever Business Case Study competition. I will soon be joining the Morgan State University, Baltimore as a full time Athletics Compliance staff. I plan on enrolling for Masters next year,” said Aayushi, summing up her career.
Hopes to work with IOC
She is grateful to tennis for paving the way for a brilliant career. “Tennis gave me an identity and an opportunity to succeed in life. I never knew that I could do well in academics along with tennis until I came to USA, said Aayushi, who intends to work for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) some day.
“I have always dreamt of working with the IOC as it is the most prestigious sports organisation in the world. That made me decide sports management as a career, even before I came to the USA. I love to work with personalities from different countries around the world.”
“Being an athlete, I have always wanted to stay connected to sports. From the time I played under-12 and 14 events, I was interested in seeing how the referee conducted the tournament. I soon realised that I wanted to be in the administrative side of sports,” Aayushi said.
