Developing people is a passion for Coach Sunjay Ganda
Community Coaching leader Sunjay Ganda has a passion for creating a positive team culture. Enjoy hearing about his coaching journey.
Sport is a powerful vehicle to provide enjoyment, connection and development for people from all backgrounds, ages, and abilities. The key ingredient to the strength of sport is the people, our community leaders.
Our profile articles are an opportunity to celebrate our incredible community leaders by sharing their story and inspiring our future leaders of our game.
We are excited to share our next profile on Canterbury Coaching Leader, Sunjay Ganda.
When you first meet Sunjay you cannot help but smile, his positive approach to life and passion for developing people is contagious. Born and bred in Canterbury, Sunjay enjoys working multiple roles and is always happy to help you with tips in the kitchen, around the house, and of course on the hockey turf.
In high school, Sunjay and one of his friends took on the role of coaching a local community T-ball team. Since then, Sunjay has continued to coach across a variety of sporting codes including rugby 7s, touch rugby, and now predominantly coaches cricket and hockey.
As a curious learner, Sunjay completed his chef training before following his passion of sport and completing a Bachelor of Sports Coaching at Canterbury University. He continues to drive his learning through a variety of opportunities including involvement in the Hockey New Zealand Coach Developer pilot program in 2019 and recently enjoyed a podcast listening to Mike Hesson on controlling your emotions on the sideline. Sunjay is constantly finding ways to grow his coaching and managing his passion and emotions on the sideline is one area he is wanting to develop.
When speaking with Sunjay about his coaching philosophy there is no surprise that there is a clear focus on creating a positive, fun, enjoyable and successful learning environment. He believes in creating a team culture which is inclusive and that always has the team values at the forefront of everything they do on and off the pitch.
When reflecting on his coaching, a key learning for Sunjay has been that coaching is very contextual and what can work in one environment will not always work in others. You need to be very flexible as a coach and have the ability to change and adapt depending on the needs of your players.
Sunjay enjoys seeing individuals grow and gets a real buzz from seeing the smile on a player’s face when they learn and execute a new skill. A particularly memorable moment in his coaching career was winning the National Seniors Men’s title in 2016 versus Northland in Whangarei. There was a full house of Northland supporters on a Friday night under lights at Kensington Park and his team won 1 nil in a very tight match. We understand Northland Hockey hosted a great end of tournament celebration to round off a fantastic week of hockey.
Sunjay is a very positive person who will always look for the good in most situations. He is a good communicator with the ability to connect with a variety of people from all ages and genders. He has a great sense of humour and an openness to learn through exploration and connecting with others. When asking about what advice he would have for other coaches, Sunjay shared,"Coaching is very rewarding and a place you can make many friends, mix with a variety of people from different backgrounds and cultures. As a coach don't ever be afraid of not knowing everything about the game. Often as coaches we believe we need to know everything about the game and need to know more than our players. However, there is nothing wrong with not knowing all the answers and being able to go on a process of learning new tactics or skills with your players. This is also a great way to show your players their knowledge and experience so valuable to the team and is worth sharing to help everyone within the environment learn and develop together. Going on a journey of learning together as a team can be very rewarding for everyone as you are all doing it together”
In addition to coaching teams, Sunjay finds time to support the development of fellow coaches. We were fortunate to speak with Canterbury Hockey about Sunjay’s impact in the community and gain a unique perspective as Canterbury’s Community Hockey Manager Ben Owers has enjoyed working with Sunjay in the Coach Development space as well as having Sunjay coach him as a member of the Canterbury Beavers. Ben shared, “Sunjay is a fantastic role model and positive influence on hockey in Canterbury. He is an extremely passionate and committed coach who constantly works alongside his players to get the best out of them on the field, whilst also taking a real interest in their life off it. Having played under Sunjay for a number of years, I believe a definite strength of his is his ability to build team culture through creative and thoughtful approaches, which is something all coaches can take something from. In addition to the work he does with his teams/players, Sunjay should also be recognised for the work he does supporting and mentoring other coaches. It’s a testament to his unselfish approach towards the development the game here in Canterbury”
The role of a coach is demanding, and it is very important for a coach to have a strong support network. A key supporter and influencer of Sunjay’s coaching has been his family, enabling him to spend the time and energy to develop as a coach and to be confident and give it his all. Sunjay shared, “I personally can’t thank my wife and also my two children Indie & Mila enough for allowing me to be involved in coaching”.
And in case there wasn’t enough excitement in Sunjay’s journey so far, we thought we should share his most interesting fact. In 2015 Sunjay was in the right place at the right time, taking a one handed catch in the Tui catch-a-million promotion at the Cricket World Cup. It was the opening game of the Cricket World Cup and NZ were playing Sri Lanka at Hagley Oval in Christchurch. Sunjay made the ESPN top 10 plays of the day and enjoyed being part of interviews all around the world!
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