I have written many obituaries of great international players, but this one is the most difficult. Major Abdul Wahid Qureshi, one of the pioneers of basketball in Pakistan and a tremendous international basketball coach, was my father. He passed away peacefully after spending 97 eventful years on March 22, 2021.

He was a great basketball player of Punjab before partition.

He was born on December 5, 1924, in Sialkot. He was famous in basketball circles as A W Qureshi. He can be well described as an ingenious architect, efficient contractor and relentless straw boss. He earned great respect from his players, opponents and colleagues as an industrious and creative coach who was highly disciplined, self-motivated, totally dedicated with dislike for mediocrity and lack of attitude amongst the players.

He started his basketball career in 1939 from Mission High School Dhariwal Gurdaspur and later joined the famous Khalsa College in Amritsar in 1942 that won the Punjab Golden Jubilee Championship under his leadership in 1945.

It is worth mentioning that he was also the vice president of Muslim League Youth Wing in Amritsar where he actively participated in the liberation movement of Pakistan as a humble worker of Quaid-e-Azam.

His only brother Jamil joined the jihad for Kashmir and got shahadat. My father moved to Pakistan and worked tirelessly with Dr S L Sheets, Mubarik Ali Khan, Ghulam Nabi, Ijaz, Daood, Akmal Waeen, Rehman and Nafees to lay the foundation of Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) basketball in Pakistan in 1948.

He was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in 1949 and served in 01, 03 and 04 Frontier Force Regiments in various capacities.

In 1959 he was posted to Frontier Corps where he introduced basketball for the first time among the tribes and also introduced Frontier Corps in Pakistan Basketball Federation as a regular member.

During the mid-fifties, basketball was played under old rules without any scientific coaching. It was under his leadership that Pakistan Army won its very first national basketball championship in 1956.

He always felt the need of a coaching book for players along with illustrations, so he wrote the first-ever basketball book in Urdu language in 1964 whose foreword was written by General Muhammad Musa, the Commander-in-Chief (Chief of the Army Staff) who very well understood the need and value of such a book.

Major Qureshi had a brief break from the game during 1965 when he performed his duties on the active battlefield of Chawinda in 3 Frontier Force Regiment against the Indian forces.

He resumed his romance with basketball in 1966 and qualified as an international basketball referee from FIBA.

Brigadier Rodham, who was Director Army Sports, gave him the task to reorganise basketball in Army on modern lines. Major Qureshi not only reorganised the team and established a coaching centre at Army Stadium, Rawalpindi, but also produced a number of champion players like Gul Muhammad, Rasheed Ali Malik, Jamshad, Sadee, Naseem Butt, Ghafoor, Captain Liaqat, Colonel Shujaat, and Colonel Aftab, who proved the backbone of Pakistan’s best-ever basketball team.

Owing to his dedication to the game, the US government invited him to attend an elaborate coaching clinic in 1975. This was the first basketball coaching clinic held in the US where coaches were selected based on their contribution to the promotion of basketball in their respective countries.

President Gerald Ford conferred upon him the award of “Sports Ambassador” which no other coach or sportsperson in Pakistan possesses.

It was under his coaching that Pakistan Army and the national basketball team enjoyed the best of its era. The national team participated in the Asian Basketball championship in Manila in 1973, 8th Asian Championship in Bangkok in 1975, visited Malaysia and China in 1976 and Korea in 1979.

It was during the 10th Asian Basketball championship held in Najoya, Japan, when the national basketball team under his coaching attained the best-ever standing in Asia and stood among the top six Asian teams - ahead of India.

It was in the 1978 Lahore National Games that the Pakistan Army basketball team under his coaching defeated the rest of Pakistan. The same year, it defeated the visiting Saudi Arabian team.

He used to take a lot of pride in his team and his players. He used to say that when a player starts coaching, his achievements as a player are not counted, but the achievements of the team that he is coaching.

He was highly emotional. The death of his mother, his best friend Akmal Wayeen and dear player Gulam Muhammad in 1982-83 had a deep impact on him and he left the national and Army basketball scene for good in 1984 after defeating all top teams in Mubarak Ali Khan Basketball tournament in Multan.

As a father, he was a strict disciplinarian but extremely affectionate. He had his principles and never compromised on them. He lived and died for basketball. During the last days of life, he used to feel sad because of the poor state of affairs of sports in the country.

With his death an era of coaching has come to end in the history of Pakistan basketball.

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