{"id":40364,"date":"2012-05-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2012\/05\/04\/smashing-success-on-and-off-the-badminton-court\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T20:35:17","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T01:35:17","slug":"smashing-success-on-and-off-the-badminton-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2012\/05\/04\/smashing-success-on-and-off-the-badminton-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Smashing success on and off the (badminton) court"},"content":{"rendered":"

The crazy idea came, as crazy ideas tend to do, from somewhere in the brain of Chuck Brown, UNMC Today editor. Chuck’s email read: “Want to go play this guy in badminton and tell the campus how bad he smoked you?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\"picture\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nNursing student Pallav Deka, who graduates this week, was a professional badminton player before he went to nursing school.<\/span>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

“This guy” turned out to be Pallav Deka, who graduates this week from the College of Nursing, who is president of his class, who has been accepted into the Ph.D. program, who already has a job lined up as a staff nurse at the Cardiac Progressive Care Unit at The Nebraska Medical Center, and who, oh yeah, used to be a professional badminton player.<\/p>\n

Professional badminton? How much could you make as a professional badminton player?<\/p>\n

“I made a living playing badminton,” he said.<\/p>\n

Oh.<\/p>\n

Birdies of fire<\/B><\/p>\n

So I was immediately worried about being beaned by a 200-mph smash, but instead he opted to run me all over the court. (OK — “run” may not have been the operative word.) <\/p>\n

“Hit it harder!” he implored. “Make me move!”<\/p>\n

Then he dinked the birdie over the net again. <\/p>\n

Time for a little research<\/B><\/p>\n

After a while he decided we should check my heart rate. I thought he was rightfully concerned about my well-being, but no. This was for science.<\/p>\n

“I did my master’s thesis on badminton at UNO,” he explained, on the body’s physiological response to it, and he told me all about how badminton has been proven to be incredible exercise. I believed him. <\/p>\n

“You are dripping all over,” he said. “And we’re not even playing!”<\/p>\n

A world-class talent<\/B><\/p>\n

Pallav is from India, where badminton is big, and he was good. Several guys he grew up playing with and against competed in the Beijing Olympics, which he said was a proud moment for him. But he gave it up for higher education, and to work in health care, which he said sounded more “noble” than being an athlete. He has a family now, and a budding career.<\/p>\n

“Priorities change,” he said.<\/p>\n

He’s still game<\/B><\/p>\n

But he’s won the Cornhusker State Games four times and the State Games of America twice, and other various elite American tournaments despite now playing maybe once or twice a week. He’s an enthusiastic advocate for the sport.<\/p>\n

Afterward, we took pictures, and I asked him to leap all over the court. And this is where I took some small measure of victory.<\/p>\n

I think I may have finally made him break a sweat.<\/p>\n

sCwdMMn fQoc emsiqJP ypUh<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PR’s Kalani Simpson played badminton with graduating nursing student and former pro badminton player Pallav Deka — and lived (barely) to tell us about 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