Can Jerome be Calicut’s ‘Hero’ in Prime Volleyball?

The 29-year-old Jerome, who hails from the Pudukkottai district in Tamil Nadu, had been purchased for Rs 15 lakh – an Indian record – by Calicut at the Prime Volleyball auction in December 2021. With the seven-team competition around the corner, India international Jerome, currently employed at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited in Kochi, spoke to DT Next about the subject of Prime Volleyball.

The inaugural edition of the Prime Volleyball League is less than a month away. Being one of the marquee Indian players, how excited are you?

When the [now defunct] Pro Volleyball League was launched a few years ago (in 2019), we (everyone involved) had one dream – to take the sport to the next level in the country. But unfortunately, the League could not continue due to some reasons. We were eagerly waiting for the League to make a comeback [in a new avatar]. I was confident that we would have a professional franchise-based League again. However, I did not expect it to become a reality so soon; I thought that it might take more time. All the senior players will be actively involved in Prime Volleyball, so I feel that it would serve as a motivation for the next generation. Most of them have begun their preparation.

Calicut Heroes has made you one of the highest-paid Indian players in Prime Volleyball Season 1 by shelling out Rs 15 lakh. Having represented the franchise in the no-longer-existing Pro Volleyball, how does it feel to make a return?

It has been about seven years since I moved to Kerala. My favourite place is Calicut. I always enjoy playing in front of the Calicut crowd, whose love for volleyball is unmatched. I was at the venue when the auction took place. I was quietly confident that Calicut would bid for me since it did not have a universal in its squad [after the initial rounds]. I have known the team’s head coach Kishore [Kumar] for about nine years. He has seen me play for BPCL; he knows my game in and out. That could be one reason for picking me.

You will rub shoulders with the legendary David Lee of the USA, who is one of the two overseas players in the Calicut squad. How keen are you to pick his brains?

Lee has achieved a lot at the pinnacle of the sport, which many dream of. He is someone who has more than 20 years of experience. Obviously, I will get to learn a lot from him. To mention a few, I can closely watch what diet he prefers and how he trains. The Americans and Europeans are relatively better in volleyball when compared to the Asians, so there is a lot of scope for learning. Lee is 39 years old now, but maintains good fitness. We can rarely find a 40-year-old Indian player who is still at the top of his game.

When you donned the Calicut jersey in Pro Volleyball, you missed out on the title by a whisker. Is going one step better the ultimate objective?

We (five players) have been training hard in Kochi. The rest of the team will join us in a few days. We would like to go the distance, but we are not thinking too far ahead. We would like to take it match by match. We must look at delivering our best. When we do that, we will win more often than not. That is how we hope to go about our business.