Gokul Natesan: From designing apps to slam dunks

In a week, 23-year-old Gokul Natesan has gone from developing mobile applications and software to being one step closer to realising his basketball dreams

Gokul Natesan

For several years, Gokul Natesan spent a major part of his week learning software programming and studying mobile application development in 2015. Last Saturday, he got his first big break. But not as a software developer. Instead, he was the 97th pick in the NBA draft. Natesan, 23, thus completed a remarkable journey of the computer science graduate, who shuffled between playing college basketball and designing apps.

“During the last four years in my college, I would practice daily and would head to the college library straight after that. I spent more than 15 hours per week studying software and also enrolled for mobile applications classes in 2015. We made an android test application for users who wanted to go and eat out and had certain type of choices in food,” said Natesan, who lives in a small town sandwiched between Santa Clara and Cupertino, the Apple headquarters.

He is the only person in the Natesan family to be born in the USA. His parents, Ramakrishnan and Sumathi, moved from Salem district in Tamil Nadu to Santa Clara in the USA in 1990 while his elder sister Amlu was born in India. Natesan started playing basketball at the age of five and later played in YMCA League for Cupertino High School.

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The youngster also played for the Bay Area Ballers in the local leagues in Bay Area, which is famous for its software industry worldwide. Having missed out on the top 351 Division I colleges, Natesan opted for the Colorado College of Mines to play for their Division II team Orediggers under coach chief coach Pryor Orser. He ended his college career with a 14-point score in Orediggers’ match against Bellarmine in the NCAA Division II Elite 8 tournament in March this year.

Natesan was also adjudged as the RMAC defensive player of the year in 2016 and started in all 35 games in Division II scoring 648 points and ended on fourth spot on the team’s most points score list till now with a total of 2014 points starting 2013.

“My father wanted me to play basketball and he would take me to show some basketball youth leagues when I was a kid. When I got through Colorado School of Mines, I was enthusiastic playing in the second division,” said Gokul, whose father works in the California State Software department and mother is a second language teacher.

A Chennai Super Kings and MS Dhoni fans, Natesan, who last visited Chennai in 2013, hopes to meet the former India captain some day. “I am a big MS Dhoni fan and I admire his leadership qualities. I have watched some IPL matches on Television and the way he has led the team is commendable ,” said Natesan.

Nitin Sharma

Nitin Sharma is an Assistant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a two-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022 and 2023 respectively. Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships. An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin's interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. ... Read More