‘I’ll be a person a lot longer than I’ll be a swimmer’
It was 2016 & swimmer Cate Campbell had just finished in sixth place in the Women’s 100m Freestyle at the Rio Olympics, an event that she held the World Record in, and a race that she was favorite to win.
Later that year, after months of unfair scrutiny on her performance, Cate penned an open letter to address the criticism she had received. The letter finished with the following quote:
‘I’m a much stronger person [since Rio], and I’ll be a person a lot longer than I’ll be a swimmer’.
This quote intrigued me, and led me to want to know just how much of people’s lives were spent playing one singular sport?
And this is what I found…
The average life expectancy in Australia is 83.50 years (2020). However, the retention, on average, of a team sport athlete, according to a study I found, is less than four years.
The study was conducted from 2015 – 2018 and it looked at nine different team sports. What they found was that of the registered participants they recorded in 2015, only 30% were still playing that sport four years later (Eime, 2020). That means that on average less than 5% of those 83.50 years is spent playing one sport. Which is why I ask the question…
Are our priorities in the wrong place?
Which bucket should I fill?
The Person bucket above refers to an individuals character, their personality, the person they are and the way they act.
The Athlete bucket refers to things like; speed, change of direction, mobility, strength, power, cardiorespiratory fitness.
And the Player bucket refers to the skills of the sport an individual plays, as well as the tactical side of the game.
From a young age when kids join local sporting teams, the leagues, clubs, and coaches, most of the time, will only fill one bucket, the Player.
Their may be some incidental filling of the first two buckets, but it is usually done unintentionally, and can be equated to the slow drip you’ll get from a leaky tap that has just been turned off.
Now, don’t get me wrong, if you are going to play a sport you need to be competent at the technical and tactical side of the game, and if you have intentions of going places with that sport you need to excel at the technical and tactical aspects of the game. However, it cannot be done at the neglect of filling those first two buckets, the Person and the Athlete.
As mentioned earlier individuals on average are spending less then four years in a sport before they, a) move onto another sport, or b) leave sport all together – if all they are leaving that experience with is how to dribble a Basketball and how to run a press defense, then has it really been worthwhile?
I’m not saying don’t fill the player bucket, what I am saying though is don’t overflow it.
Let’s ask the Scouts
‘Ninety per cent of our divers come from an acrobatic background; tumbling, gymnastics, trampolining, or even dance’ – Chris Snode, scout at Crystal Palace Diving Club.
‘I’m looking for the personality of the individual, the type of person they are…’ – John Bastian, head of youth development, Hull Rugby.
‘… you still need athleticism more than ever and to be able to excel at the highest pace.’ – Tor – Kristian Karlsen, football scout in the UK, France, Russia, and Israel.
All three of these quotes come from individuals that spend their time scouting the next generation of elite and sub elite sports players. And if you read, ‘Scouting Report: What talent – spotters are looking for in young hopefuls’ (Aldred, 2020), you’ll see that all three talk just as much about the Person and the Athlete that they are looking for, as they do the Player that they are looking for.
You must understand that all the Sport skill and knowledge will go to waste if an individual does not have the speed, aerobic fitness, or co – ordination to maximize them. And all the tools acquired from filling the Player and Athlete buckets are rendered useless if an individual lacks the self confidence (Person bucket) to put them on full display.
How to fill the Person & Athlete Bucket? And what happens when a Player bucket overflows?
Sport is an incredible metaphor for life. And it really isn’t hard to find ways to teach individuals how to be unbelievable people through sport.
Nerves in anticipation of competition is an opportunity to discuss an individuals fears, the struggle of learning and competing requires patience and perseverance, adversity is a time to discuss resilience, negative self talk needs to be reframed into real thoughts and actionable steps forward, and self doubt can be converted into self confidence.
There are so many great opportunities in sport to fill the Person bucket, and imagine the quality of adolescents leaving local sporting clubs if the above things were regularly and intentionally taught.
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It really is incredible just how poorly some sports players move.
The insufficient mobility to put their arms overhead, the lack of co – ordination to adopt a sport stance without their knees collapsing inwards, or the understanding that constant heel striking when running is putting a lot of stress on their joints, is concerning.
Being able to do these things isn’t about getting better at your sport, instead it is first and foremost about being a healthy human being. One that is able cope with the stress placed on it during competition, without breaking down in the short or long term.
There are a couple of ways to address these issues:
- Is coach education. Most coaches are competent at coaching [insert sports name here] players, but most coaches have no idea how to coach athletes (in general).
- Comes back to which bucket should we fill. Let’s say a Basketball player trains twice per week with their representative team, once with a domestic team, and is on the Basketball team at school. Do they really then need to join a skills academy for more skills training? Couldn’t that time be better spent practicing and getting coached on some of the movements I mentioned above?
Let’s say instead of deciding to fill the Athlete bucket with that extra time, the individual continues to fill the Player bucket, to the point where it overflows.
What happens now?
The answer is burnout.
No junior sports player should be completing 5+ sport specific skills sessions (plus games) per week of one particular sport. Elite athletes don’t even complete this load, and yet SO many adolescents complete this and more on a weekly basis.
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Burnout is mental and physical exhaustion. In junior sports players it usually results in; increased tiredness / fatigue, increased feelings of anxiety (pressure to perform), decreased enjoyment of sport, and from a physical point of view, increased risk of stress related injuries / illnesses.
I have seen too many examples of this. And it is a big part of the reason why most kids last less than four years in a particular sport.
Final Thoughts: It’s more than a game
Sport is more than a game. It’s an opportunity to become an unbelievable person outside of sport and a proficient & healthy athlete, whilst learning the skills and tactics of the sport along the way.
Don’t overflow a bucket, don’t succumb to burnout, understand, like Cate Campbell, that you are a person a lot longer than you are a [insert sport name here] player. I truly do believe that a less narrowed focus on the sport itself, would actually help increase the retention rates in junior sport, and see individuals stay in sport longer than four years.
But to accomplish this, it requires us to re – think our priorities and re – distribute how we fill the buckets of adolescents.
References
Aldred, T. (2020, August 9). Scouting Report: What talent – spotters are looking for in young hopefuls. Scouting report: what talent-spotters are looking for in young hopefuls | Sport | The Guardian.
Eime, R. (2020, May). Sport Participation Retention 2015 – 2018. Combined-retention-FINAL-120520.pdf (vichealth.vic.gov.au).
