Went out for a walk with the wife. She asked me one question. I then didn't shut up for half an hour. Here's a few thoughts for you.
Picture a baby. A deep well of potential surrounds that baby. On the periphery are some generic vocations that require a high level of expertise.
A couple years pass and that baby is a toddler. The well of potential has been reduced slightly. Each time we deny a kid an opportunity, that well reduces more and more. Ability = Potential - Interference
More years pass. We now have a young child. Potential has been reduced even further. Achieving elite level in some of the aforementioned domains is starting to become out of reach due to the kid suffering more interference (bad habits, poor teaching, lack of opportunities etc.)
Your kid is now in their pre-teen years. Some interests, hobbies, passions have started to really form. In some areas, the potential may have reduced further, in some it may have stayed the same, and in others it may have grown.
Now a young teen, the kid has realised they don't care about a lot of things. They realise they're never going to be good in those areas, but they also don't care, which is okay, as they have other things they are good at and do care about.
As an older teen, nearly an adult, the kid has a much better idea of what they like and want to do with their time. They have highly developed motivations and competencies, with some kind of direction that fuels their ambition.
Now a young adult, the kid is almost a fully formed and evolved human. They have been shaped by their environment and experiences. Every interaction they ever had has chipped away at their potential in some areas.
Every time you say no, deny an opportunity, dissuade someone, perform any kind of arbitrary cut-off, you're chipping away at that potential. Many of us aren't aware of the chipping away that we or others may be doing. A lot of it isn't deliberate. It takes many forms. Much of it is lead by good intentions.
So this is why I'm a subscriber to ecological dynamics and the constraints led approach. We are products of our environment. We, as coaches and teachers, can manipulate the constraints surrounding the individual. We create environments and we set tasks. Let's be better.
In the last few weeks, I have been delivering a curriculum I am really not sure about. Kids who have been enjoying PE are now telling me they are finding the sessions and activities boring. Me too. This is a problem. Our job, those of us working within the youth sport space, is first and foremost to inspire a lifelong love of being active and involved in sport and physical activity.
The way I'm seeing sport done, in schools and in clubs, runs counter to that. The adultification of youth sport has turned it into a form of entertainment for adults. Our kids are much like those rich white girl puppies that are treated as accessories.
That dog is genuinely pathetic by the way. If my cat could beat up your dog, it's not a dog. Member of the canine species, yes, but needs a new name. Could I throw your dog a similar distance to what I could throw a tennis ball?
Nevertheless, so much of our kids' journeys are decided for them ahead of time. So much from religion to sports teams. We teach them conformity, to adhere to our norms and standards, rather than expose them to ideas and concepts, giving them the means to develop their own. Your kid is kitted out in the full kit of the team you like, like some little full kit wanker. They have, by proxy, become an extension of you. They have, inadvertently, become a display of your wealth.
When I wear my Black Sabbath t-shirt, is it because I want people to know that I have £15 to spare? Or is it because I want them to know I like Black Sabbath? When your seven year old comes to training in full Barcelona kit with Nike boots, what messages are being broadcast?
I'm not saying it's done for that reason, just that we have to be careful. "I think I'm going to buy him the new England kit, ready for the Euros. Perhaps with Kane on the back. Could also get him the matching jacket to wear to school." The kid will naturally be thrilled to get new kit. Who isn't? But think again, what are the messages being broadcast here?
And is the kid running around pretending to be Harry Kane, or is the parent seeing their kid in full England kit, fantasising about professional contracts?Earlier today during an after school club, I had thirteen kids and played a 3v3 and 3v4. A younger and older group. One kid in the younger group was performing very well relative to his peers. I asked him if he would prefer to play in the older group. He told me he would prefer to stay with his friend. There's a lot to unpack from that. When was the last time a kid was asked for their preference and given some agency over their own journey? His motivations were largely social. The point is, he was given a choice.
Something else to unpack is how thirteen kids is usually a 6v7 game. That's a ball to player ratio of 1:13. Especially in a group that varies widely in age and ability, that really becomes 3v3 with 7 other kids on the pitch, kind of in the way.
There are two girls. One of them, when she first started, was standing around, not sure where to go, just kicking at the ball when it came near. Now, she is running around based on what the game shows her, and today she attempted several dribbles. If she's not in a group where she gets time on the ball, and is placed with other kids within a useful band of ability, she never dribbles. The game moves too fast for her to read what position to be in. She never gets the ball. What does that do for her enjoyment?
Current enjoyment affects future participation.
Some curricula would have me measure things. 40 yard dash Agility drills Stepovers per minute Juggling record You know the bollocks. She would obviously suck at all those. And what would that tell any of us? Nothing we didn't already know. But it would make her feel bad.
As humans, we need something to measure. We like things to be in neat little boxes so our neat little lives have some kind of neat little order. But what we're measuring doesn't really matter.
What metrics do we really need for kids? Short term goals: Go home smiling. Long term goals: They register again next time.
But because of our need to measure, especially in educational environments, we end up measuring things simply for the sake of it. Remember that the goal is to develop a lifelong love of sport and physical activity. As many as possible, for as long as possible, as good as possible. In the USA it's the post-13 dropout. In UK it's age 16. Why are kids getting older and giving up sport? They don't enjoy it. That's the biggest factor. Not the only contributor.
There's two parts of it as far as I can see: Competency Agency
If you're crap, you won't enjoy it. And if we make it hyper competitive, which leads to high emotions, the crap kids won't stay long enough to stop being crap.
If you don't have any kind of agency over what you do, you're going to want to quit. Kids are given less and less input in the shaping of their own environments. This is why they play video games. Adults leave them alone to get on with it.
What we've done, as we want to measure things, is look at what the fundamentals of sports are, break them down into smaller components, and then work on those in isolation.
It's fun to play basketball. It's not fun to bounce a ball for a minute and count it. It's fun to play football. It's not fun to run to a cone and back. It's fun to play handball. It's not fun to throw a tennis ball back and forth.
We think that because these things happen within the sports that it will be both engaging and useful to take those tasks and do them separately. Jumping is a fundamental movement skill. It's used in a whole range of sports and activities. So now we have to perform lots of decontextualised repeated jumps over and over again to get good at jumping. That's not fun. People love solving problems. Especially kids. What problem is there to solve jumping from this cone to that cone? I've already told you what to do and how to do it. What's left for the kid?
We have removed the perception, and we're just left with the action. The greatness of a jump in football or basketball etc. is not necessarily the jump itself, but the ability to read, anticipate, time, and perform a sending or receiving technique in conjunction with the jump. I get it. We're trapped by tradition and change is hard. Also, with a group of thirty kids, it's far easier to do something basic like run around cones. Do this, go there. Give orders, then determine their competency based on their ability to perform the instructions.
Even in fairly high performance environments, there's a lot of coaches that still don't know the game. Is it too hard or unrealistic to expect more of those from the grassroots level?
What does it cost to be good? Here's a little short story for you.
Just seen a player I worked with a little back in STL has been called up to the youth national team camps. Naturally, the club he has been at for five minutes is taking credit for the fourteen years of development he experienced before he got there. Thread time for insight.
The club is one of those massive clubs that hoovers up players. Their coaching is awful. Kids tend to go there out of reluctance. Three massive clubs in STL that have a large percentage of the player pool.
Just like Josh Sargent, any kid that makes it is likely to have played for one of those clubs at some point. The same as Rush claiming Christian Pulisic. At fourteen or fifteen, when already good, they dip into one of the big three for a season, as they have a monopoly on opportunities.
Even if you know the club is full of immoral charlatans, you know they largely control who gets the exposure and opportunities, so you have to reluctantly grit your teeth and go there.
So now a little about the kid and what it takes.
His mum is an experienced and fairly successful college coach, who also has been coaching youth for a long time. She is knowledgeable, down to earth, while also being disciplined. She holds him to a high standard without being a dick.
His dad has always been coaching him too, with lots of time at the park. They will go to lots of games when they can, but actually watch and study it. No phones, gossip, or hanging with friends.
Up until a couple years ago, he was playing ECNL. This meant every other weekend would be on the road for five to eight hour away days. His training would be most nights per week, with spare time still spent around soccer.
When we first started spending time with him, when he was thirteen, he found dick jokes incredibly funny, and didn't swear. I mean they were the funniest thing ever. Because of his training regime, he had largely experienced a sheltered upbringing in that sense.
He was extremely socially awkward. The other kids didn't rip on him too much because his ability spoke for itself. He'd be the best player on any pitch he played on, thus protecting him from any cutting insults or bullying.
His parents were fast becoming aware of his stunted social development, and decided to take him out of that ECNL hyper committed environment, so he could experience life more like a normal kid. This lead to a mad dash of local clubs bending over backwards to sign him.
I've witnessed this many times in STL. When fully grown men enter talks with parents about signing a child, which are more tense that UN peace talks. Especially as they get older, and it is more obvious you're backing the winning horse.
Many of the other good players were pretty aware of what was going on in world football. There was a strong correlation, although not uncommon to find a good player who hardly knew anything. This boy knew everything and had a brain like an analyst.
Genuinely, talking to him about football was better than talking to about 80% of the colleagues I have had in football.
He was obsessed. I don't know enough about his upbringing before us to know if his enjoyment of football was one that was kind of indoctrinated into him. His parents were nice people, so they would have done nothing untoward.
In regards to his football, he played in CM, and was insane in 1v1s. Not greedy or flashy. Some players will dribble at the expense of a pass to a more valuable situation. Most times he dribbled, it was the right thing to do.
But he could also spot a pass, and was able to play a variety of them. Excellent at dribbling and excellent at passing, and probably the hardest working player on the pitch. He wanted to win, while not seeking credit, hence why he always chose well between pass or dribble.
Because he wanted to win, if the game required him to take a risk, he would. Because he wanted to win, if the game required him to play safe, he would. Because he wanted to win, if the game required him to bust a gut to recover a ball, he would.
Another factor was that his performances sometimes pissed off other parents. "He never passes to my son." Judging by his high success rate in decision making, if he's not passing to your son even when he's open, I'm going to back him. There will be a valid reason.
He honestly wasn't complex enough to hold grudges. Any decision within the game would be based solely on the information available to him. "Can this teammate, in this position, with these options, help the team succeed?"
Parents like to project, and can become extremely defensive in the presence of a prodigal talent. It makes them reflect on their own kids, draw comparisons, and when their own kid comes up short, the parent lashes out. Favouritism and other such bollocks.
Coaches will tell you that we do have favourites; those that do the job. Why does this kid get the opportunities? Because he does the job. Why do we like training him? Because he works hard and listens. It's really not rocket science.
The broader analysis here really is that, especially in places like the USA where opportunity is linked to parental income, so much of what is available to a kid in life is what is afforded to them by the sheer luck of their birth. You're born to two parents that are coaches, who can afford all your opportunities, and you're already way ahead of everyone else.
Conversely though, what's the price of success? Stunted emotional growth? Lack of friends? Limited world experience? Especially in the USA. Is success worth all that? The American youth development system almost makes it such that you have to be like that (in addition to being born fortunate) in order to succeed. Examine the system, see what is required at each level, and see if you can navigate a different course through it.
He's a good kid. I want the best for him and hope he does well. If he does make it to the top, I'll be watching as a fan. He won't be going on my CV, as I think it is wrong of us to claim responsibility and credit for a kid. I coached him sporadically over the period of about eighteen months. I was largely a spectator and a time keeper, while he trained and played. All I did was not get in his way.
When you look at it this way, isn't that what much of coaching is? When you observe dickhead parents and coaches, don't we just view them as kind of getting in the way? Remember that ability = potential - interference.
