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The Professionalization of Youth Sports

by John O'Sullivan

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“The other throws 100 eggs against a wall and hopes one does not break and then calls it talent development."

The Fulham coaches distilled the threat, defined the tactics and dictated the tempo at which they expected their team to play. It was a tough European tournament, featuring Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco, Inter Milan, Bayern Munich, Anderlecht and Feyenoord, but it was deemed to be winnable.”

So begins Chapter 2 of the great book No Hunger in Paradise: The Players. The Journey. The Dream by Michael Calvin about the English soccer youth academy system. It continues:

Their performance-planning was impeccable, their professionalism admirable. The missing ingredient, perspective, was supplied on the first night away in France during a routine bed check. Two of the players has a teddy bear on their pillow. A third slept in a nappy.”

“They were, after all, 9 years old!”

As I travel around the globe working with coaches, administrators, and talent identification and development experts, I like to read them this passage. Everyone usually chuckles - uncomfortably - because this is the adultified world of youth sports that many of us live and work in. It makes us uncomfortable because most people I meet can share their own story or example of this scenario.

This is an example of the professionalization of youth sports.

It is a race to the bottom, to do more, more, more at younger and younger ages, all in the name of “preparing them for the next level.” But sadly, in trying to “prepare them for the next level” we often simply replicate the physical, cognitive, and psychological load faced by adults at that level. And we forget two very important things:

Children are not mini-adults!

And the question we really need to ask ourselves is not “could we create this professionalized environment?" but "SHOULD we?”

And the answer to that second question is no!

I recently watched a video of the excitement as NASA scientists and engineers celebrated landing a craft on Mars. This was a multi-decade, multi-billion dollar undertaking, with massive consequences in the event of failure. And I got to thinking, did their third-grade math teacher yell, harass, bully and intimidate them into carrying the one, or learning their multiplication tables, because someday they might be one of the .01% who try and land a craft on another planet?

Of course not. They sat at child-size desks and did age appropriate work in an age appropriate environment in order to build a foundation for learning advanced mathematical skills later on, AND develop a love of math and science that eventually led them to NASA. Their success today lies not in being treated like an adult when they were a child, but in getting to experience their childhood, find their passion, and stay in the game long enough to actually get good at it.

Those of us in sport need to pay attention. We don’t best develop elite adult athletes by forcing them to forgo their childhood. They only get to be a 10-year-old once. And no matter how much ability they have, they still have a 10-year-old brain, 10-year-old needs, and 10-year-old maturity. Yet on a weekly basis, I hear stories of:

• children being “developed” in adult-centered environments, washing out, and then hearing “those kids don’t have what it takes.”
• Children not being given playing time in games AND in practices
• Early selection of “talented kids” and discarding of the “untalented” ones despite all the evidence of the ineffectiveness of doing this at pre-puberty ages (and even post-puberty, see the NFL draft for a multi-million dollar example of how poor we are at talent identification)
• Abusive and bullying coaching behavior with very young athletes
• The prevalence of the idea that if it is competitive, it can no longer be enjoyable
• The confusion of being a demanding coach with being a demeaning coach
• And so much more

I recently had an email conversation about this with Dr. Richard Bailey, the Head of Research at the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education. He has been a full Professor at Canterbury, Roehampton, Birmingham and Liverpool in the UK and has directed studies that have influenced policy and practice both nationally and internationally. In other words, he is at the forefront of child development in sports and one of the most respected voices out there. Here is what he wrote specifically about early specialization, and in essence professionalization, in youth sports:

“This is one of the most contested topics in sports coaching. Part of the difficulty in unpacking the different challenges lies in the fact that it brings together scientific and ethical concerns. The scientific questions center on the effectiveness of specializing in one sport early, often training at high intensity. The ethical questions are about the appropriateness of treating often young children like professional athletes.”

We have dealt with the physical implications in previous blogs and in my book “Is it Wise to Specialize?” but in a nutshell, there are strong medical reasons for not specializing at a young age:

1. Children who specialize in a single sport account for 50% of overuse injuries in young athletes according to pediatric orthopedic specialists.
2. A study by Ohio State University found that children who specialized early in a single sport led to higher rates of adult physical inactivity. Those who commit to one sport at a young age are often the first to quit, and suffer a lifetime of consequences.
3. In a study of 1200 youth athletes, Dr Neeru Jayanthi of Loyola University found that early specialization in a single sport is one of the strongest predictors of injury. Athletes in the study who specialized were 70% to 93% more likely to be injured than children who played multiple sports!
4. Children who specialize early are at a far greater risk for burnout due to stress, decreased motivation and lack of enjoyment
5. Early sport specialization in female adolescents is associated with increased risk of anterior knee pain disorders including PFP, Osgood Schlatter and Sinding Larsen-Johansson compared to multi-sport athletes, and may lead to higher rates of future ACL tears.

So rather than rehash that all here, let’s talk about the morality of treating children like mini-adults and professionals. As Dr. Bailey wrote:

“It is absolutely certain, however, that the vast majority of these ‘talented’ players end up being dropped from the system. Almost all of them, in fact. It is also clear, I think, that the processes used to identify children as talented are highly questionable, often confusing early maturation and physique with potential ability. In practice, this means that many young children are recruited by clubs on a false promise of stardom. Nevertheless, large numbers of children are recruited into these training programs, often with the consent of over-eager parents, discouraged from playing other sports, required to commit large amounts of time and energy to training, potentially at the expense of their education and healthy social development. This is where the moral issues come in.”

As Dr. Bailey concludes:

“The most positive thing that can be said about the early specialization is that it may be no less effective than later specialization. But the potential risks of early specialization, including physical and psychological risks, but also social and educational risks, suggests to me that this is not a choice between two equally attractive options.”

It is high time that those of us who are concerned with the welfare of children in sports take a stand and stop the professionalization of youth sports. It is time for us to stop treating children like mini-adults. Let them be 10. Focus on winning the race to the right finish line. Because as Dr. Bailey says, this is not a choice between two equally attractive options. One of them lets children develop on their own timeline, and allows time for the talent that whispers to emerge.

The other throws 100 eggs against a wall and hopes one does not break and then calls it talent development.

It is time to stop asking if we could treat children like professionals because clearly we can and we do.

It is time to start asking whether we should treat them that way if we are truly concerned with their physical, emotional, psychological and personal development.

And the answer to that is clearly NO!

Winning vs Development " the mixing desk"

Talking Point: How do you find the right balance between winning and development?

Added by Jordan Montier on 02 May 2018

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Oliver Saunders, a lead coach in one of Southampton FC’s pre-academy development centres and also a coach within the foundation phase of their academy, shares his own opinions and views on what success could be in terms of winning vs development from his experiences, and suggests how a balance between the two can be made.

However we look at youth football, we are faced with choices and decisions that we deliberate over - we weigh up the pros and cons and decide upon the best course of action. One of the most deliberated is – should we focus on winning or development?

However, the environment you create doesn’t have to be one exclusively for winning or development. Rather than seeing it as a ‘switch’ (on / off or, one or the other) it is more a volume control or slider (like those you find on a mixing desk). What is more there can be a slider not only for the team goals but for each individual and for different games, giving players a blend of experiences and focuses.

Consider, Task / Mastery (we may see this as purely development) or Ego environment (synonymous with a win at all costs focus).    

Fig 1. What success looks like in task/mastery and ego environments. Adapted from Dweck, 1986. Nichols, 1984 & 1989 and Ames 1992.

How far you slide across depends on your approach. It could be you want to make sure you balance between the two as much as possible. Joan Duda remarked that an overall (across the season / in the players’ experience) balanced approach would essentially provide the player with the optimal environment in which to flourish. Like a mixing desk though, the sliders are not always in the same position for every song and indeed the whole song, or in this context a football match.

Firstly, a good start is to consider the environment you are going to create, perhaps for that particular tournament or league. How does this change for the team and individuals depending on the ‘importance’ or context of the game?

At an academy level most fixtures are not part of a league so this leaves periodic tournaments and festivals leading to regional and national finals, where the main (but not exclusive) focus is to win. There is a clear philosophy of how the team and individuals are expected to play, which the players know and are still currently learning.

So just like individual sliders on the mixing desk, players have different learning objectives which might be more outcome / ego focused (trying to beat the opposite opposition player in the 1v1 battle) or more focused on mastering a task and the process (e.g. how and why to support your team when playing out from the back). 

These considerations can be factored into the planning and preparation of the team(s). For example, one individual needs help on improving their 1v1’s – this means making sure they are down to be a defender at some point(s). From this we might learn how a player defends 1v1 under pressure where the objective is to win the game or if they are just starting out on this target, perhaps there is less focus on the result and more on the mastery of the task.   

Successful or not, the opportunity for learning has to take precedence. If we congratulate or commiserate without 1-1 feedback this will not help players to learn or reflect on their performance.

For a team I took in a round robin tournament recently, the objective was to win all of our games. Our first game was against a team an age group below. Naturally, for me the slider moved a lot further to the development / Task Mastery preference, so I asked the team to play a formation that they had not had much practice playing, GK-3-2-1 as opposed to their usual GK-2-3-1. We had a brief discussion with a tactics board about the roles and responsibilities of each player and then played. 

The game ended 1-0 to the age group below – embarrassment for the players. After a brief player-led discussion of why they had lost, the rest of the day playing against their own age-grouped teams, they went unbeaten. The lesson they had received was learnt. We did switch back to the GK-2-3-1 but not to the sacrifice of individuals’ learning objectives.

A quote that perhaps reflects the experience of that day at the group level:  “I never lose. I either win or I learn” – Nelson Mandela.

The same day I was caught off guard. A young boy stated pre game he was going to score an overhead kick and he did. His team won 9-1. Witnessing it myself I was thinking how proud he must have been and wanted to let him enjoy his moment. However, I missed the opportunity to perhaps ask, “what was it about the attempt that helped you to score?” So congratulating the outcome rather than the process made that interaction very much near the ego / winning end.

“Successful or not, the opportunity for learning has to take precedence. If we congratulate or commiserate without 1-to-1 feedback this will not help players to learn or reflect on their performance.”  

Those are examples where winning is the objective but the opportunity for development and learning still occurs and is indeed planned. So as before, this is less about one or the other but more a case of getting the balance right on your mixing desk for the team and also the players. In doing so, we can also select interventions (at the right times) that will give the players returns and hopefully gains in the four corners of their football education under different conditions or constraints.   

Oliver Saunders

Oliver coaches in the Southampton FC pre-academy as a lead coach at one of the development centres. He also coaches within the foundation phase of the academy.

A graduate of the University of Bath in Sport and Exercise Science, UEFA B and Youth Award holder with experiences at other academies in England and youth football abroad. If only there was a car equivalent to frequent flyer miles!