Winning 1 Development 0

It was a tight game, with a few minutes to go, the coach had all their best players on the field to close out the win. One player kept running the ball down by themselves and eventually scored to settle the game. The celebrations began.

Amongst the happiness I saw another picture. The picture of the disappointment of the players who hadn’t played or had barely played in case it cost the win, their parents trying to reassure them, the players afraid to make mistakes, the selfish play of the ‘best’ player who seemed to think that they had to do everything and refused to pass the ball despite other players being in better positions.

I left this U10 game thinking the final score was Winning 1 Development 0.

One of the enduring issues in youth sport is the importance of winning versus the importance of developing young athletes. It’s often like watching two opponents compete where there can only be one winner.

Winning and development don’t need to be competing against each other. When they do, the losers are young athletes. They lose in the following ways

• Less time to develop - too many athletes get denied the time they need to improve. Watching from the sidelines doesn’t develop skill, the ability to perform under pressure, or critical skills like decision making.

• Fear of mistakes - kills creativity and encourages safe play.

• Too much pressure - also kills creativity and often leads to anxiety.

• Short term - successes aren’t often representative of what is required for success over longer periods of time.

• Perception of two-tier ability – leads to lack of teamwork and collaboration as the ‘best’ players hog the ball

The earlier young athletes face these losses the more lasting and damaging the effects are on their development and the development of the sport.

So why do we keep perpetuating this conflict? Like many conflicts they are perpetuated by misunderstandings and beliefs that simply don’t hold in the face of evidence. Some, wrongly, continue to believe that winning is more important and to be successful you must be a ‘winner’. Too many still hang onto the idea that their child is going to be a professional despite it being statistically very low. Too many coaches and parents get over excited by the early maturers, who are often imply better because of size rather than ability (they forget everyone else will grow at some point…). There’s also too many egos involved.

A better way forward, is to think of winning as a consequence of great development. That’s how the best athletes and teams win, especially over the long term. When athletes are given the opportunity to develop and that’s the priority, the sports world changes for the better. More young athletes will play for longer, skill levels go up individually and collectively, teams will collaborate for success, creativity blossoms, and the sport grows and thrives. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that.

So let’s set the priority to develop all young athletes and see lots more scores of Development (infinity) over Winning (a nice consequence).