Has school sport lost its way?

Have we lost our way in school sport? To a large extent I believe we have. Let me attempt to explain why.

I have, for many years, heard the phrase “high performance”. It worried me then and it still does. How can we slot a 14-year-old into a high-performance programme when the maturation and growth process is nowhere near complete? In a recent presentation, Gavin Keller, an educational specialist and principal of SunValley School in Cape Town, showed us that the neural pathways are massively under construction. Based on this, we in fact need to focus purely on teaching on coaching and shaping champions of the future.

How can we discount any school sports player, boy or girl, based on the claim of experience in sport education? It’s not strong enough. Many a talented player has emerged from obscurity. I am not saying that talent must not be recognised, I am fully aware that the way of life is that we have an A team and a B team etc, but is that our main objective at school level ? I don’t think it is the main objective.

One of the main concerns around the loss of values in school sport is something I talk a lot about on my exclusive radio show, School Sports Buzz which airs on Chai FM on Tuesdays between 6-7pm. We lost physical education in schools a while ago due to some ridiculous decision-making and, with it, we lost one of the major platforms for participation — where a group of children are equal and where the physical education teacher can offer everyone the same exercises, no exclusion or separation.

Unfortunately, in some schools, sport has become an absolute tool for marketing the school’s position in the education space. Yes, matric results are important, although I still have not seen 5000 people watching a matric exam. A prominent banking group in SA in 2003 took on the objective of adding some real marketability to rugby derbies across South Africa — this had major positives but equal negatives. It meant we had to select the very best of players at all costs; it meant if the school didn’t have “that” player then there was a need to “shop” for the player from another school. Not healthy at school level in my opinion.

Schools are there for education and sport is part of that process. I do believe that we have amazing schools in this country with some incredibly dedicated staff and coaches. But the desire of a school to be a “business” has meant that school sport has lost its way. I believe that we look to develop sport with tinted glasses; I do not believe that the general rule right now is to pick the best and focus on them leaving the rest to make up the numbers — this is not what school sport should be.

I do also believe that we lack a national plan. For years now I have waxed lyrical about the need for this as well as the need for a sports practitioners’ council, similar to that of most professional bodies. Coaching and educating children is as important as a chartered accountant’s conduct, I can assure you. These are young minds that are impressionable, as illustrated by Gavin Keller’s presentation on their highly developmental state, and it is essential that we offer them the fundamentally correct coaching in sport – all sport. I believe it is the role of everyone to ensure that we have the right people doing the right job. I am nauseous writing these lines as I know that in SA, such a phenomenon is purely idealistic. How sad that is, how sad that I, as a person in the game of sport strategic administration, a coach of many years has little, if any, faith in the system. However I am not sitting down on this one, this needs to change and I need your help, please.