Selecting Talent or Identifying Talent?

[ivanvamp]

A really interesting article here:  http://changingthegameproject.com/our-biggest-mistake-talent-selection-instead-of-talent-identification/
 
Food for thought for our youth coaches and our youth sports culture.  A couple of tidbits:
 
"Our current win at all costs youth sports culture promotes talent selection. When a coach is pressured to win by parents or a club, or when he or she feels the need to win to serve their own ego, that coach becomes a talent selector. When you are focused on talent selection, you are picking athletes to help you win now, and cutting ones that will not. You are looking at current athleticism, technical ability, and traits to help achieve short term success. You naturally select the biggest, strongest and fastest young athletes, and play them extensive minutes. You limit playing time for the kids who are not up to snuff, and tell them they need to work harder, get tougher, etc., if they want to play more. You yell at them because they cannot get to the ball quick enough, or cannot shoot well enough to score. You tell them that this type of pressure is what they will face when they are older, so they better get used to it now."
 
"On the other hand, talent identifiers are searching for young players who may not be elite athletes yet, but possess the physical and psychological attributes to eventually become one. Perhaps they have not yet grown, or been exposed to high level coaching. Perhaps they are not as skillful yet, but show a high level of coachability, sensitivity to training, and the motivation to learn. Identifying talent requires the skill to weigh all the physical, physiological, psychological, and technical components of an athlete, as well as a measure of “gut instinct” of which kid has what it takes to become elite, and which kid does not.
 
Talent identification also takes a long term approach to player selection and development, and focuses on training large numbers of players, instead of cutting all but the elite ones. It recognizes that many factors affect whether a kid will make it or not, but rarely are childhood results the main factor."
 
"American youth sports are far too often focused on talent selection, and not talent identification. We are committed to winning now, to getting on ESPN, or achieving some hypothetical pre-pubescent national ranking. Yes, some team sport clubs have B and C teams and develop large numbers of players. Others have those same B and C teams, and players are often jettisoned there with less experienced coaches, less committed teammates, and an overall lesser experience. We say we are developing them for the future, but all too often we are using them to balance the budget. We select the current talent that will help us win now, because if we do not, the club down the road will grab them and win, and our best players will leave. We are not identifying and developing the kids who are most likely to become elite competitors after puberty. We are selecting the ones who already are elite, but often do not have the characteristics needed for long term elite performance."

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

This is a huge issue with youth soccer coaching in the US but I'm not sure that the recommended fixes (not cutting players, focusing on helping less skilled players catch up with more skilled ones) really make sense. The most important thing is right in the title of the article yet the author seems to ignore it in the end. Coaches need to identify kids who have actual soccer talent (technical skills with the ball, body control and balance, vision and spatial awareness) but are held back by being slightly behind in terms of physical maturation and make sure that those kids get lots of attention and support. The key is not to be blinded by physical ability, not to simply keep every kid on the team and treat them all the same until they're 15.

 

[Heinie Wagner]

I love the changing the game project.  The TED talk linked in that article is one of the best things I've ever seen related to youth sports.  
 
I really liked the points raised in that article, but some of it is just silly. Try running a competitive sports club with no cuts and a stated goal of paying particular attention to the lesser skilled players and pretty soon you won't have a club.
 
Morgan said it well, look for talent, not just maturity.  That's really tough to do. In October I ran basketball tryouts for 13 boys and girls 4th-8th grade travel teams. We bring in volunteers who are former coaches, current coaches for different grades and people who have coached at other places to evaluate players and select teams. The most difficult part of the tryout is trying to get them to look past who is the most aggressive or most physically developed and look at who has the most potential and even when you get them to that, sometimes you're wrong.
 
"We are not identifying and developing the kids who are most likely to become elite competitors after puberty. We are selecting the ones who already are elite, but often do not have the characteristics needed for long term elite performance."
 
I agree that's what we should do. It's also really, really difficult to do. How do you do that? Ask for parents height/weight and athletic accomplishments on the registration form? Even then you'd miss kids, and how fair would that be?
 
I suspect the reason Sweden doesn't cut anyone in Hockey until the are 17 is partly because they have a LOT of hockey rinks and I wonder how much that tennis study applies to sports like soccer or basketball.  
 
The longer I'm involved in youth sports, the more certain I become that the whole culture is broken and the more difficult it seems to change.

 

[RIFan]

Great article, thanks for sharing.  I agree that the proposed fixes are not that simple.  I currently work with 13 YO hockey players, mainly running the off ice program.   The size disparity amongst them is startling with a range of 12-14" and 100-120 lbs.   Since I run the off ice, I get a better look into the overall athleticism and drive than strictly what they can do on the ice.   From a talent identification point of view, I have doubts that the at least 3 of the top 4 players will ever do anything significant as hockey players in high school.  Generally they have size, strength and have been at the top of the talent pool for quite some time.  On a raw basis they really don't show much athleticism.  They struggle with basic agility drills, lack flexibility and have difficulty picking up new exercises. They might be huge as a 5'6" - 5'8" 13 YO, but they are probably almost fully grown, particularly when you note their parents are not any bigger than they are.  More importantly, they've coasted on their raw skills or early development for so long they put in the least effort.  There are kids that look like they're 10 or 11, but perform at a high level on agility drills and pick up new exercises quickly because they have better body control.  They also have to work harder to keep up with the more physically advanced kids.  
 
The problem is how do you keep those kids with higher potential engaged and loving the sport when they are physically getting the crap kicked out of them on a regular basis.   Of course, that is seemingly a minor issue beyond the current state of youth sports where the talent pipeline is already set when kids are 9 or 10 and late bloomers will have already been passed by.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

RiFan, your situation sounds like a case of early specialization - sounds like those celebrated bigger kids had early success at hockey, and started playing year-round, or near year-round, at the expense of truly developing more general athleticism playing other sports...amirite?
 
What I would love to see for kids under 10 for sure, maybe even up to 12 and possibly beyond would be some sort of club you could join that gave kids a taste of all kind of sports, and helped them develop them as athletes, not players, almost like scouting, except instead of tying knots and making smores, you play baseball and soccer and hockey and do gymnastics and run and ski and skate. It's not a new idea, it's what the whole eastern block was doing during the 60s, 70s and 80s...and, yeah, not a whole lot of "high level" competition, just a lot of activity and free play.
 
The problem of course, is that youth sports isn't just a culture, it's an industry - and to eschew early specialization would mean a professional hockey instructor would have less work and make less money in the season he was less needed.

 

[RIFan]

RiFan, your situation sounds like a case of early specialization - sounds like those celebrated bigger kids had early success at hockey, and started playing year-round, or near year-round, at the expense of truly developing more general athleticism playing other sports...amirite?
 
What I would love to see for kids under 10 for sure, maybe even up to 12 and possibly beyond would be some sort of club you could join that gave kids a taste of all kind of sports, and helped them develop them as athletes, not players, almost like scouting, except instead of tying knots and making smores, you play baseball and soccer and hockey and do gymnastics and run and ski and skate. It's not a new idea, it's what the whole eastern block was doing during the 60s, 70s and 80s...and, yeah, not a whole lot of "high level" competition, just a lot of activity and free play.
 
The problem of course, is that youth sports isn't just a culture, it's an industry - and to eschew early specialization would mean a professional hockey instructor would have less work and make less money in the season he was less needed.

Most of the kids are year round specialists. A few do other things like cross country, but the lack of other sports exposure is obviously detrimental to their athletic development. Flexibility in particular is really poor. I actually think the lack of outside play might be as big of factor as single sport focus. There is a lot to be said for climbing trees, jumping fences and general "free" play to athletic development.

 

[Fred not Lynn]

...and for hockey kids, free play hockey, unsupervised unstructured play is really important - but the sport is so structured now and global warming seems to have kicked in, so it's hard to find time for that (and a pond).