Post by Dorsetcoach on May 29, 2004 9:23:33 GMT 1
Thanks motherhen. Yes, I am aware of the UKA forum. My day job is involved with design/deploying strategy and managing changes, so apologies upfront if I bring a bit of that to the party.
Firstly, my informed guess is that if athletes are still there at age 17 then they are pretty dedicated / unusual and not vulnerable to dropout anyway. I would suggest that the age range when most dropout happens is 13-16 (varying a bit between the sexes). Most local clubs know this from direct experience. This means that the UKA forum is aimed at the wrong people to get any real understanding of this particular problem because they are asking the wrong people – survivors. These are the special people who by good fortune were best equipped to resist the myriad of other pressures in their young lives, were lucky enough to be singled out to receive dedicated support and encouragement from club or coach, etc. In fact, their answers on this topic are likely to reinforce existing complacency about the reasons for dropout.
In terms of the demands on the body’s development, athletics is a late development activity so the sad thing here is that this means the peak dropout time is before athletes have had a chance to show their true potential. For that reason we don’t even know what we have already lost (and will continue to loose)…………and that is my point! How many “World Class Potential” athletes have we lost in this way without realising it? Nobody knows.
We will never be able to eliminate the problem (far too complex) but if some proper research was done to identify into the most common reasons for teenage dropout in sport, rather than UKA tinkering around with a feelgood questionnaire / forum which smacks of tokenism, our governing body might have a better understanding of the issues and discover that some of the factors involved can be at least partly controlled and managed to reduce dropout. They could even win a few brownie points with Government by demonstrating how such action is linked to greater promotion of health and exercise amongst the young – a topical / fashionable thing to do right now.
You never know - the insights gained might even lead to better decisions about the structuring, funding and running of the pyramid which feds into and through the talent ID and development squads….and perhaps help to shift the focus a little more towards greater practical support for emerging talent rather than the crazy “all or nothing” funding and medical regime we presently have.
Come on UKA, how about it? This is not unprecedented. As a starter there’s lots of published research out there in other sports already, if you care to look. There’s also a network of clubs with tons of anecdotal evidence and a network of athletes, schools, coaches, parents which would be easy to tap into. All that is necessary is the will to commission a systematic study and do something with the findings - to inform decision making and future direction.
The alternative is to continue the present apparent strategy of second guessing what is really happening. But this reminds me of a famous saying:
If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got.
Tim
Firstly, my informed guess is that if athletes are still there at age 17 then they are pretty dedicated / unusual and not vulnerable to dropout anyway. I would suggest that the age range when most dropout happens is 13-16 (varying a bit between the sexes). Most local clubs know this from direct experience. This means that the UKA forum is aimed at the wrong people to get any real understanding of this particular problem because they are asking the wrong people – survivors. These are the special people who by good fortune were best equipped to resist the myriad of other pressures in their young lives, were lucky enough to be singled out to receive dedicated support and encouragement from club or coach, etc. In fact, their answers on this topic are likely to reinforce existing complacency about the reasons for dropout.
In terms of the demands on the body’s development, athletics is a late development activity so the sad thing here is that this means the peak dropout time is before athletes have had a chance to show their true potential. For that reason we don’t even know what we have already lost (and will continue to loose)…………and that is my point! How many “World Class Potential” athletes have we lost in this way without realising it? Nobody knows.
We will never be able to eliminate the problem (far too complex) but if some proper research was done to identify into the most common reasons for teenage dropout in sport, rather than UKA tinkering around with a feelgood questionnaire / forum which smacks of tokenism, our governing body might have a better understanding of the issues and discover that some of the factors involved can be at least partly controlled and managed to reduce dropout. They could even win a few brownie points with Government by demonstrating how such action is linked to greater promotion of health and exercise amongst the young – a topical / fashionable thing to do right now.
You never know - the insights gained might even lead to better decisions about the structuring, funding and running of the pyramid which feds into and through the talent ID and development squads….and perhaps help to shift the focus a little more towards greater practical support for emerging talent rather than the crazy “all or nothing” funding and medical regime we presently have.
Come on UKA, how about it? This is not unprecedented. As a starter there’s lots of published research out there in other sports already, if you care to look. There’s also a network of clubs with tons of anecdotal evidence and a network of athletes, schools, coaches, parents which would be easy to tap into. All that is necessary is the will to commission a systematic study and do something with the findings - to inform decision making and future direction.
The alternative is to continue the present apparent strategy of second guessing what is really happening. But this reminds me of a famous saying:
If you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got.
Tim