One of the biggest travails of the youth sports journey is dealing with selection. Even the most successful athletes often recall disappointments at not being selected for teams during their early years competing at high school and junior level. Navigating selection and talent identification policies are thus part of youth sports. To help parents and young performers themselves deal with these trials we should try to understand the factors at play and perhaps find some strategies to overcome the challenges involved.
In some cases the selection policy and the reasons why one individual is favoured over another are opaque. Sports vary widely in the degree of subjectivity involved. For sports and events where performance is measures in centimetres, grams or seconds it is relatively straightforward to evaluate capabilities from competition results. However for the majority of sports physical attributes and what we are able to capture during testing are only part of the equation. Inevitably there is some judgement involved in selection decisions and sadly some factors can unconsciously bias selection as we will explore.
Limitations aside, most youth sports incorporate tests of physical performance as part of selection. Selection pathways and the standardised tests employed may differ according to the sport, but in general test scores are used to help identify potential in young performers. The criteria employed might be as simple as height, weight and wingspan, but particular tests of fitness and physical performance are typically also part of the basis for selecting athletes. National and provincial sport organisations similarly use test scores as part of the selection funnel for athlete development pathways.
AGE AND STAGE AS COMPLICATING FACTORS…
There is a great deal of variation and individuality in growth and development. Kids of the same chronological age can vary widely in terms of biological age and relative stage in their development. This has huge implications for talent identification and selection. Maturation factors have a major bearing on physical attributes and performance test scores during the teenage years. What is often overlooked is whether a disparity in scores is a true indication of potential or just reflects that one individual is relatively further along on their growth curve at that point in time.
In general, early maturing athletes have a clear, albeit temporary, advantage in junior competition, especially in sports where size in physicality are a major asset. This effect is particularly marked for boys given the dramatic changes in size and lean mass and free gains in strength and speed that coincide with reaching puberty in young males.
There is also a ‘relative age effect’ that biases selection for age-grade teams, simply due to where a young performer’s birth date happens to fall in relation the dates used to determine eligibility. Overall those with a birthday that is just after the start of the eligibility period typically have an advantage by being close to a year older than one of their peers who’s birthday falls just before the cut-off date. Despite being aware of this phenomenon, the relative age effect is still evident in selection for youth teams - those who have a birth date that falls early in the eligibility period for the sport are over-represented in age-group squads.
IS THERE ANY GOOD NEWS?
So far we have painted a bit of a gloomy picture for late maturing kids and those who are not favoured in the birth date lottery. However, whilst there might be disadvantages in the short term, some good news is that early success in youth sports does not correlate with success later on. This has been illustrated in sports like track and field: performance times, heights and distances achieved in junior level competition do not correspond to performance once athletes reach under-20 and senior level.
Talent ID and selection across the board is notoriously bad at actually picking out those who will succeed. The issues we have described clearly complicate efforts to extrapolate future performance and predict success based on present scores for young performers. In other words, these approaches largely fail to identify real future potential.
Irrespective of early disappointments, if young performers can hang in there the chances that they will shine later in high school, in college and at senior level remain undiminished.
All of this might also serve as a wake up call for those young performers who do enjoy early success and natural advantages. Being marked out as ‘talented’ as a junior does not necessarily help kids to achieve success later on. This is all the more striking given the preferential access and additional support enjoyed by those who are part of a talent development pathway from an early stage.
Paradoxically the adversity experienced by late-maturing young performers can ultimately work to their advantage. Continually coming up against bigger and more physically developed opponents forces kids to develop technical and tactical skills in order to compete. These young performers also tend to be more resilient and mentally tough by virtue of coming through these trials. Late-maturers thus end up being over-represented in elite and professional sport at senior level.
COUNTERMEASURES…
Despite the flaws in these approaches, selection and talent ID processes remain a reality that young performers must deal with. Aside from accepting the unfairness and using adversity as fuel, there are some practical strategies that can help young performers in navigating these trials. For instance, investing in physical preparation - particularly strength training - can help to equalise things and offset the natural advantages that their peers might be enjoying at that time.
Where physical performance tests are used for selection, there is also the option of gaming the system a little by specifically seeking to get better at those tests. A good example is the ‘combine’ that is used for selection to the NFL and the equivalent test batteries employed in other professional sports in North America. A micro-industry has grown out of this, with a host of facilities and programmes delivering ‘combine preparation’ as a service. In other words, aspiring players go to receive coaching and training specifically for the purposes of improving their numbers on the physical tests employed.
Whilst I do not necessarily recommend these programmes, enlisting a coach to help develop a young performer’s athletic abilities and in turn their ability to jump high, run fast and go far is certainly beneficial when it comes to selection (and more generally their ability to perform in the sport). Parents should however choose wisely, as the expertise to successfully deliver this support remains rather uncommon.
Parents and young performers would also do well to better understand the factors that are linked to future success and adopt these lessons. Disregarding performance and physical tests for a moment, there are elements of character that do show an association with future success in sport and beyond. Adopting and maintaining a growth mindset is important, which means a commitment to continually striving to improve and remaining willing to fail and try again, irrespective of early success or lack thereof. Likewise, the journey is long and so tenacity and grit are likewise major assets to develop for aspiring young performers.
Readers who are interested can enquire to find out more about what support and coaching provision we can offer for those local to Vancouver, as well as remote coaching options for those further afield. For more, including how to arrange an initial assessment, see the ‘Enquire’ link at the top of the page or email us direct at PreparedATH@gmail.com.
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Thanks also to all those who have shared feedback on the recent release Prepared: Unlocking Human Performance with Lessons from Elite Sport (click on the image below for details).
