A Sporting Chance: How the professionalisation of junior sport spawned an entire industry

The professionalisation of junior sport has spawned an entire industry. Who is benefiting? National correspondent Dana Johannsen reports in part two of a series.

They arrive in waves.

Every 75 minutes a new flock of youngsters appears, dressed in identical black training kit to learn an identical brand of football – referred to with almost evangelical fervour as “The Ole Way”.

With each new wave the kids get older, faster, more fleet-footed and aggressive. Come nightfall, under the cool glow of the floodlights that illuminate the mist in the air, the senior players are fanned out around the field, executing the same drills with robotic-like precision.

It is like witnessing the 10-year progression of a football player in the space of four hours.

Housed among the modest surrounds of Porirua’s Kenepuru Community Hospital, the Ole Football Academy is considered the benchmark for football development in New Zealand.

It’s the brainchild of former All Whites manager Dave Wilson, who established the academy in 1997. After some quiet years, the programme was reinvigorated seven years ago with the arrival of Declan Edge, who implemented a radical new footballing philosophy.

He wanted to create skillful, technically adept, and mentally tough players capable of adapting their play in the top professional leagues around the world. Scores don’t matter. The coaches at Ole have no interest in winning titles. Rather the focus is on the long-term development of each player.

From the age of nine, players are indoctrinated into the Ole game style. They’re encouraged to “go big”, to spread wide and play a possession style game.

“You won’t see kids this age [10-11] playing like this at other clubs,” says Blake Jones, the academy’s baby-faced chief executive, as the youngest group of players are put through their paces in a training match.

As the players get older, the jargon used remains the same (“we try to create a common language used throughout the club,” says Jones), but the training demands get greater and the programme more sophisticated. The players have a sprint and power trainer, mobility specialist, nutritionist and receive detailed video analysis.

Ole, which last year opened a second facility in Auckland, is one of an ever-increasing number of football academies that have usurped the Federation Talent Centres as the number one development pathway for the country’s top players. More than 30 Ole alumni are signed to professional contracts or playing at colleges in the US, with the honour roll including the All Whites’ Ryan Thomas, who plays for Dutch premier league giants PSV Eindhoven, Dan Keat and Craig Henderson, and top young Football Ferns prospect Maya Hahn.

Despite its success, Ole has plenty of detractors as well. Critics argue the programme is too intense and places too great a workload on the young players, while the rigid playing style can make it difficult for players to adjust to new team environments.

Others are concerned the academy’s messaging is dangerous and misleading. Every player selected is told when they pass through the doors that if they work hard they will be a professional footballer. It’s the Ole guarantee.

Leaving to one side the veracity of that claim, conventional wisdom suggests that placing such hefty expectations on kids can be damaging to their mental health.

But Jones believes that professionalism is a perfectly reasonable goal for all the talented youngsters in their programme – the caveat being how you define “professional”.

“If you’re playing for a third division team in the Netherlands then you’re still a professional. You might only be earning $400 a week, but you have your food, board, and travel covered, that’s still a great lifestyle,” says Jones.

FOOTBALL BOOTS AND PINK SLIPPERS

Grant Pratt heard a lot of these criticisms of Ole when he was scouting around for a place to send his son, Fletcher. And yet, he says, the same people that bagged the joint also told him it was the best place for aspiring young footballers.

“It is quite funny because a lot of people have a negative perception of Ole. They see it as being quite expensive and elite, but even though they didn’t like it in one sense, they said it is definitely the place where you’d want to send your kid if they’re showing some promise. So it was sort of that love-hate thing,” says Pratt.

“People have that perception that an academy is really expensive to go to and it is a bit elite and what have you, but I have personally found it to be further from the truth.”

The football landscape is new to Pratt. He grew up playing rugby, and he assumed Fletcher would follow the same path, until his sister broke the news.

“It was a little bit embarrassing for me, because you know, you think you are this great parent and then you find out from your sister that your kid really wants to be playing another sport.”

After a season at Karori, Fletcher, then aged 10, tried out for a place in the Ole Academy and was accepted. Pratt says he has seen a huge change in Fletcher since he’s started at Ole – not just in his football, but in his confidence, and communication skills.

Fletcher, who attends Wellesley College in Lower Hutt, says his favourite thing about Ole is that he is constantly challenged.

“The coaches are really good and they push you all the time, and when you are feeling comfortable, they will make you uncomfortable again and it helps you improve,” the 12-year-old says.

“I’ve also made heaps of new friends here from outside of my school, and that makes it really fun.”

One of his best mates is Shaq Ali (13). Shaq plays on the left wing and sometimes up front. Fletcher says Shaq is really fast.

As they take turns firing balls into the goal with understated precision, the two boys discuss their dreams of playing professional football overseas. Shaq, who attends Tawa College, would love to play for Real Madrid, “but even just playing in the Portuguese league would be cool”.

On the other side of the field – an artificial surface that stretches out below the academy clubhouse like a layer of garish green carpet – Leonora Webb is running through some drills with her teammates.

It’s her 12th birthday, but there was no chance she’d miss training.

Earlier in the afternoon, Stuff joined Leonora at her family home in Khandallah while she went about her after-school routine. She opens the door kitted out in in her slick Puma training kit and pink monster claw slippers.

Her bedroom wall is adorned with her certificates, posters of her favourite players, while the wall above her bed is dedicated to pictures of turtles. Her father, David Webb, isn’t quite sure where her obsession with turtles comes from. Leonora’s love of football, however, is easier to pinpoint.

“She definitely got exposed to it through me,” says Webb. “But she took to it really easily. She was never someone that I ever had to persuade to kick the ball around she was always happy to try some skills with the ball and play football.”

Leonora joined the Ole Academy when she was nine. At first, there were only two girls in her age-group, but over the past 12 months the numbers have grown to the extent that they have their own girls programme.

Leonora says she didn’t mind playing with the boys, but she likes the challenge of trying to beat them better.

Later, we drive the 30 minute journey to Ole’s Porirua facility, where Leonora becomes absorbed in a sea of kids in black uniforms. She makes this trip three times a week, with trainings 1.5 hours. Saturdays are game days.

Leonora also plays for her school team, which involves a further training a week, and games on Sundays. Ole try to discourage kids from playing for their school teams, but Webb says he does not consider it to be too much of an extra commitment.

“They have a training each week, which was in lieu of her going to running club that particular day, which I thought ‘well she may as well do the football’. Because they don’t play as regularly, it is not too much on top of the Ole,” he says.

“The other activities that she does, like dancing, do keep her busy, but they seem to supplement her football quite nicely and it is good to have that balance.”

A BOOMING INDUSTRY

The professionalisation of junior sport has spawned an entire cottage industry in New Zealand. Hundreds of private sports academies and coaching clinics have popped up over the last 15 years, offering specialised development programmes to kids as young as eight.

These academies are not just selling the idea of developing skills, they’re selling the dream of professional contracts, national honours and college scholarships. And that has Sport NZ bosses concerned.

Alex Chiet, Sport NZ’s talent development manager, believes the explosion of private operators has worrying parallels to what is happening in the US, where the industry has been accused of both fuelling and exploiting a dangerous culture endemic in youth sport.

According to a study undertaken by WinterGreen Research, the youth sports economy is estimated to be a $15.3 billion industry in the US. Critics argue it has been built on an unethical business model.

“There’s a huge press for professionalism [in the US], and commercially-driven entities are selling that idea that the road to elitism is about travelling across the country to events, making sure your child is in the top team at a young age and ploughing resources into specialised coaching – we’re starting to see the early onset of that here,” says Chiet.

Many of the operators here are out to make a quick buck, says Chiet. Others are delivering a good experience for young kids, but the messaging is dangerous.

“Some of them are doing a good job, and have the athletes’ wellbeing at the centre of what they’re doing and will provide a balanced approach. Some people say they do, they actually believe they are doing the right thing, but they have drunk the Kool-Aid for too long – they’re too far down the medal model that their perceptions are hard to shift.

“They’re not setting out to harm kids, they think they’re doing the right thing, it’s just it doesn’t line up (with) the best practice research in other countries, and what the evidence and case studies are saying here.”

That research reveals intense early specialisation in a single sport increases the risk of injury, burnout, depression and loss of identity, while some kids who don’t show “talent” at a young age are discouraged from participating in a sports system targeted at the elite 0.1 per cent, rather than the 99.9 per cent of the rest of us that don’t have a hope of becoming an Olympian or a professional athlete.

The rise of the academy system has also led to concerns that this model shuts out kids from lower income families, who cannot afford the fees, equipment and travel costs, which can extend into the tens of thousands a year. Experts say there is a danger elite sport will become a pursuit of only the wealthy.

But it is difficult for parents to see the big picture amid the hypercharged environment of kids sport. They absorb the message they hear most – that is what the coaches and academy staff are telling them.

Chiet says it is worth considering the cost of this mercenary approach.

“It’s a free market out there, so we can’t tell those private providers what to do. The challenge the parents that are taking off to places like Ole probably don’t see is the unintended consequences later on. They’ll get a great football environment and there’ll be some great coaching and support and it will be very professional, but the commitment and effort at such a young age is completely against all the research and evidence that we have,” says Chiet.

“I would say 50 per cent of the kids won’t be still in the game by the time they’re 20, they’ll be burnt out and broken down and have overuse injuries, they’ll be mentally fatigued. A few will go on and the sales side will promote that few.”

THE ATHLETE FACTORY

The Athlete Factory, in the heart of Mount Maunganui’s industrial zone, is a symbol of the free market in action.

Its website promises to help “aspiring high performance athletes” take their performance “to the next level”. Through programmes like The Foundation Athlete, kids as young as 11 are given personalised programmes and access to strength and conditioning trainers, nutritionists, physiotherapists and sports psychologists – at a cost of $100/week.

It’s just the type of messaging that might raise hackles at Sport NZ HQ.

“Do you want to know what my philosophy is?” shouts Mike Rogers, over the hubbub of 20 teenage boys running through warm-up drills inside the gymnasium.

What follows is a withering, and seemingly off-brand, assessment of the warped psychology of youth sports.

“I strongly believe sport should be all experience-driven. There’s a million reasons not to play sport. We need to make it a meaningful experience for everyone. We’re obsessed with this high performance mindset. But if that’s all we focus on, people give up. They think the only objective is to make a rep team, or qualify for nationals or whatever.”

For Rogers, the sign of a healthy sports model is not how many gold medals we win at the Olympics or whether our teams are winning World Cups, it is whether people are still participating in sport into their 30s, 40s and 50s.

He puts up a convincing argument, albeit one that is slightly undone by the fact he presides over a joint called The Athlete Factory.

Rogers, who is also the assistant coach of the Bay of Plenty Steamers (though not to be confused with BOP Rugby’s CEO of the same name), acknowledges this contradiction.

“The marketing to get people through the door is designed to appeal to the ego of the parents and what they think sport should be about – elitism,” he says, unapologetically.

“Parents tend to think their child’s sporting achievement is a reflection of themselves. They are obsessed with this idea of ‘high performance’.”

But isn’t that exploiting everything that is wrong with junior sport?

“Oh 100 per cent,” says Rogers.

“But once we get them through the door, and develop that relationship with the parent and athlete, that’s when you start to challenge that mindset. It’s a lot easier to shift that mentality when they’re in here and seeing what we do.”

If the messaging isn’t always consistent, the vision is.

Rogers started AF three years ago on the back of the success of his rugby academy, Inside Running, which kicked off in 2010. He wanted to offer programmes that would complement the athlete’s sports-specific training, through a more holistic approach.

For example, the “Speed School” for 5-11 year-olds aims to develop children’s functional movement and key motor skills as he believes the PE curriculum in primary school is woefully inadequate (“but that’s a whole other story”). The key objective for all these programmes, says Rogers, is ensuring kids stay “fit, healthy and engaged with sport”.

Rogers tells the story of a boy in one of his rugby academy programmes who doesn’t appear to put in the same effort at training as some of the others do. He tends to muck around a bit, and doesn’t take the skill sessions all that seriously.

“One of the trainers came to me and said, ‘oh I think we need to drop this kid’.

“I said ‘why would we do that?’ He is committed, he is here at 6am every morning. He clearly enjoys it, he loves hanging out with his mates and having breakfast here and then taking the van to school with them all. And that’s fine, everyone has different motivations.

“The thing is, I guarantee you he’ll be back playing rugby next year. Absolutely guarantee it. And isn’t that what we want? For kids to have good experiences and stick at sport in the long run?”

INFLUENCING THE INFLUENCERS

A teenage boy sits solemnly in the back of a black SUV, his eyes fixed out the window. His father is driving him home following his US high school football game, and the look on the boy’s face suggests he’d rather be anywhere else.

The game has not gone well. He was benched later in the game and his father is not happy.

The dad has dreams of his child going on to play college football, and, eventually in the NFL. The family has spent tens of thousands on private schooling, a personal coach and trainer for the boy.

Over the course of the car ride, the father berates the teen for his poor showing, pointing out all the time, money and effort that has been put into ensuring the boy will succeed. At the end of the onslaught the camera slowly zooms in on the boy. His eyes are brimming with tears.

The scene is from the HBO documentary series Trophy Kids, which exposes the extreme behaviour surrounding youth sports in the US.

It is uncomfortable viewing as you watch the boy slowly suffocate under the weight of his father’s expectations. And that’s exactly why Aktive Auckland’s Good Sports lead, Simone Spencer, chooses to use it as a teaching tool.

When Spencer plays this clip to groups of parents, it evokes a powerful response. She’s seen parents brought to tears as they recognise a small part of themselves in the overbearing mums and dads on screen.

“Kiwis have deeply entrenched views of what sport is. It takes a transformative experience for views to change,” says Spencer.

Aktive, which funds community sport programmes across Auckland, launched Good Sports as part of its “cultural change” project to address some of the concerning behaviours in youth sport – not by kids, but adults.

The programme came into force in 2015 following a spate of incidents involving disturbing sideline behaviour. It was soon broadened as other issues became apparent, such as early specialisation, burnout, and loss of identity in youngsters consumed by their sports.

Spencer says the philosophy behind the programme is targeting “parents as influencers”, with research indicating that the negative influences in junior sport stem from adult involvement.

“Parents are well-meaning and of course want the best for their child, but it is about making them realise that some of their behaviours are not helpful, and in fact can be quite damaging,” she says.

“The programme is about raising awareness of these behaviours, and if necessary, promoting a positive shift.

“We all know sport can be a vehicle to help children to be active, healthy and learn life skills; critical in the success of these things happening is the quality of support that adults provide children in sport.”

While Aktive is targeting parents, that is not to say that they should cop the blame for the state of youth sports. Spencer acknowledges that sports organisations and the industry as a whole also fuel the hypercompetitive nature of kids sport.

The difficulty is, Sport NZ and its regional partners like Aktive deal directly with national sporting organisations and their provincial off-shoots. As sport becomes increasingly privatised, the government agency’s sphere of influence is shrinking. Targeting the parents and caregivers is a deliberate move to go straight to the key decision-makers.

With so much noise to cut through, it is a difficult space for parents to navigate.

Rogers believes there’s only one question parents should be asking themselves:

“Do you want the best for your child, or do you want your child to be the best? Because they are two different things.”