Those who are willing to contribute are usually parents, and regardless of their approach to coaching, managing etc, it doesn’t take long for the ever present critics to start gnawing away at them, and for them to feel uncomfortable about continuing in their roles.

On the other hand proud mothers and fathers often get carried away with some minor success or become too upset by the team’s (or individual’s) failure to win every contest.

And so we start to breed a generation of winners.

The losers are the kids who are either forced to, or just get out of sport because of these attitudes, and often move on to spend their spare time involved in less reputable activities.

How do we get back to a more appropriate approach to kids’ sport – to them enjoying their sport and learning to accept both winning and losing in the right manner?

How can we influence the approaches of the willing parents and the participating kids?

Should our schools, particularly our primary schools, play a more prominent role in setting the moral and ethical standards that should be associated with the general approach to kids’ introduction to sport?

Should major associations become more responsible in this area, and by doing so provide professional assistance – perhaps in areas such as coach education?

Participation in sport should provide meaningful and beneficial life experiences for the younger members of our communities and we should provide opportunities for all young people to have such experiences.

An active and healthy life-long lifestyle is but one important and obvious outcome.

Too often opportunities are missed because of the environments created in sporting clubs and associations by those individuals who take on positions for the wrong reasons and who use the power of these positions for personal gain or to promote favoured individuals or teams.

This sporting dilemma is much more important than many of the issues associated with our elite sport.

It certainly should be receiving a far greater share of federal and state governments funding and general consideration.

Perhaps our corporate sector too could be more sympathetic towards this aspect of sport.

No, it’s not always the talented individual too whom we should give the majority of our attention.

It’s average Joe Blow who we should be trying to move from his position in front of a screen out into the fresh air for some enjoyable and beneficial physical activity and camaraderie.

– KEN CLIFFORD,

Hunter Academy of Sport