Day 3 — Participation vs Performance
Within my role as the youth basketball coordinator at Gmunden Swans, I am constantly looking to see what we can do to help us achieve our overall Club Mission, which is:
Provide a pathway for our youth players to develop basketball skills in a positive, challenging, and competitive community-based environment, so that they can excel and achieve their maximal potential as sportsmen and people
As one may gather from the long-winded sentence, our core values are intertwined within our mission statement in a relative fancy way of saying our long term objectives are to:
- Increase Participation and Retention
- Improve Performance
- Develop Personal Responsibility and Skills
To a certain extent, I am sure that this is a dilemma that most clubs and youth organisations have. Is it possible to perfectly balance the seemingly contradictory outcomes of increasing participation with improving performance. Is it possible to accommodate and retain the 99%, whilst developing the 1%?
In order to develop into an elite athlete, one must have the technical skills, the physical skills, the tactical knowledge, the mental resilience and so much more. The hours that are needed to fit in all those training within a week, whilst still balancing the other areas of a young persons life such as academics, socialising, rest and recovery etc,. are astronomical.
Adding to that mix, is the simple fact that not every young person wants to be an elite athlete. They might just want to run around, have fun, be with their friends and still have time for the PlayStation or Xbox.
How does a youth organisation begin to create an environment that caters to all? How do you balance participation and performance?
That is a question worth asking time and time again, in my opinion. After all youth programs should be, to quote Thanos, “Perfectly balanced; as all things should be”
