Transplants don't always work

Are we pushing our young athletes too far?

The recent buzz in the media and within Singapore’s relatively small sporting community is over the proposed sports hub, and how that will seemingly spur our sporting performance and ‘create’ a sporting nation.

Much like everything else in Singapore, the relevant authorities seem to merely be doing the official ‘cut and paste’ job in creating something. Namely, taking in various successful approaches from overseas and transplanting it to our sunny island and proclaiming that we have ‘adapted’ them to fit our environment.

Well I am sorry wise government heads, but I have to disagree on that point. One can’t just create a sporting nation, or a sporting industry just by building steel and glass structures and be confident that everything else will sprout from there. A pre existing culture of sports has to be cultivated, from seed to sapling to deep rooted tree. I know that most of the trees and plants in our island nation are grown from fast growing saplings which need minimal maturing time, but unfortunately not all things can be transplanted and grown as well as our flora.

A sporting culture is one that is cultivated outside the need to gain CCA points, outside the need to win gold, outside the need of cash incentives. These are merely by products of having a sporting culture. What really motivates a sporting nation? Is it the drive to ‘bring glory to the land’ via the wins and accumulation of golds? That is merely a by product of having a true sporting culture. Having a nation of people that truly enjoy sports, and embrace the true passion of sports. When you have that, the excellence will come, and the gold medals will come in.

Take a look at Australia. In comparison to the other major sporting nations, they have a much smaller population based to call upon. And yet, in the last 10 years, we have seen the emergence of the ‘Aussies’ as championship contenders in a wide range or sports. Their soccer players are scattered around the world and are rated among the best, their basketball team is in the top 5, they have top rated tennis players, and not too long ago the ‘thropedo’ was causing havoc in pools across the globe. One might argue that they are not world champions in any particular sport. That is true. But look at this in another way – they have teams that are consistently in the top 5 across a wide array of sports.

Scan any open field in any town or city down under on a Saturday morning and there will be scores of children and adults alike participating in some form of team sport at any one time. Children start basic motor skill training at the tender age of 2. Everyone knows a little bit about sport. Everyone knows what it is, and the passion that goes along with it.

This is one of the problems here with the Singapore system, especially at the youth level. Sport is predominately organized and identified by the school colors one wears. From age 10 to 18 the athlete is solely focused on winning for his or her school. Not everyone is an elite athlete. PE lessons are now changing to focus on teaching ‘concept skills’. But what about mass participation? There is simply no resources to run 10 soccer teams a week, to cater to everyone who likes to play.

So how then is the next question?