Knowing the difference between a sports program and a sports team is the difference between high performance and poor performance

Bill Price | 23 January 2017 Share

A sports program is something that focuses on overall sport development. Creating interest, training youngsters, and producing a constant supply of high performance athletes while, at the same time, providing participation opportunities for any who want to play. A sports program, through the auspices of an administrative body, usually called an 'association', is able to regulate the sport, train coaches, hire administrators, create clubs, and perform a long list of other housekeeping duties that help the sport thrive.

This is different from a sports team. A team is a specific group organized around the specific task of playing a game effectively and better than their opponents. Teams consist of individual players and with the guidance of a coach they can get the best results for their efforts.

Sometimes the role of the team gets confused with that of a program. Sport teams are not in the business of producing future stars. They can work only with the players they already have. Those players can get better but the effect this improvement can have on the overall development of the sport is limited. A well-administered program is the key to producing a consistent stream of high performance players and rests with the association, not the team.

Likewise an association shouldn't become overly involved in a team. This is the coach's role. We often see this happen with national teams. Some associations take it as their sole responsibility to manage and craft the national team. This is nothing more than interference and certainly doesn't help matters, especially when the team is doing poorly. There is nothing an association can do for immediate effect other than change the coach. The effect of doing this frequently results in even poorer performance because consistency in coaching is lost. And if associations feel the need to change coaches often perhaps they should spend more time and effort in training coaches better in the first place.

A national team can be the result of a comprehensive sports program but it cannot be the program itself. Associations need to take a wider view of what they need to do to develop their sport in Malaysia and if they're honest they will focus on participation. If we want to develop a consistent stream of high performance athletes, no matter what the sport, then larger and longer participation is needed. The larger the pool of young athletes under training the greater the chance that high performance will be produced. Naturally not all athletes will become high performers but those that do will be part of a much larger cohort than we typically see now.

The first step might be to take the focus off the national team for a moment, let the coaches worry about it, and focus on expanding the grassroots programs around the country. Get them healthy and able to persist and survive on their own. Once this happens the level of sport performance will rise and will keep on rising depending on how persistent the grassroots programs are and how many new grassroots programs can be started in different parts of the country.

Raising the level of performance depends on the number of youngsters participating in long term sport programs and not on any misguided talent schemes or scientific training. These may be important as athletes reach higher levels of performance but the key to raising performance overall and over a number of years is to focus on the bottom of the pyramid with fun, enjoyable, and educational sport programs.

--------
Bill Price is the Chief Information Officer for USSA Malaysia.