Fuelled by sport: getting everyone involved
It’s all about Participation.

by Ron Burns, General Manager 2008 Pacific School Games

Presented at Manning Clark House Weekend of Ideas "Australian Passions, the Arts and Sport", 14-15 March 2009

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I have been involved with sport all my life since I was about nine or ten. My father took me to the Sydney Cricket Ground when I was about that age so that I could say that I had seen Bradman play. So I can say it, but it is not really true because my whole memory of that day is playing cricket with a tennis ball and an old bat with other boys whom I did not know in the tunnel between the SCG and the SCG Number 2.

So from the beginning I was really only interested in participation.

In my work in sport as a teacher, coach, an official or an administrator that has been the overriding aim; to encourage and then maintain participation.

A common model for sports development in Australia has been the so called pyramid. This model has as its basis the principle that you encourage and promote mass participation to make the base of the pyramid as wide as possible so that the apex can be higher. I have always had a problem with this model as in effect it assumes that the main purpose for increasing participation is linked to elite performance.

I do not believe that young people become involved in sport only because they have a dream to represent Australia or to perform at an elite level. Most of them want to play because they want to have fun, enjoy themselves or be with their friends. Skill development is important as they want to get better, but anyone who thinks winning is really important should spend some time watching playground games in Primary schools at lunch times. Keenly contested, energetically played and modified to meet the playground environment, the result is forgotten almost as soon as the after lunch lessons begin.

There are many research projects that have found that enjoyment, playing with friends and developing skills are the motivations of young people in sport. Interestingly in my research into Masters Sport, which was done in cooperation with Griffith University we found that the reasons mature aged people stay in sport, or come back to it, are because they enjoy playing their sport, it provides companionship and friendship and helps to keep them fit. Competition is important but it is not the major motivation.

Some years ago one of my friend’s daughter took up gymnastics at the age of five and after some training went in her first competition in which she won a ribbon. Having been presented with her ribbon she ran over to her mother and said “That was fun Mummy. I am going to keep going until I have a ribbon of every colour.” The interesting thing is that her ribbon was blue because she had come first, so now she wanted to come second, third, fourth etc.

The lesson from this is that if we want to get everyone involved as the title of this session suggests then we need to provide them with what they want. We have the market research, but evidently we do not believe it. While we provide younger children with modifications to their sports to make it more relevant to their skill level and to increase their participation in the games so that they get to throw, kick, hit, run and improve their skills, we, that is the adults, decide that at some age we deem appropriate they need to be structured into the hierarchical format of mainstream sport, whether they are ready or not.

So they drop out. I am not claiming this as the only reason for the phenomenon known as the teen age drop out, but it is a major factor.

When we teach reading or maths or history in schools we do not, or should not teach them as skills solely for school or the world of work. They should be and mostly are taught as whole of life skills. We should do the same with sport, and for that matter art, dance and drama both at school and in the community. We should be teaching these with an aim to have those who are taught being involved some way or another throughout their lives.

Masters sports go back to the modified model. They play team games in age groups so that they are not overwhelmed by, in this case, the players who are much younger. Masters Swimmers swim in races of all ages and both genders based on the time each swimmer takes to finish the event. So all the “races” are even and no-one is embarrassed by losing by a significant margin. The results are worked out on the times recorded across all the people in the same age group and gender after all the heats have been swum. Just like junior Track & Field the implements that Masters athletes throw (shot, hammer, discus) are different weights to cater for different ages.

The recent Pacific School Games held here in Canberra were promoted in some places as a school Olympics and as an elite sporting event. I disagree with this. There were some high level performers but they were a small percentage of the 4,888 school age students who participated. For many of them this will be the highest profile event they ever compete in.

Does that matter? No. What would matter would be if they went away from the event demoralised because they could not compete and never wanted to play sport again.

We had 1,500 ACT school students as performers in the Opening Ceremony; musicians, dancers, singers, including some soloists, who performed in front of 15000 people. The Principal of the ACT Instrumental Music program who was one of the conductors told me that the band was on a high when they finished. Some of them will be inspired to go on to perform in music at whatever level partly as a result of that experience. The Performance Coordinator who was in the band at the opening of the 2000 Pacific School Games in Sydney as a Year 11 student says it was that experience that convinced her that she wanted to be a musician.

You know even the Olympic Games is not a really elite sporting event. If it was neither Eddie the Eagle nor Eric the Eel would have been there. I did some work in Micronesia and their most revered sports person was the Marathon runner who came last in Sydney. He finished 45 minutes after the previous runner, but 30,000 people stayed in the stands and gave him a standing ovation as he came into the Stadium. His country is very proud of him. He participated.

In October this year I am going to the World Masters Games in Sydney as coach of a Women’s 40 and over softball team. Will we win? Who knows, probably not, but we will enjoy the experience, particularly the opportunity to play against and therefore meet people from other countries. The most rewarding thing for me is that I coached some of them when they were under 10 and they are still playing and enjoying the game.

People are attracted to compete in events, particularly events that promote participation as much as results because of all the other elements of events. Sport is the central theme of Masters Games and Pacific School Games, but if sport is all they were then they would not have participants in the thousands, or as World Masters Games do up to 25,000. It is the package that attracts.

So if we want to get everyone involved in sport or physical activity then we need to ensure the package is attractive.

One final anecdote from the Pacific School Games.

I received an email from a mother who said:

“Until the final vault in the Girls 17 & Over Pole Vault, the last event on the last day, my daughter was in third place and going to get a medal. The final jump beat her best vault and she missed out on the medal. Then she raced off to the Closing Ceremony where the energy, excitement and enthusiasm of all the athletes at the Dance Party wiped away all the disappointment and she came away raving about the event. What a perfect way to end a tremendous week for all those kids.”