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Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification

by John O'Sullivan / Monday, 09 December 2013 / Published in Coaching, Problems in Youth Sports, Sports Parenting

Many youth sports coaches claim to be great talent identifiers, and point to the results of their 11 year all star team as proof. Yet they are not talent identifiers. They are talent selectors. The difference could not be more striking, or more damaging to our country’s future talent pool in many sports.

Talent selection is the culling of players with the current ability to participate and be successful in events taking place in the near future. Talent identification, on the other hand, is the prediction of future performance based upon an evaluation of current physical, technical, tactical and psychological qualities. Talent selection is pretty simple; talent identification is an art. One yields great results today; the other builds elite athletes and winning teams for the future.

Our current win at all costs youth sports culture promotes talent selection. When a coach is pressured to win by parents or a club, or when he or she feels the need to win to serve their own ego, that coach becomes a talent selector. When you are focused on talent selection, you are picking athletes to help you win now, and cutting ones that will not. You are looking at current athleticism, technical ability, and traits to help achieve short term success. You naturally select the biggest, strongest and fastest young athletes, and play them extensive minutes. You limit playing time for the kids who are not up to snuff, and tell them they need to work harder, get tougher, etc., if they want to play more. You yell at them because they cannot get to the ball quick enough, or cannot shoot well enough to score. You tell them that this type of pressure is what they will face when they are older, so they better get used to it now.

Then, according to the latest statistics, 70% of them quit organized sports by the age of 13!

Tennis coach and boyOn the other hand, talent identifiers are searching for young players who may not be elite athletes yet, but possess the physical and psychological attributes to eventually become one. Perhaps they have not yet grown, or been exposed to high level coaching. Perhaps they are not as skillful yet, but show a high level of coachability, sensitivity to training, and the motivation to learn. Identifying talent requires the skill to weigh all the physical, physiological, psychological, and technical components of an athlete, as well as a measure of “gut instinct” of which kid has what it takes to become elite, and which kid does not.

Talent identification also takes a long term approach to player selection and development, and focuses on training large numbers of players, instead of cutting all but the elite ones. It recognizes that many factors affect whether a kid will make it or not, but rarely are childhood results the main factor.

In a fascinating study on junior tennis players from 1994 through 2002, Piotr Unierzyski evaluated 1000 players age 12-13 in 50 different countries, a pool that included future stars Roger Federer, Kim Clisters, and others. His study(Click Here to Read More) found that of all these players, the ones who eventually made it into the Top 100 Professional Rakings were:

  • 3-4 months younger than the mean age for their group
  • Slimmer and less powerful than their age group
  • Usually faster and more agile than average
  • They played less than the average number of matches that the top players did
  • Their average practice hours per week were 2-4 hours less than the elite players in their age group
  • Their parents were supportive, but not overly involved

Let’s extrapolate this data onto the current elite youth athlete in the United States. Does a player who is young for his or her age, thinner and weaker, practices and plays less than their peers, and has parents who are not overly involved sound like today’s  U11 All Star? Not that I have seen. Now, I know that is quite an over simplification, but do you get my point here?

American youth sports are far too often focused on talent selection, and not talent identification. We are committed to winning now, to getting on ESPN, or achieving some hypothetical pre-pubescent national ranking. Yes, some team sport clubs have B and C teams and develop large numbers of players. Others have those same B and C teams, and players are often jettisoned there with less experienced coaches, less committed teammates, and an overall lesser experience. We say we are developing them for the future, but all too often we are using them to balance the budget. We select the current talent that will help us win now, because if we do not, the club down the road will grab them and win, and our best players will leave. We are not identifying and developing the kids who are most likely to become elite competitors after puberty. We are selecting the ones who already are elite, but often do not have the characteristics needed for long term elite performance.

This is why the emphasis on winning prior to high school is destroying youth sports. This is why nations with 1/100th of our population can compete with us on a world stage in many sports. They actually identify and develop future talent, instead of selection based upon current results. Our wealth and sheer numbers allow us to succeed internationally, but other nations are slowly but surely closing the gap in nearly every sport because quite frankly, they identify and develop talent far better than we do.

How do we fix this? Here are a few simple thoughts for youth sports that to be honest, should not be that hard to implement:

  1. Stop cutting players at young ages, and develop large numbers of players instead of just the elite ones. I recently read that Sweden, for example, produces more NHL players per capita than any other country, and they do not cut players till age 17. Hmmm.
  2. Focus on developing all players at the youngest ages, with particular attention given to helping the less skilled ones catch up technically to the stronger ones. Thus, when they finish their growth spurt, we have a much larger pool of adequately skilled individuals to choose from, instead of just the kids who happened to have facial hair at 12 but stopped growing at 13.
  3. Put an end to the win at all costs nature of pre-pubescent sports, especially things like state and national championships prior to middle or high school, and televising events like the Little League World Series (which has run since 1946 and produced a whopping 27 Major League Players in that time). Ok, admittedly, this one might be tough to implement!
  4. Better educate our coaches to understand the difference between selecting and identifying talent, and then teach and encourage them to develop it rather than try and win with it immediately.

This is just a start, but unless we start making some drastic changes to our youth sports system, we will see smaller nations continuing to close the gap, and eventually surpass the United States in many sports. We are not elite in soccer yet because of the culture. We are falling behind in baseball because of it. Even in basketball, the gap has been significantly reduced. Why? Because our competitors are not relying on a player development system that is often based upon a large population and dumb luck.

The best part about making all these changes? Our clubs and schools will have larger numbers of skilled athletes to choose from, as well as additional healthier and well rounded kids. We will have families who are less stressed both financially and anxiety wise, because their kids can just be kids again, and they don’t feel pressured to have their 10 year olds travel 2000 miles to play a game. We will allow coaches to actually coach, and develop both better people and better athletes.

Abundant skilled players? Lower costs? Less time devoted to youth sports and more to family and school? More success for our national teams and elite individual athletes?

These are changes worth making.

Please share your thoughts below on this article. Do you agree? Disagree? How can we change this?

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Tagged under: coaching, competition, parenting, performance, problems in youth sports, talent, tryouts, youth sports

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36 Comments to “Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification”

  1. Tiering + Fluidity = Retention and Development | Monday morning centreback says : Reply
    December 18, 2013 at 12:36 pm

    […] overall reality. Take the idea of “talent selection vs talent identification” raised in an article by John O’Sullivan who runs a site called Changing the Game […]

  2. Changing the Game Project: “Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification” | oncourt.ca says : Reply
    December 20, 2013 at 2:47 pm

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  3. The Surprising Story of Simon Kjaer: Why Talent Selection Does Not Always Work | Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    December 23, 2013 at 4:06 pm

    […] I recently wrote about our obsession with selecting talent instead of identifying it. Many parents, coaches and soccer fans have asked “What can we do about this?” […]

  4. Friday Night Tykes | Youth Sports | | Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    January 21, 2014 at 1:55 pm

    […] the health and well being of our children at risk by specializing far to early in sports, selecting “elite” teams at far to young an age, and ignoring the reasons why kids play sports in the first […]

  5. Harmful Effects of Separating Youth Based on Current Talent | Coaching 101 - Kudda Blog says : Reply
    February 8, 2014 at 10:50 am

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  6. Surviving Tryout Season | Overcoming Disappointment | Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    May 13, 2014 at 11:11 am

    […] problem in American youth sports is we select today’s best kids to win now, instead of the players who might help us win tomorrow. We then tell these young kids to specialize or else we will take away their spot on the team, in […]

  7. Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification | Steve Nash Youth Basketball Blog says : Reply
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  12. One of the Best Articles Explaining the Current Problem with Youth Sports | Blueprint Athletic Performance says : Reply
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    […] Select “talent” for short term gains instead of identifying and developing all athletes and focusing on long term potential […]

  14. Put Down the Crystal Ball and Teach | JAG GYM Blog says : Reply
    May 18, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    […] isn’t my intention.  Instead, what I want to suggest is that we stop pretending that we are great identifiers of talent.  But, instead understand that what most of… And then fulfilling our own prophecies by how we coach these kids.  […]

  15. The "Relative Age Effect" in Youth Sports | Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    May 29, 2015 at 2:22 pm

    […] When we segregate our youth athletes too soon – age 7 to 10 is pretty common across all team s… As a result, studies in nearly every sport indicate that athletes born in the first three months after the calendar cutoff are overrepresented, and those in the other 9 months, especially the last three months, are under represented. […]

  16. Help, My Child is a Late Bloomer: 5 Tips for Overcoming the “Relative Age Effect” in Youth Sports | Next Play says : Reply
    May 31, 2015 at 9:25 am

    […] When we segregate our youth athletes too soon – age 7 to 10 is pretty common across all team sport… As a result, studies in nearly every sport indicate that athletes born in the first three months after the calendar cutoff are overrepresented, and those in the other 9 months, especially the last three months, are under represented. […]

  17. Help, My Child is a Late Bloomer: 5 Tips for Overcoming the “Relative Age Effect” in Youth Sports | Steve Nash Youth Basketball Blog says : Reply
    June 4, 2015 at 11:18 am

    […] When we segregate our youth athletes too soon – age 7 to 10 is pretty common across all team sport… As a result, studies in nearly every sport indicate that athletes born in the first three months after the calendar cutoff are overrepresented, and those in the other 9 months, especially the last three months, are under represented. […]

  18. Changing the game in youth sports: John O’Sullivan at TEDxBend | Next Level Elite Basketball says : Reply
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  19. 3 Myths that are Destroying the Youth Sports Experience for our Kids | Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    October 5, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    […] cutting the top player at age 18 because he is young, and has not yet physically matured. You are selecting early maturing kids, not identifying talent. You are focusing on outcomes, not the process of getting […]

  20. The Enemy of Excellence in Youth Sports | Changing the Game Project | Wisconsin Wrestling Online says : Reply
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  21. Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead o... says : Reply
    April 29, 2016 at 9:54 am

    […] Many youth sports coaches claim to be great talent identifiers, and point to the results of their 11 year all star team as proof. Yet they are not talent identifiers. They are talent selectors. The difference could not be more striking, or more damaging to our country’s future talent pool in many sports. Talent selection is the culling of players with the current ability to participate and be successful in events taking place in the near future. Talent identification, on the other hand, is the prediction of future performance based upon an evaluation of current physical, technical, tactical and psychological qualities. Talent selection is pretty simple; talent identification is an art. One yields great results today; the other builds elite athletes and winning teams for the future.  […]

  22. DE grootste fout in talentontwikkeling | Young Wolves says : Reply
    May 18, 2016 at 9:32 am

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  23. Will my son make it? – Rugby | Coach Talk says : Reply
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  29. 3 Myths that are Destroying the Youth Sports Experience for our Kids – Deerfoot United says : Reply
    April 17, 2017 at 9:59 am

    […] cutting the top player at age 18 because he is young, and has not yet physically matured. You are selecting early maturing kids, not identifying talent. You are focusing on outcomes, not the process of getting […]

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    […] Our Biggest Mistake Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification […]

  31. The Missing Ingredient in US Talent Development - Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    December 1, 2017 at 12:46 pm

    […] With our endless obsession for winning and younger and younger ages, and the accompanying cuts that go into forming select and all star teams at ages as young as 7, we have created a system that goes against all the science and best practices of player development. That science says that children develop at different rates, and the best way to let the cream rise to the top is keep as many of them around as long as possible. Yet we do the exact opposite in our quest to win today. We select talent instead of identifying it (click here to read more) […]

  32. 3 Myths that are Destroying the Youth Sports Experience for our Kids – World Beyond says : Reply
    June 22, 2018 at 3:07 am

    […] cutting the top player at age 18 because he is young, and has not yet physically matured. You are selecting early maturing kids, not identifying talent. You are focusing on outcomes, not the process of getting […]

  33. The Professionalization of Youth Sports - Changing the Game Project says : Reply
    January 18, 2019 at 7:52 am

    […] Early selection of “talented kids” and discarding of the “untalented” ones despite all the evidence of the ineffectiveness of doing this at pre-puberty ages (and even post-puberty, see the NFL draft for a multi-million dollar example of how poor we are at talent identification) […]

  34. Best Practices for Organizing Efficient Sports Tryouts says : Reply
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  35. Youth Sports: A Cautionary Tale » cate before a mirror says : Reply
    October 17, 2019 at 5:17 pm

    […] to participate and be successful” in the near future (read O’Sullivan’s article here). With this mindset, coaches will only select and play the athletes with current skill, and the gap […]

  36. Talent Identification In Sport – Gegenpress Football says : Reply
    October 29, 2019 at 10:59 am

    […] Posted inUncategorized Our Biggest Mistake: Talent Selection Instead of Talent Identification […]

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