Sports & the challenge of patronage.

From the little history that I have read, performing arts - and sports was considered one of them - have historically survived because of the patronage of the king.

The king spots a talent, sponsors the talent and provides the facilities required for the talent to thrive.

The talent gets a salary so that s/he can focus on the skill s/he is good at.  Not sure if any talented sportsperson or artisan got rich through this method. But I guess it was a good way of earning a living and supporting your family.

In today's world, the problem with sports and other performing arts - all labelled so nicely as "Co-scholastic" activities in the school system - is that they have historically thrived on royal patronage.

And in every discussion about the state of sports and arts in India, the discussion goes towards "The Government should implement so-and-so policies" "The Government should support the stars of India" etc.

In most countries across the world, the state provides the grounds, stadiums, parks, community recreational centers - and then private entrepreneurs run programs on that state-provided infrastructure. This is a key point as the opportunity cost of real estate does not enter the economics.

If a private player had to think about providing a large plot of land for a sports activity, the opportunity cost of building a large apartment complex would just kill the model.

Even the richest sports body in the world, the BCCI, uses government provided infrastructure. They do not have their own stadiums.

Society has never been able to promote sports without the state's support. There are enough stories of "passing the hat around" during county cricket games - as a way of collecting some money for the players.

With the IPL, modern-day kings have appeared in the form of IPL Franchisees. This is seen across the world with people buying football clubs, basketball franchisees etc.

And again, the sport thrives because modern-day Rajas have patronised the game, funded the system, paid the players a lot of money and used the state-created sports infrastructure.

In the last 50-odd years, with all the bluster around NBA, NFL etc and now IPL, there is a whole industry around helping young kids make a career out of sport.

And that is where we have a design level flaw. Sports was meant to be played for the joy and fun of it. Now,  it is being played because there is a career at the end of it.

Ask any successful sportsperson and s/he will tell you that s/he played for the love of the game. Never with a thought of turning pro. If it happens, great. If not, hey, I am enjoying the game.

The modern-day patronage in the form of professional clubs, franchisees etc is presenting a challenge to the original concept of sport. And taking the attention towards the "top-of-the-pyramid", the best kids in sport. The kids who, by definition, are the top 0.01% of the population (wrt sporting abilities). And in the process, the remaining 99.99% are losing interest in sport. Because it is made to seem as if sport is not for them. It is only for the 0.01%.

Since the patronage (and the returns expected by the patrons) inherently works on the principle of peak performance, there is very little motivation towards getting all kids to play and develop through the sports experience.

Without confronting this challenge of patronage in sports & its resultant issues, we cannot move ahead on the point of a sporting culture, sporting nation etc.

For any sport or performing art to flourish on its own - without the patronage of the state or the modern-day Rajas, it has to make sense for the common man (rather, child) to engage in it. And hence, the benefits have to be such that they make sense for the child to engage in sport - and for the parent to encourage the engagement - even if there is no career in that field going ahead.

The health & fitness benefits, the social well-being and the all-rounded personality that develops through participation in sports are key benefits acknowledged by parents, employers, co-workers and society.

Those are the reasons most people ascribe to their "success" in adult or professional life. Not the marks they scored.

The educational value of the sports experience is crucial to a child's development.

And hence it cannot be left to patronage. Or at the mercy of haphazard urban planning wherein playgrounds disappear as dumping lots or are never created.

The school system has to deliver the educational value of the sports experience. Every parent should demand a good sports experience for their child, especially if their child is not in the school team.

Only by demanding that an inclusive sports experience be an integral part of every child's education can we fight off the challenge of patronage.

Children at Play. All fun. No learn?

Over the last 4 years of engaging with school leaders, parents, school coordinators, PE teachers, class teachers and school trustees on the challenge of getting kids to play in-school, there has been one consistent issue all along.

It comes disguised in various comments we hear regularly:

"The children should see different props and equipment regularly"

"The children seem to be doing the same activity multiple times"

"When children play, they should have fun"

Here is the "issue": The belief that when children play, there should be fun & novelty.

The problem is that the people making the statements are not always viewing things from a child's perspective or from an understanding of the physical development experience.

Let's take each aspect:

1. FUN: As our dear advisor, Dr. George Selleck puts it: "Fun is not only about kids laughing and running around  the sprinklers in the lawn". He presented 3 essential components of FUN i.e. anybody is having "fun" when:

• they are fully involved in the activity.
• they are fully engaged with the group they are in.
• they are stretched to their limits - and maybe slightly beyond.

As adults, we have inadvertently connected fun with laughter, lack of pressure and lack of goals. But in real life, that is not the only time we have fun. More often than not, we have fun when none of these are present.

When you work hard on an interesting problem, you are having fun. Nobody is laughing or giggling. When someone runs a marathon, they have fun. When a job is challenging, has a good set of co-workers and keeps you fully engaged, you have fun. There is pressure. There are goals to be met. And it is fun.

Building EduSports has been fun. It has been tough. But fun. Or maybe, it has been fun because it has been tough. Designing the program, convincing the school leaders & parents, delivering the program, incorporating feedback, failing, getting it right, failing some more - and then some moments of magic. That whole ride is fun.

If all it took to sign-up schools for the EduSports program was to put an ad in the papers, it might not have been fun! :)

In the Play context, children will have fun when they learn something new with the group they are in & when they are stretched to their limits.

How do children learn something new?: Through observation, action, imitation and repetition.

Most schools understand this learning process in the academic context. However, in the physical activity/sports context, many forget to apply the same principles.

During my childhood Badminton training days, our coach used to insist that we watch other players play. Good advice - though we were too restless to follow it for more than a few minutes.

Learning by doing  is the most important element of learning in the physical activity/sports context.
And you have to keep doing to ensure that you remember what you have learnt. Just because you could kick a ball well in your childhood does not mean you can do that today - unless you have been doing it regularly ever since.

When will they get stretched to their limits? When the teacher makes them do more than they think they can. More often than they'd probably do on their own. And that's when they start learning.

When children are watching, learning, practicing, repeating, they are having fun. It probably does not seem like fun to an adult watching the program. But the program is not for adults. It is for the kids.

2. Novelty: Novel props. Unique equipment. Change it every few months. Why? Very often (and as was admitted by one candid trustee) because the school leader/co-ordinators have got tired of seeing the same equipment! The kids are fine as long as they get to play! 

The assumption that children will learn new things only when there are novel props/equipment is a questionable one. While the equipment has to be functional, safe and age-appropriate, the objective of the program is to give the children the appropriate experience.

The objective is NOT to expose them to new props.

Hey, even Sachin Tendulkar uses the same hurdles, cones and hoops that a child in primary school uses.

In the physical development context, 80% of the exercises/routines done by a professional sportsperson and a child in primary school are the same. And hence, the equipment is the same.

What changes with every level is the intensity and the complexity of activities that are done. Because the props are a means to an end. Not the end in itself.

And that, to my mind, is the crux of the issue:   

The goal of an in-school sports & physical activity program is to ensure that all children learn the right skills & the right fitness at the right age. And therefore, develop a liking for sports/physical activity for life. And remain healthy & fit kids growing up to be healthy & fit adults. 

Getting them to learn the right fitness & skill is the key ingredient for them to stay healthy & fit for life. Healthy & fit - physically as well as socially. 

The adult on the ground has to facilitate the learning process while ensuring kids have fun. Not entertain the kids. It is a sports education program. Not a show on Disney.

If our children get used to a program that works only when there is a "character" on the ground who makes them jump around and laugh, how will they ever play on their own? They need to experience the FUN of observing a new skill, working hard, failing a few times and finally getting it right.

And then, they will seek out opportunities to play. Not have to be pushed by a parent or pulled by a "character" who puts on a show every evening in order to get them to play.

The right kind of fun will make a life-changing impact on our kids. The superficial fun will have an impact for those 30 minutes. And that's it.

If we want our children to learn the right fitness & the right skills at the right age, we have to introduce a certain amount of rigour. Just having them run around with no structure, no learning outcomes, no focus on practicing a certain skill till they get it right will make a mockery of the entire effort.

We risk having a completely superficial program - with lots of laughter (fun?) and novelty but no learning - if we stay with an incorrect understanding of fun and obsessed with novelty.

It is called Physical Education for a reason. It is about the Physical. And it is an integral part of Education.

Let's not trivialize it by diluting the rigour required for any education process to be effective.

The rigour creates the fun & the life-long impact.

Are rich kids not hungry for success in sports?

Over the years, I have been involved in many, many discussions around the state of sports in India.  Invariably, it gets to the point about kids, nurturing talent, the issues with the sports system etc.

And then it gets to this one point: The future champions of sports in India will come from the semi-urban and rural India.  And from kids who are from an economically lower strata.

"The rich kids are just not hungry enough", many - including me - have asserted - and received many vigorous nods in agreement.

Of late, I have been having second thoughts on this one.

I have seen some well-to-do kids  pursuing sports seriously. Not as a career - yet. But extremely involved. Attending camps in the morning before school. Tournaments on weekends. Practice. Fitness. Skills. Matches. Their life revolves around the game. I see them as hungry as I have seen anybody else.

Some of the best players India has produced - in cricket, squash, tennis, tabe tennis etc - have been from well-to-do families.

From the child's perspective, s/he is making the most of what is available - coaching, equipment, apparel, shoes, tournaments etc.

The rich kids get more of it - and make the most of it.
The poor kids get less of it - and make the most of it.

The "chasm" for the rich kids comes at the point when the child reaches 8th/9th grade. Suddenly, the options start opening up on the academic side - coaching, books, online resources, quizzes, contests etc.
And the child is urged to make the most of what is available.  It also makes sense for the child to evaluate sports v/s academics.

Barring a few geniuses, most kids in 8th/9th don't really know where they stand wrt the national/international circuits.  Many of the dominant national junior or sub-junior champs burnout and do not really make it to the top senior nationals. So, a child in 8th grade doesn't really have enough information to conclude whether he is good enough in the sport and therefore is it worth pursuing as a career.

But, unlike the poor child, the rich child has few extremely well-configured choices.

It is, therefore, not the lack of hunger in the rich child that prevents him from making it big in sports. It is the presence of choice. Of alternate career paths. Of parents who can buy them a seat in a US university.

The rich child is as hungry for success in sport as the poor child. The poor child just has no choice. He has to succeed.

Eliminating choice, not developing hunger, as a strategy for success. Interesting, what?