Author: Vernon Gambetta

I was at the American Swim Coaches Association convention in Las Vegas last week. Obviously everyone was quite euphoric over our swim team’s performance. As usual I have to throw some water on the fire. Let’s not spend too much time patting ourselves on the back for the 2008 performances. Let’s not let typical American naivete pervade our thinking again.  Let’s take a realistic look at today in order to predict the future. Our kids are less active, have poor or few movement skills, is this a base for future high level Olympic performance? Mark Schubert, National Team Head Coach and General Manager,  gave a presentation that sounded like a cheer leading report of our team’s performance. There was very little objective analysis of why things went well and nothing on what went wrong, very little in terms of recommendations for the future. What lesson did we learn? We can bury our heads in the sand and revel in Michael Phelps performances or we can objectively analyze what we need to do to get better. Schubert stated that the world is not catching up to us. I do not know what planet he is on, but they are right at our heels. We need to recognize that our 2016 Olympians’ in all sports are twelve years old today! Go out and look at today’s twelve year olds. How can we project those overweight inactive youngsters into future Olympians, they are physically illiterate, they lack fundamental movement skills. Who is going to address their movement deficiencies? You can’t wait until they reach the elite level, it is too late then, the window of adaptation is closed. We need to get physical education that is both physical and educational. There is time but the window is small. We need to get our sport leaders like Schubert to open their eyes and ears and be aware of the reality of the future. Remember it takes ten years and ten thousand hours to produce a high level performer in any discipline. The future is now with our twelve year olds – wake up!

For the person who commented that the Jamaicans are not tested as frequently as other countries. I know that.  How many times were Marion Jones and Justin Gatlin tested? You are naïve to think that testing catches the cheats. Let’s move on and recognize that there is an air of suspicion that surrounds all sports at the present time. I am not sure what can be done about this. Concerning some of the other posts, I know it is not JUST PE. Without talent all the PE in the world will not produce Olympians or world record holders. The fact is that the highly industrialized “first world” countries are rapidly losing the movement advantage. We need to get our whole society away from the computer and TV and get out and exercise and move. This is not to win medals, but to avoid a health crisis that will bankrupt this country. The comment about too much competition is a point well taken, that is another problem in developed countries. We think we need to have kids in organized competition from five years old on up. In our country I am convinced that the competition is for the parents not the kids. Parents can go to work on Monday and brag about how their kid won the class 20 age 11.3 junior national title. It is ridiculous. When they talk about primary school competition I assume it is the form of jamborees type play days. That was a staple of the American system forty and fifty years ago. In fact when I was growing up every Saturday we had school teams that played other schools in the sport that was in season, this started in elementary school. The key was that it was school based and supervised by trained teachers. Competition for kids is not bad; it is the frequency and the goal of the competition that is key. Kids love to race and test themselves.  I am all for a having a system wide jamboree type play day four times a year in school district where the kids can show off what they have learned in PE.