The Experiences of Being a Talented Youth Athlete: Lessons for Parents

Abstract

Involvement in organized sport can be highly demanding for young athletes who encounter many difficult situations and stressors. This can be exacerbated among youth athletes who have been recruited into talent-identification youth sport programs. Given that there are a range of negative consequences that can result when talent-identified (TI) youth athletes are unable to cope with the stressors they encounter, additional support is therefore necessary. Parents are uniquely situated to assist in this regard, but they are not always equipped to provide optimal levels of support. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand the experiences of being a TI youth athlete and present the findings as “lessons” for parents seeking to enhance their involvement in TI youth sport settings. This article reports on qualitative data collected from the 1st year of a 3-year longitudinal study involving TI youth athletes from South Australia. Fifty male athletes (M age = 14.6 years) participated in focus groups to hear their experiences of being a TI youth athlete and understand what difficulties they want their parents to know. From the thematic analysis, 3 major themes were identified from the focus groups with TI youth athletes: (a) difficulties with being talented, (b) negotiating the future, and (c) playing for improvement. From the findings, a number of lessons for parents and youth sport organizations are offered to assist the transmission of knowledge to an applied setting.

Notes

1 Within this article, TI athletes are those who are identified by coaches as having the potential to develop toward a professional career in Australian football. Being involved in a TI program entails that players receiving additional opportunities to experience high forms of competition, increased training loads, and greater access to education and highly credentialed coaches on a pathway toward the elite level.

2 Tall Poppy Syndrome is pejorative term used to describe a perceived tendency to discredit those who have achieved notable status in society and culture.

3 Fyfe and Dangerfield refers to AFL players Nathan Fyfe and Patrick Dangerfield—two popular and highly revered players at the highest level of Australian football.