Let's Make It A Great Game
Every week, we wish the same, “Hope you have a great game.” Confirmation of it is the most positive post mortem in response to the ubiquitous question, “How did you get on?”
Great games live long in the memory. High emotion etches events more firmly, and facilitates recall. Everyone who has ever played games can clearly remember the fleeting moments of magic that elevate the spirit and define individuals. People who can’t remember the names they met last week can clearly recall sporting moments from twenty years ago. Happily, these occasions are not ability dependent. There are as many magical moments in low level sport as international matches. And everyone has got them.
What else makes the elusive “great game”? Uncertainty of outcome is indisputably a characteristic. There is far more excitement when the result is constantly in doubt, and the tension resolves spectacularly when the final whistle goes. Trying new things, individual skills or team tactics, is also part of the fun. Uncertainty whether newly mastered strategies will be effective, and to attempt them in an environment where there is no fear of failure all contribute. And the atmosphere of the game is also significant. The mutual respect of adaptive competition, the unconditional encouragement of the coaches, the support of the spectators all contribute to the great game environment. Fairness is a deep human quality; few satisfactory experiences exist without it.
If those are the features that make a great game, then who are the people who determine them? In the context of all school and youth sport, this is indisputably the adults. The organisers, teachers, coaches and parents. They create the fixtures, thus controlling competitiveness, they shape the attitudes of the players and they create the environment in which both preparation and competition occur. They select the teams, share out the game time and decide the success criteria. They can choose to deliver life lessons through sport, or they can focus on the score, the trophies and the blame. The focus can be on creativity, or on avoiding mistakes. It is not an exaggeration to say that adukt influence determines whether children embark upon a lifetime of loving sport, or whether 70% abandon it by the age of 13, as American youths do.
Where the adults focus on short term, performance outcomes, behaviour and environment are different. The whole experience changes, and not for the better. It is a choice. Adults have the power to ensure that all kids have priceless memories of innumerable great games. Or not.