How to grow a super athlete

Interesting read….a little long and not sure exactly where the author was going but interesting regardless. Not sure if I buy into the myelin thing…..but just a little bit above my pay grade.

Couple of takeaways I got.

1.Fundamentals and discipline: DuOh – but continues to be missed by many.

2.Practice makes permanent. (not perfect)

3.Short focused and intense practice much more beneficial than lots of practice.

4.In the US “a highly distractive youth culture, a focus on the glamour of winning rather than on the brickwork of building technique and a sporting environment”

If I had a “do over” with my son I would not change a lot but would make sure that I got him better coaching earlier and spent more time on technique than what I did. Re-enforces my beliefs that travel ball at a young age is a waste of time and money.

Yes, those items you identified are correct and the fact that the parents and child athletes are extremely 'driven' to succeed.

Some of these families are just looking for a better life. Maria Sharipova's family was escaping from the town of Chernobyl, where they had the famous nuke meltdown. Tennis in the US, was the answer.

I didn't get the myelin reference either. Except that having read some of Coyle's other works. He tends to make subtle references to items that might suggest the use of PED's in almost all of his books. In his book about Lance Armstrong, he references his unofficial doctor, Dr. Ferrari, on numerous occasions. He even interviewed him and followed him as he tested Armstrong and other athletes. Of course, Armstrong has never tested positive for PEDs, but Dr. Ferrari has had about 30 to 50 athletes who did test positive and several have been banded from their sport.

If you look at the list of top 100 professional female tennis players, it is dominated by players who's name ends in 'ova'. That little region of the world is supplying most of the elite athletes. I think that is what Coyle is after. He's trying to identify why this one part of the world is dominant in a single sport.

I sure hope PEDs is not the primary reason.

BTW, the article has nothing to do with PEDs or even mentioning that PEDs are the reason for success in these athletes. Sound fundamentals, hard work, etc are the reasons sighted. The PED reference is my observation knowing Coyle's writing style and previous works.

Brian- Google Marv Marinovich and see how that whole scenario worked out.

For every star who was driven by a parent there are hundreds of young athletes in counseling. Dr Joel Fish runs the Center for Sports Psychology. They consult to Olympic teams, Team USA's and pro sports teams. Their biggest customer base is still messed up teens who feel they are letting their parents down by not being "the star" or just want to quit because they've had enough. It happens when parents are overinvested, time-wise, financially and emotionally.

Maybe for the rest of the no talent lazy kids. Not my son. Now get out there and take 1000 more ground balls and a thousand more swings. No food for losers!