The *F* word Shane Warne doesn't want to talk about....

Christmas break cricket; an Australian holiday mainstay. Imagine my despair while enjoying this year’s Boxing and New Years tests when hearing the reports regarding England cricketer, Rory Burn’s injury during “fun” yet competitive warm up has caused such a partition of views amongst current and former players. As reported by Fox Sports AUS:

Australian batsman Marnus Labuschagne has defended warm up kickabouts and “fun” training games in the wake of the shock series-ending injury to England opener Rory Burns.During a kickabout at Newlands, Burns landed awkwardly on his left ankle and immediately limped out of the game. Sent for scans, Burns was revealed to have damaged ligaments and was ruled out of the remainder of the four-match series. The incident infuriated Shane Warne, who described such warm up games as “overrated” and “absolute garbage”.

‘Fun captain’ livewire Labuschagne, who has proven a spritely character at Australia training, saw the good and bad sides of training games. Labuschagne told reporters in Sydney:

“I’m always pushing for warm up games.
I like to tell myself I’m in charge of fun. I’m always lobbying for a game.
That has probably not done me any good, [Burns] getting injured in a warm-up game, because that probably just proves the point.”

When this report came out and the high profile criticism around it, most notably from ex baggy green players, it made me reflect and question what does fun look like for high performing sportsmen and women? Are we as coaches, advisers or administrators not offering them a “fun environment” or valuing results and short term success over enjoyment and long term engagement? When or at what stage does this focus change for us as coaches and athletes?

The reports of Burn’s injury also coincided with a two part article coming from our cricket competitors’ home land, Sport NZ with people such as Simon Walters, who heads the coaching, health and physical education department at Auckland University of Technology, and Alex Chiet, Sport NZ's talent development manager, addressing the youth sport’s development programs of NZ athletes. I have attached the links to read through the articles yet my main takeaway from the reports were how external influences were removing the fun, competitive games element of the sport, leaving only measurement and focus on “pathways” and development as we encourage players to early specialise and focus on single sports (https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/118243647/a-sporting-chance-the-seismic-shift-happening-in-youth-sports)

Walters comments states how he observed a toxic ecosystem whereby, rather than focusing on the positive physical and social outcomes, junior sport is simply seen as a "production line" to the elite end. The net result is a marked decline in participation rates, overuse injuries increasingly occurring in younger age-groups, and teen athletes experiencing depression and burnout; understandable that former players such as Warne have the focus on preparation for performance over “fun games” when that appears to be the current ongoing narrative from the national bodies. Chiet also quoted:

“We need to remember why young people participate in sport - it’s about fun, the challenge, being part of a team or a group, being with friends, and self-improvement. We need to focus on making sure our young people’s first sporting experiences meet those needs that they want to take part and through that, develop the skills and confidence to remain in sport throughout their life
Shifting the focus to retaining participants for as long as possible in itself fosters stronger competition, as higher participation numbers means there is the critical mass to strengthen local, regional and national competitions.”

These reports and comments came shortly after Australian ABC News wrote an article regarding how we need to modify sports competitions and formats to keep players involved and interested (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/in-junior-sport-keeping-kids-involved-is-all-that-matters/11814226?pfmredir=sm). They report how the resilience myth is often perpetrated by former top-level players who, in the earliest junior grades, made very few of the supposedly character-forming ducks and suffered none of those 100-point beltings that supposedly turn tender children into sporting, social and workplace ninjas. They agree that creating resilience building challenges means games must have a competitive element; however, again I question whether we as coaches are aware or attuned to what are athletes see as motivational and whether this affects or changes young athletes desires to remain in competitive sport? Why are we taking the games out of sport and focusing on the outcomes and talent development, forcing participation numbers and player interest down as a result?

Relating back to my current research, I looked at typical daily motivations of elite age grade rugby union players, both in and away from their sport; surveying found that during the identified HP section of season, most involved players are more concerned with success, continuous improvement and setting or achieving identified levels of excellence within rugby, more so than improving personal well being, happiness and avoiding challenges faced in sport. As previously suggested, in rugby environment, these players portray themselves as highly driven individuals, focused on perceived success within rugby. However, there was a substantially significant increase in strivings mentioning personal health, happiness, appreciation and well being when looking at identified global strivings or non-sport specific strivings. During 2nd phase, on player’s return to club or “recreational” rugby, these players are still showing strivings displaying them to be highly motivated and show high levels of achievement strivings, particularly in sports settings. Their achievement goals within rugby are very much individualised and personally focused, looking to improve themselves and their capabilities as opposed to “winning”. Intimacy and personal growth strivings such as happiness, meaningful, quality relationships and appreciation are again heavily displayed away from rugby settings. Again, I was still questioning (and wanted to dig deeper into) what does fun look like to these highly driven individuals within their sport?

These research findings mirror and are supported by Amanda Visek’s research which suggests high effort, positive coach relationships and challenging environments promoting self development and learning is recognised as FUN in HP atmospheres. Research completed by Visek and others in 2015, while investigating for a theoretical framework of fun for age grade athletes participating in organised sport, the research involving athletes ages up to 19 years old found determinants or frequently coded answers such as Trying hard (Setting and achieving goals, Being strong and confident, Competing), Positive Coaching (When a coach encourages or treats players with respect, A coach who knows a lot about the sport) and Learning and improving (Being challenged to improve and get better at your sport, Learning from mistakes and/or new skills) as being highly important and frequent answers (Visek et al., 2015). I started to consider…do these markers and determinants change over time or are they consistent during sporting careers or into senior HP sport?

I believe that the highly driven players involved in my research are gaining fun and/or enjoyment as being part of high-performance atmosphere as many of the sport specific personal strivings offered from players involve similar language to determinants mentioned within Visek’s research. This research would also support my previous suggestions that players whom are involved and committed to high performance programs within organised sport are habitually focused on positively acting towards attaining goals with an individual emphasis or emphasis on personal success, accomplishment and competing with standard of excellence or mastery of environment as opposed to collective goals or meaningful connections, with team rituals and close friendships being less important or sought after within sporting contexts (Visek et al., 2015). But are we as coaches aware and attune to these motivations? Do we as leaders monitor and investigate around players motivations or what they enjoy as part of being involved in their chosen sports?

I believe high commitment or increased competitive natures of sports development programs may not (or should not) decrease the levels of fun and enjoyment for athletes transitioning from adolescent or early adults to senior sport yet the main question for me is….do we know and are we asking and adjusting our environments accordingly? Like suggested by summer cricket sensation, Labuschagne and advised by Chiet, finding balance in our programs and learning atmospheres shall focus on creating positive experiences for young and older players alike. Let’s look at and review how we’re coaching; I believe we as coaches should assist players to identify problems as opposed to solving them, offering ideas and assistance for how to think and act as opposed to offering solutions and focusing on performance outcomes. This shall keep learning environments positive with the relevant, self determined challenges they are chasing while creating positive, two way narratives on what is working and engaging against what is not. Sports coaches of athletes should act as pedagogues and adopt comprehensive and holistic roles in the moral development of their athletes through their adopted and shared practices, languages and beliefs, both on and off the field.

While there is the high expectations and pressure to perform, developing a fun, inclusive but challenging environment shall bring the best out of players of all capabilities and levels. Ultimately, a coach’s ability to acknowledge and develop positive interpersonal connections, driven by interpersonal skills and united sense of purpose and achievement, can offer solid base for positive relationships and FUN performance atmospheres. If coaches are to develop knowledgeable, engaged athletes, capable of performing learned tasks when under pressure and not under direct instructions, I believe this shall require bidirectional transfer of knowledge or total ownership by athletes of their development, with support from the coaches as “more capable other”, which in turn shall keep athletes involved in their relevant sports for longer through enjoyment as opposed to performance pressures. The challenge of successful coaching is acknowledging social interactive dilemmas within individual and team goal setting and development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaboratively dealing with matters as opposed to eradicating them. Embracing what players and athletes consider “FUN” to create a collaboratively engaging environment would be an ideal scenario for most coaches…..maybe except for Shane Warne!!