Karsten Warholm is proof that Texas should adopt Norway’s approach to youth athletics

by 24USATVAug. 4, 2021, noon 50
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Any parent who has visited a park in Dallas on the weekend has likely seen something like this: a dad, dressed more or less like a coach, has his child or children running between cones, catching passes, kicking goals, hurling fastballs. It might be 9 a.m. on a Saturday, but for these kids it is the final minutes of the Super Bowl, the bottom of the ninth in Game 7, or penalty kicks at the World Cup final. The theory here is simple: Intensity from a young age builds champions.

But not everyone agrees. This week in Tokyo, Norway’s Karsten Warholm shattered the world record for the 400 meter hurdles. The race is already being hailed as one of the best in Olympic history. Warholm used his global platform to praise, of all things, his home country’s approach to youth athletics.

“I like the Norwegian sports model,” he said, according to the Financial Times. “I think a lot of people can learn from it. I never felt any pressure. My parents never pushed me, but that also created something inside me that I had my own drive, I had my own flame.”

It is not the first time the small Nordic country’s hands-off approach to sports has been praised in the media. Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society Program, wrote about its key features in an essay for The New York Times. Norway ensures very low economic barriers to entry (thanks in part to generous government funding), resulting in very high rates of youth athletics participation (93%). And the country codified a list of “Children’s Rights in Sport” that bans national championships before age 13, regional championships before age 11, and publication of youth scores and rankings.

The entire system is geared toward low-pressure participation and making children’s motivations, interests, and choices paramount. Want to be a decent soccer player? Fine. Want to be a star like Norwegian Martin Ødegaard, the youngest person to ever play for Real Madrid? Sounds good. The support is there, but in most cases, it is up to the child to seek it out and make use of it.

And many do. Norway, a country of approximately 5 million people, has won the most Winter Olympic gold medals of any country and produced world-class athletes in a variety of sports, including cross-country skiing, biathlon, speed-skating, hurdles, middle-distance running, soccer and handball. Add Magnus Carlsen, quite possibly the greatest chess player of all time, to the mix, and you have to admit that Warholm might be on to something about his country’s model for youth competition.

We could learn from that here in Texas. In recent years we have seen concern both in Texas and nationally about the high costs, pressure, and declining participation in youth athletics. Our commitment to raising champions — or at least college sports recruits — is so intense that we have sacrificed much of the fun that makes kids want to play and excel at sports. We have forgotten that it is participation, not performance, that makes youth athletics a social good, and internal drive, not external pressure, that builds psychologically resilient champions.

Bringing the Norwegian model to Texas is easier than it sounds. The first and most important shift involves our priorities: We should follow the lead of the Norwegians and establish a bill of rights that protects children from external pressure and fosters participation in sports.

Second, we should use public funds to lower economic barriers to entry and make sure these rights are upheld. If associations break the rules, they lose their subsidies.

Third, we should source these subsidies just as the Norwegians do: from lottery ticket sales and sports betting. Add a minor tax on fantasy sports, and there will be no shortage of money to shore up a more inclusive and fun Texas sports culture.

It might not produce the next great cross-country skier, but it would produce more and healthier youth athletics participation and, I am sure, no shortage of champions.

Kelly McKowen is an assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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