Under 14 is not too soon to go on tour

I remember a time when schools wouldn’t let their youngest teams – U13 then, U14 now – go away on sports tours. The feeling was that touring was a privilege reserved for the 1^st team, something the others should aspire to.

The little ones, it was believed, should concentrate on learning how to play the game (s) first, and that was best done without exposing them to the pressure of playing games at out of town schools. I agreed with that thinking then – part of me still does – do 12 and 13 year-olds really have to be playing on a national stage before they have got the basics down?

But, those were different days, I concede. Sport at the schools that take it seriously is way better organised now, the level of coaching is on a whole new level and the stakes, at 1^st team level, are higher than they have ever been. Anyone will tell you that the degree of success you achieve at senior level is directly related to the quality of your junior programme.

So, U14s began playing across the country too, on a limited scale at first, increasing year by year until we have what took place at Jeppe this weekend past: U14 basketball and water polo festivals so big that they needed three and four days to complete them, involving just about all of the like-minded schools around the country. It was the 25^th year of the U14 Ken Short Water Polo Festival – with the Covid interruptions; while the U14 Basketball Festival has been going for eight.

I was at Jeppe for all of those four days and I came away realising that we weren’t completely right all those years ago and that festivals like these can be a very effective tool in teaching players just starting out what the games they have chosen are all about, on and off the field.

Probably the most important thing, though, is that the two Jeppe events are festivals, not tournaments. They used to be tournaments, with knockout round and finals, and tournament teams used to be chosen, until the headmasters of the schools who play in them agreed that all of that be stopped and that they be played as festivals in which, while the results of matches should matter to the teams involved, they have no greater significance than that.

I’ve taken some flak in this space for condemning an early-season under-14 polo tournament held at a local school where there was a winner, and for speaking out against the SA Schools tournament where they now go down to U12 level – 11, 12 and 13 year-olds playing fully competitive interprovincial sport! Those are things that have no place in educational sport.

And that’s what it is and has to be – educational. There’s where the benefits of playing in a more non-competitive atmosphere kick in. Basketball and water polo are similar games in a number of ways, one of which is that they have biggish game-day squads, but relatively small numbers of players on the field at any one time. At this level, you are unlikely to have a full squad of players who are on the same level, skills-wise, so the temptation, when the result is vital, will be to keep your best players in the game while the rest of the squad warms the bench. That’s flat out not allowed at the Jeppe festivals, and the coaches buy in to it. How are the weaker players going to improve if they don’t get game time? That’s the educational value of a festival.

Then there are the number of matches played in a short space of time. The players get to try out what the coaches tell them, almost straight away. Not that there aren’t gaps between games. That’s when the boys get to hang out together. I spotted them sitting in the shade of the trees and in the marquees at Jeppe throughout the weekend, talking trash and roughnecking – being boys, in an age when doing that is somehow frowned on. Multiday events like these create those opportunities and it’s there that team spirit is built; friendships are cemented and socialisation lessons are learnt – the things that turn those U14 teams into good 1^st teams in four years’ time.

And I haven’t even mentioned the interaction between the coaches and the massive efforts put in by a horde of officials and volunteers to make the two events run smoothly and finish dead on time despite losing all of Saturday afternoon due to the inevitable Highveld thunderstorm.

So, while I do sometimes miss the innocence of a more amateur time in school sport, I saw enough at Jeppe last weekend to convince me that, the way they went about it, they have got it right and that U14 is not too soon to tour.