The best in Sports and in Life

On our way back to Holland we were just able to congratulate the Spanish coach on the airport with their well-deserved championship of yesterday evening. Naomi is meeting up right now with some Spanish players she played with or against in the Euroleague. The final game was an impressive display of quick and fundamental teambasketball which left France rather chanceless. Also the decisionmaking and reading the game made the champions clearly the very best. 2017 Women Eurobasket

For many decades Spain is dominating in world basketball, but looking at other sports this is no coincidence. The sports culture in that country is huge and the approch of the game is actually very simple. Being quick in moving, reading and deciding and adding first the necessary fundamentals and then the tactics and strategy to get consistent results on top level. Physically the Spanish usually do not look like the best equiped players in the world, but the excellent footwork and motor-skills create other possibilities in our fast-paced game.

In Spain the combination of basketball with education looks reasonable good. The education is taken seriously in combination with sports, but this means that the young Spanish players can not practice so much as they do in some other countries. They seem to train rather more effective and adept to the good fundamental and speed practices from the very start of basketball.

In the Netherlands we have a very good structure and organisation for the combination of sports and studies. On all educational levels there are many possibilities to get the most out sports and life. Especially in the sports were we have a lot of experience and know-how, we are able to produce success and championship results on global level. In the last decades we also expanded the fields of expertise with the available science, sportpsychololgy and the recent devolpment in dual career coaching.

During the 15 years I have worked in vocational education at Noorderpoort as a topsportco?rdinator, I have come to realise that in the development from a talented athlete to an elite athlete, many factors and influences play a role. By defining these elements and increasing the consciousness and awareness of the importance, huge impacts on talent development programs can be achieved. Also my roles as a professional basketball player, physical education teacher, basketball coach and manager of the Johan Cruyff College during the years have given me new insights on life-long-learning for athletes.

Basically it all comes down to positioning the talented athlete in the center of their environment and acknowledging the important impact of the home situation, the education set-up and the sports organisation. The way these 3 main areas cooperate and communicate can make a huge difference in the long term success. Realizing this and acting on it can make a daily difference, what can easily become the difference between silver and gold.

In the last few years there has been done much international research about the dual career. In my previous blog I referred to that. An extra option within the Time Out Project is given with participating in the Talented Athlete Lifestyle Support(TALS) program and get this level 3 certificate. Yesterday afternoon 30 of the 80 Time Out participants joined the introduction of this course. It was developed as part of the British Olympic preparation for the 2012 Olympic games in London. The purpose of the course is to provide learners with an introduction to the principles and practice of supporting and advising talented athletes in managing their personal development and lifestyle due to their sporting commitments. It has been designed to enable learners to study both the theoretical and practical aspects of the support and advising process. TALS

The methodolgy of this course is quite impressive and so is the connected research on this topic. With the experience I have in the fileds of sports and education I believe that individual coaching, guiding and teaching can make a huge difference in performing in sports and studies on top level and also during the life after basketball.

It is interesting to realize that the special chance we get offered by the FIBA with this Time Out Project to learn from and with the best in Leadership and Management. Very nice the observe how our lessons learned are visible in the organisation of FIBA and during an event like Eurobasket. Maximizing the potential of the past for the all potential of the next generations must be the main goal. So everybody can have the chance to become the best they can be in sports and in life.