Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Vindig at Sport Law. Leave me a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hey, Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: We need to chat. Give me a call.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversations about healthy human sport today. We're so pleased to welcome Mark McGuire to the show. Mark is a former professional European athlete and coach, a Coaching association of Canada learning facilitator, and Ontario Minor Hockey association course conductor and and executive director of Give and Go Sports Education.
Mark is A graduate of St. Clair College, the University of Windsor and the Goita Institute.
Welcome to Sportopia, Mark. And before we dive in, Steve, what is coming across your desk this week?
[00:01:17] Speaker C: I think something that's old, Dina is always been new as I am entering close to a half, say decade, but that's not right. There's some as I approach 25 years of practicing with Sport Law, when I first started doing this, and I may have said it previously on other podcasts, but how many bylaws can you actually do?
And the answer is a lot times a hundred.
So I'm really excited this week for two reasons. It's not necessarily because of new bylaws, but some new clients who are asking for some bylaw work. And, and the other thing I'm doing on later this week is, is traveling to present publicly at a sport conference in Alberta. And you know, ever since COVID people getting together has become less and less Zoom is of course, far more publicly acceptable for a way of communicating. And I understand why the, the, the cost to, to travel and the time it takes to travel. But I am excited. I did also do a presentation last month and had been quite some time when I had done one in person. So it's really quite inspiring, reinvigorating to see people, to interact with people, to talk to people and to see what's keeping them up at night or ways that we can hopefully assist clients and individuals as they move forward in their, in their sport approach or desires. So I'm excited for more bylaw work and a little bit of travel to do some public speaking, which I used to do a lot of, but I still do it just now on Zoom.
So anyway, I'm excited to see some people. What's new with you, Dina?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Well, one of the things that I enjoy doing the most is supporting executives and board in, you know, deliberating and making decisions that are in alignment with their mission, vision and values. And so of late I've been doing a lot more, I'll call it On Demand coaching coaching. So they bring me in for an hour and we, we kind of identify, you know, what's the problem that you want to address or what's the sticky situation that you need some time to reflect on. What are the risks that are keeping you, you know, up right now at night? What are the core values that you want to use to be able to make a better decision?
And then how do you communicate your decision in a way that, you know, informs your community about the direction the organization is going to take or to provide additional context to a situation that has arisen? So I'm, I'm looking ahead and I'm seeing a lot more of that and, and I think more people are coming to me for this On Demand coaching in part because we launched the Reimagining Sport Leadership Series in earlier this year, Steve and Mark. And it's really helpful because we kind of take people through nine different topics that sport leaders really need to get a handle on.
And so far we've talked about things like risk management and management by values and the sport context, like what's the environment in which sport is connecting in now. And we just completed a session on cris, how to manage through crisis.
So that's some of the things that I've been sinking my teeth in these days. And Mark, you know, welcome to the show. Mark, we're really delighted to have you here. What's coming across your desk this week?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Thank you for having me and I'm happy to be here as well. So two things.
I have a birthday letter this week. It's not significant for me, but the federal government says it's significant, so I'm welcoming that.
And on a professional sense, I have a really interesting meeting later this week with the organization called the Canadian Institute of Citizens or Association, I may have the name wrong there, but they have this really cool app called Canoe and it's intended specifically for new Canadians. And we've come to learn that sport can be a tremendous connector, a tremendous conduit for new Canadians coming to Canada. So the interest from both our organizations is how do we get the recently launched documentary, which we're going to talk about later, potentially onto this Canoe app for new Canadians to be able to see the documentary, to see the importance of seasonal multi sport and the role that it plays in communities and how it's very welcoming and yeah, it just helps new Canadians to understand a Little bit more about their new country, in this case Canada through sport. So I'm excited about that. That's later this week.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Thanks for being here. Mark, you created an entity called Givengo Sports Education.
What is it? Why do you believe in it? How is it going to support athletes in, in today's environment?
[00:06:26] Speaker A: So give and go. Sport education is a not for profit.
We have lined ourselves up with the Canadian Mental Health association as their registered charity partner. And what we do, we are essentially an advocacy group. So we advocate for the physical, mental and emotional health of kids in sport.
We don't call them athletes. They're first and foremost kids, they're youth.
And we do that by promoting a seasonal multi sport participation model. So let me break that down. Seasonal meaning there should be a start to the season and an end to the season. This 12 month over the top all in just isn't working anymore.
Yeah. The second component then is multi sport. So where practical, where affordable.
Two or more sports in a year and they do not have to be structured sport, it can be unstructured. So really any general recreational activity is fine. It could be team sport, individual sport, indoor sport, outdoor sport.
And we've come to learn through conversations with a number of different stakeholders, practitioners, thought leaders in amateur sport that it really is an idea whose time has come.
We're not really in the position of saying that sports specialization is wrong and multi sport is right. It's more about the how do we transition from a great model that we have in Canada? How do we go from good to better and perhaps better to best and whatever follows best. Er, so we're looking for, to, to improve that model and we believe from a number of different experts as well that the seasonal multisport model is better for kids in sport. And a couple of examples come to mind. We know, for example, that seasonal multisport kids are more socially engaged, that they have wider and broader groups of friendships from a number of different organizations.
We know that they experience fewer injuries because seasonal multi sport athletes have better ABCs. So agility, balance and coordination. We know they have better read and react skills. We know they have better decision making skills, critical thinking skills. So when it comes to any type of physical activity, they're just better on their feet.
We also know from our friends at an organization we spoke earlier, Dina, about the respect group, they tell us that multi sport athletes are less abused because if you're only in one sport, all you know is the norms of that sport and you believe that's to be the case. Whereas if you're exposed to a second and or third sport, the child has an opportunity to compare. Okay, this doesn't happen in sport two and doesn't happen in sport three. Therefore, you know what, there's something wrong with sport one, I'm going to say something or I'm going to do something.
So there's a whole host of reasons why we believe that model to be better and that really was the purpose and the genesis of the documentary is we had these great ideas from these great subject matter experts and let's do something about it and create what we call a resource, a teaching tool and it just happens to be in the form of a documentary.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: You know, thank you so much, Mark. I, you know, you had me at multi sport.
I, I'm curious, you know, what's driving you? What is it that you know about this multi sport, multi season approach to healthy child and youth development?
What is it that galvanated you to or galvanized you to, you know, get behind something like this and put your time and effort behind this question?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Dina and yeah, so there's a couple of different factors that come into play here. I think first and foremost, I'm a father of five. They're all multi sport athletes. None of them competed at the national level, but all participated. I think that's important that we use participate versus compete in Excel.
So I'd also say that my background as a learning facilitator with a coaching association of Canada, so in my particular background it was hockey. I spent a lot of time with coaches and parents and gradually over time, in recent decades, certainly in recent years, this subject of it's all in, it's private academies, it's clinics, it's lessons, it's tutoring, it's over the top and we're dealing with, with youth who, they're not quite there yet, you know, where what we're doing is in some instances we're creating the child for a path. Birth is, we should be creating a path for the child. Right. So prepare the child the best that we can for them to make their choices on what's the best way to go as opposed to, by the way, by the time you're nine, you should be here and when you're 11, you should be there and when you're 13, you should be here. And that's, that's not really the right way to do it.
And yeah, I, I had a, I had a really good run as a child. I realized it was a different era in the 60s and 70s in my case and early 80s when I was a professional. But it seems to be getting just too serious. It sounds simple, but it's getting too serious for too many kids at too young of an age. I mean, this, this really is first and foremost the first world problem, when we think about it. We know, for example, that there are children in the world who don't have enough food, and that's a problem. We know that there are children in the world who have too much food, and that's a problem. Well, there's children in the world who don't have enough sport, which presents its own challenges, but we're experiencing here, and I wouldn't say that in Canada only, but probably in the western sector that we have children have too much sport at too young of an age and it's become too much of their lives and we're trying to do something. So we're going out there, we're not going to solve world hunger, realize that. But we're going to try and move, move the position perhaps a little bit like the front of a ship, one degree at a time. And I think over time we're going to get it going to the right location.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: You mentioned, Mark, in the intro about advocacy.
You know, I always say sometimes we in sport don't do a great job of advocating that a local club or a program is associated with a provincial or territorial organization and what that means, you know, it comes with coach screening, it comes with risk management, it comes with rules and regulations. And I don't, I don't necessarily think that we, we promote that. Well, and you mentioned the word advocacy and what you're trying to do. And again, I'm probably going to misquote Wayne Gretzky, but I think he said, I like putting my skates on in September and I like taking them off in April.
And, and I'm a huge advocate of that as well. So I'm curious to know, are you advocating to sport, to parents, to kids, to everyone?
How do you get the message? And then I guess my second part B to that is, do you see it changing? I, I, my kids are, are in the middle of it right now. They're 13 and 11.
And I was approached by a parent and said, I'd like to have my kid play basketball. And I said, oh, are you interested in rep or house league? And they said, rep. And I said, well, where is he playing now? And they said in the backyard. And I knew in the back of my mind that child had zero chance of making a rep team because they were 11 and they were four years behind.
So I guess two part question is who are we advocating to and then how can we see this change happen?
[00:14:02] Speaker A: So the first part of the question I guess can best be answered by before we made the documentary, we spoke to a number of different like minded organizations and I'd like to mention them because they've been very helpful and supportive of me in the early going here. So the group known as Respect group, the group known as Sport for Life, an organization called Active for Life, I went to them and I asked them if we were to make a documentary, who do you think would really have an appetite for this? So who would the target audience be?
And each organization not coincidentally came back to me with the following groups. So the first group, first and foremost is moms between the ages of 25 and 45. Because they seem to be, if not the decision maker, the decision influencer on where kids play sport. So they sign up, they cut the check or they pay online and dad or significant other brings them to the venue and they're good to go for sport. So that's the first group. The second group is sport volunteers.
So coaches, trainers, officials, judges, umpires, whatever the sport calls for. Whom by the way happened to be the significant other of the first group.
So we got those two covered there. The third group then is educators.
So educators can be teachers at the front of a classroom with chalk on their hand, but they can also be people who work at a community center. So Ottawa Swimming Pool for example. Right, Those, they are educators, people who work at the ym, the ywca, they're educators. People work in health and fitness clubs, they're educators.
And then lastly grandparents. And I'm a living example, they have become the ride share or the lift or the uber drivers of where the grandchildren go to sport. So they spend a lot of screen time, not screen time, but a lot of windshield time with them to the venue on the way home from the venue. So those really the four groups. Steve, you asked about who we advocating to and Sorry, help me out. Steve, what was this part B question? Well, I have a good memory, but it's short.
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Yeah. How do we make the change? I mean like, okay, I didn't play. The two sports that I excelled in were basketball and swimming. And I really, I didn't start really playing basketball until 13 or 14.
And swimming, I didn't really even start taking that too seriously till 17 or 18. And I did make it to the national level in swimming and a little bit of a watered down international level. But I, I Was late and I, I just see my children going through sport now and again. If you're not in a high performance program or, or in the rep program at 10, it seems like you don't have a chance.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Right. So a couple of examples come to mind.
One of the participants of the documentary is a Canadian gold medalist decathlete, Damian Warner. Right. He's from London, Ontario. So when you think of a gold medalist in, in that sport, that's arguably the best athlete in the world at the time. Right? 10 sports, tough to argue with that.
Well, here's the background about Damon Warner.
He didn't play any organized sport.
He was introduced to sport in high school and I've spoken with classmates of his who went to high school in London that in grade nine he didn't have a pair of track shoes, although he made the senior football team, senior basketball team and certainly the track team in grade nine without any sports, any background at all, organized sport and then the rest is history. But there's a number of those people, Steve, where one would think that you have to get into this, what I call systemic organization of sport where it's you have to sign up, you should do this, you should do that, you know, and pity the poor parent that says no. That we know we're not going to stand up for all these things.
However, what I also come to learn from people who are in the scouting business, if you are good, they will find you. It can be the middle of nowhere on a Tuesday night in an 11 o' clock game and because of digital devices and technology that's so rapidly available and so accurate with video now they will find you and they will recruit you so you don't have to be that specialized. I should say the other piece we know statistically is that 30 of the 32, my math could be off.
Roughly 95% of NFL quarterbacks, starting quarterbacks were multi sport athletes in high school.
So there's a story for every single one, right? You could say you should be doing this. Well, there's a lot of people that weren't doing what they should be doing. But now that's their profession. And by the way, is that really what the end game is?
Are we looking for a professional sport? Are we looking for healthy, well rounded, socially engaged, mature, responsible youth in sport who will keep those same traits and attributes as they age to become great law abiding Canadian citizens?
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I really like that kind of question and I would say I would drop the sport. Are we looking to create healthy human youth and then in what ways can sports serve that? Because I think part of the biggest problem in sport is, you know, is an outdated model, an outdated ethos that that brings this competition mindset, you know, much too much too early.
And, and so when I think of, you know, the construct of sport, I look at, well, what would be a similar, you know, design or construct that we could be inspired from. And, and so the equivalent for me is the school system.
And it's not without its flaws. But we don't ask children to specialize in math at the age of six.
You know, we understand healthy child development and we have experts at the front of the room who understand the principles of child development who aren't shaming, you know, children because they're not competing, you know, or performing well on the test. We have, you know, child specialized personnel to support those who might need different attention and support.
I think that the ideal of sport will hopefully move us to shape a system that is much more child and youth friendly than the current one. I think that's something for us to consider for you. Mark, in your work with coaches and parents and sport organizations, what do you believe are the biggest myths or misconceptions that you encounter around this need for early specialization in sport?
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Well, you cited a couple of them there that you do have to sign up at age of six and you do have to do all the extra hours and the private lessons or the off season or dry landing training, whatever it's called. That's just simply a myth.
I really think the school system, I like your point, Dean, about the school system. I think that is where it's at and I think if we get educators on board and it's interest. Interesting because I'm working with some school boards now in Ontario about helping them to bring this messaging into the elementary. So grade six is grade seven and grade eight, you know, there's, the facilities are there.
There's no real great cost to participating in sport in those early years of school. For the most part, everybody makes the team and it helps to build community.
And so I guess the, the myth. How do we dispel the myth? I suppose it's educational and I think it is going to take a while. Dana and I mentioned this to you, I think in a previous conversation that this is not going to be a revolution. Right? A revolution is overnight, a lot of damage, a lot of cost, a lot of bloodletting. This is more of an evolution.
This will take time.
It's going, we have to be patient.
We're looking not to, to Offend anyone. We're looking not to point fingers or, you know, wag, you know, that's wrong, you shouldn't be. It's just going to be, it's going to take some time. But I think we're getting some parents on board now and I think the documentary is, is, is a resource. It's not the only source, but it is a source that's going to help people understand. We get enough people talking about this, particularly at the grassroots level, I think it's going to be welcome news for most parents that they don't have to do what people say they have to do. Like it isn't part of good parenthood to, to play 60 or 70 games of hockey at the age of nine.
And then I also think the translation of that knowledge. So back to our colleagues at the respect group, they talk about, you know, how do we reduce what they call bad behavior? So bullying, abuse, harassment, discrimination, how do we do that? Well, we know that early sports specialization, sometimes these, these poor children are, they're groomed like they're, they're.
I want to get into an area where I'm not that comfortable with, but we know that the incidences of abuse are less frequent in multi sport. So if parents are looking at how do we do the right thing for the children, whether it's sport or school or anything, it's, let's take the safer path. Right, so what's the safest thing for the children? We know the children are safe, they will do well.
And the other piece then about breaking down some of these myths, you know, sounds like I got the sales hat on for the documentary. But the documentary highlights a number of different thought leaders in this area, that it is the right thing. It's just simply the right thing to do for the kids.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: And.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Look, listen, there's a tremendous amount of great things that are happening in Amsha, Sporting Canada.
We're not here to poo poo any of that stuff. It's wonderful work, what they're doing.
We just want to help them to help those that they serve, which for the most part are the kids. And I think it will be, yeah, whether they're athletes or not, they're going to become better people as they age because they had a positive experience as a child.
[00:23:58] Speaker C: I'm curious, Mark, what your thoughts are and how do we start making this change? We all know, we all know it, we all see it. I see it with my kids. You see it with your own kids, your grandkids. How do we start getting the message out to provincial sport, national sport, local sport, school sport.
And I know it's a challenge, especially with a lot of the professionalization of who's your hockey coach, who's your skating coach, who's your trainer, who's your shooting coach? How do we bring that back and. And recognize people to say, okay, September to March is hockey, March, April, May is volleyball.
Summer is baseball and soccer. How do we do that?
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Easy answer.
[00:24:44] Speaker C: I know. Go ahead.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: How much time you got, Steve?
[00:24:47] Speaker C: We got like another 10 minutes.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Solve it. Oh, boy. Okay.
Yeah. Boy, I wish I had a canned answer for that. A couple of things come to mind.
I want to reference my friends again at Active for Life. Richard speaks about the ing sports. Yeah.
Running, falling, tumbling, hiking, rolling, kicking. All the ing sports. All that stuff takes place before they get on the school bus.
If we get parents to think more along the lines of.
Of all the movement, all the physical activity, recreational activity without getting into organized sport, I'm not knocking organized sport. It's just, how do we help them understand that these are some good, good common practices? They should be involved in that as they age, they're going to want to continue to do all the ings, and they're only going to get all the ings in a variety of different sports. So introduce them to a number of different things so they'll have an appetite for it. That as they continue and if we pull something away, they themselves may step up and say, hey, mom or dad, like, why aren't I doing any jumping anymore?
Like, there's jumping in basketball, they're jumping in volleyball, they're jumping in gymnastics. There's jumping in football there, there's jumping in all kinds of things. Why aren't I doing that anymore, mom and dad? So it's a little bit about, I guess, helping the kids advocate in some instances for themselves that they have to get accustomed to something at a young age.
And then they will step up and say, you know, boy, I really had fun doing all these other things. Why aren't we doing them anymore, mom and dad? And then I think mom and dad will say, you know what? If this is what you really want to do, then let's get into some of these other things. And it doesn't have to be $1,000 here and $1,000 there. It doesn't have to be that way.
I think there is a little bit of selling going on. Steve, you mentioned the word commercialization or professional. You know, the, the. The profit model.
It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't there's all kinds of you on your community. You drive around, you take a look at a, at a soccer pitch, a football field, a baseball diamond.
Unfortunately, many of them are not used. They're vacant a lot of times, school parks and I know there's no trespassing and things like that, but a little bit of organization, we can get a lot of kids busy on those pitches and fields and diamonds. We really can.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: I, I really appreciate this conversation. Mark and Steve, you know, the, the three of us are parents and in the end, you know, from all the sport leaders I've had the privilege of connecting with, we really want to do right by the kids and our children's children. Right, that's, that's hopefully what we're speaking to here. So I agree with you. It'. Revolution. Although I would say sports been in a bit of a re examination of late, an important re examination so that the system becomes more modern and aligned around these values. So the word for me is reclamation. I think there's a lot of reclaiming the origins of what sport, you know, is designed to do. Bring people together, help us access fundamental physical literacy, emotional literacy, social literacy. That's impart the promise of sport. Beyond that though is just the movement of our bodies that doesn't have to be organized sport. It's letting kids play in the park, so to speak. So I really appreciate it. As we wind down our time together, Mark, your notion around, let's make sure everybody makes a team, especially in grade school where we're coming together and socializing these little people, that there's a place for everyone to contribute and learn about themselves and their bodies and how to play with others.
There's ensuring, you know, in this case, more is actually better. You know, sometimes we say less is more. In this case, what you're advocating for is more sport is better, more accessible sport for people who don't have to pay to play, but also give kids this literacy. So just like in school, they have access to all these fundamental, you know, knowledge courses so that they can then choose at a later time if they want to specialize a domain. But let's not do it, you know, let's not do it when they're 5 or 6 or 10 or 12.
I really loved your point around let the kids decide, give them voice and choice. And so I think that's really important. As you said, the education. This is my last little piece here. The, the education for the adults, which would include when you think of a child who surrounds the child, the child right and their fundamental years of development. The parents, family and friends, the teachers, the people who are the educators and then the pediatrician or the doctors. Right. So the people that are there to ensure that this child is growing up safe and secure and well rounded and if they have the fundamental knowledge to ensure that, they're asking parents, how are you promoting a quality physical daily education for your child in the formative years of development which we know PHE Canada has been advocating for, then our hope is that many of the good points that you've been sharing with us today becomes realized.
So I'll turn it over to maybe Steve, any final comments before we say goodbye?
[00:30:09] Speaker C: No, I really like Mark the documentary. I'm glad you did it. I do hope it has an impact sometimes. I think the system has created a very difficult model for multi sport and I hope little, little baby steps will happen to make it more socially acceptable to not play year round, insert name of sport and to try different things. So I really thank you for being here. I'm going to turn it to you. Mark, any last words for our listeners on how do we, how do we make this change back to where it was?
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah, let's turn the clock back. Hd. Yeah, yeah. I guess a final thought rather comes to mind for me. I was asked to give a talk to the Brain Injury Association a couple of months ago and I gave this example of seat belts.
So seat belts became mandatory the year that I got my beginners. So you can do the math and find out after.
I remember at the time going to the examiner's office and my father didn't have a seatbelt on. I didn't have my seatbelt on. There was these kind of new things. They were just at the waist, right? It wasn't the shoulder strap at the time, it was just at the waist and they had this kind of funny little buckle head would stick up out of this bench seat and we push it down and push it down and I went in and cut my license. The examiner didn't have his seatbelt on. I didn't have my seatbelt on but I got my driver's license and that's the main thing.
But here's the cool piece about this. If you do a little bit of research on the Volvo car manufacturing company, they introduced seat belts in the 60s.
It was a decade or perhaps 15 years later that it became mandatory. Now try and get in a vehicle without putting your seat belt on. A three year old now will tell you that, you know, they heard a little, they'll tell you you know, put the seatbelt on. Put the seatbelt on. And why is that? It's because of safety.
They were very smart of what they were doing. They knew that it saved people's lives, or at least the injuries of those in an accident would be less serious if they had a seat belt on. And there was all the naysayers and it wasn't cool and it was a fad and it was going to go away, but it didn't. And it's because of safety. So I bring that back to this is about the safety for children, right? It's going to take a while.
I'm not Volvo manufacturing. There's a number of us, the two of you included, there's a number of great people who are trying to do better things to, as I mentioned, go from good to better and better to best. But think about the safety. It's the safety of children. If we keep that front and center, we will never regret that.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much, Mark, for sharing your wisdom with us and your passion for sport. In the episode notes below, you'll find some sport law blogs where you can find more information related to our conversation today, including the link to the documentary that Mark has been referencing. Thank you so much to our listeners. We're so grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you as we all look to elevate sport.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: As always, to have your say in Sportopia. Email us@helloportlaw CA to let us know what you want to hear about next. Stay tuned for the next episode. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Dina. Until then, be well.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: It.
