Building a robust athlete in the South African high school system

Abstract

In the modern era of school sport, schools are faced with important decisions on how best to structure their programs to fit in the growing number of tournaments into the schools sports calendars. Furthermore, school sport has taken on a more professional and competitive feel, with the possibility of winning cash prizes as well as the live TV coverage of various tournaments it is plausible to believe that the pressure on coaches to win at this level has increased when compared to 10 years back.The intention of this article is not to disparage the South African school sport system but rather to create an understanding of best practice when considering high school athletes. As it has been the authors experience through working with numerous highs school athletes and presenting to various schools and educators on this topic that the current system or lack thereof is possibly not athlete-centered which may be detrimental to their development down the line.