Where have all the juveniles gone?

In the interests of transparency and positivity the AAI have in recent months been publishing updated athlete registration data. As of September 2011 registrations are up by 8% year on year. This is obviously good news, however a deeper look under the covers reveals that in-fact our sport is suffering greatly from a significant drop off in numbers at juvenile level. The figure below offers a snap shot of what are typical distributions of numbers in the juvenile ranks. County Cork in this example has a proud tradition in the sport which is reflected in its very strong numbers of athlete registered per head of capita.

Registration trends for juvenile athletes in Cork county

(Click here to download an easy to use excel file for generating trends  for your own county)

A basic analysis of the data to hand shows clearly that numbers peak at ages 9-10 with a greater number of girls joining the sport at a young age at that age than boys. Between the ages of 10-12 numbers hold up relatively well but after the age of 13 there is a significant decline in numbers. Girls subsequently drop out of the sport at a greater rate than boys resulting in the U19-U20 categories having more boys than girls.

So is there any story behind these trends?? It seems that we get a healthy number of kids trying out the sport at an early age. Not surprising when you consider that many parents very enthusiastically encourage their kids to try their hand at as many sports as possible. Added to that is the fact that in the early days the sport only requires a couple of days of ‘fun’ training a week and is relatively cheap. So far so good in terms of primary school level students…..

Then comes secondary school with the associated increasing demands on time in terms of study and other sports. At this stage it is decision time for the kids and it is clear from the data above that the juveniles are choosing other sports or are succumbing to the hectic social demands of teenage life!!

The greatest rate of decline occurs around the time that students start to come under pressure with state exams and the increased training time requirement that our sport demands. By the time students get to fifth year or sixth year we are left with the hard core kids who are truly addicted to the sport (more evidence of this in a future post).

A rough back of the envelope calculation reveals that of the 20,000 or so juvenile athletes that are currently registered only 1 in 100 of them will stay with the sport into the future………….

So what can we do to help keep the 14-18 year olds in the sport??

1.  Increase emphasis on the team aspects of the sport.
2. Hold events on a Saturday, to allow for teenagers to have ‘normal’ Saturday nights with their ‘normal’ friends!!
3.  Ban age group doubling up at cross-county. How can a young athlete develop/enjoy the sport when they are expected to race almost every weekend for months on end during the winter (more on this in a future post).
4. Run the U16-U20 age groups on the same day as senior races to recognise the 'grown up' nature of the age groups.
5. Move away from epic weekends spent at the track in the run up to exams. It is fairly clear that most Junior and Leaving Certificate students cannot afford to give up 5-7 whole days of study in the lead up to the state exams. Most of the ‘schools’ competitions are organised by ‘club’ officials so why not spread the club and school track competitions right across the summer (more on this in the previously mentioned future post).
6.  Integrate the schools and juvenile age groups. At the moment most juvenile athletes are basically expected to run repeat races across the AAI and schools spectra. If my maths are correct, the schools operate U14 ½, U15 ½, U17 ½ and U19 age categories while the AAI operate between U9 and U19 in single increments. Some realignment here would allow the schools to operate say U13, U15, U17 and U19 with the AAI looking after races for the even age groups (and the primary school level kids). With a lower number of races to compete in perhaps some of our ‘lost’ juveniles might be able to find the time to stick with the sport around exam time (I appreciate that there are restrictions in terms of the age groups that international competitions operate at).
7. Ask them what we are doing wrong!! In the information age that we live in it is very easy to construct on-line surveys......

I could go on and on and on and I appreciate that my suggestions are not fully fleshed out but at this juncture I will open the argument to the floor……

P.S. Thanks to Moira Aston in AAI headquarters for generously supplying the raw data for the excel sheet.