Olympics shows we must ensure our youth play as many sports as possible for as long as possible

The hard part will be to turn that Olympics feeling we have today into an openminded embrace of sports for the years and decades to come that will have a generational impact on the physical and mental health of our society for centuries to come.

I was Gaelic football obsessed from the age of 16. Every decision in my life was mapped around a blind ambition to win a Connacht Championship and a Senior Club Championship. The decisions oscillated from sane to insane.

The important pieces of silver tin were never brought home (…yet?), plenty of regrets but no stones unturned. I do also have a few non-Gaelic football regrets.

The blind obsession didn’t stop me acknowledging the joy in other sports.

A confluence of events has meant that chat around sports funding has spiked in the last year, Paris 2024 has brought this chatter to crescendo.

The discourse around sports funding frustrates me, deeply. On a majority of occasions, the discussion rapidly becomes reductive.

Gross self-preservation and negative campaigning rampage, virally, among otherwise balanced individuals.

People immediately retreat to long entrenched and largely outdated stereotypical views of those involved in other sporting organisations. Mindless.

The “GAA Man” who belittles the fundraising efforts of their soccer (and LGFA) counterparts as the root cause of their lack of facilities.

The “Soccer Man” who rails against “The GAH” not allowing lads play the beautiful game. The track and field crew who are baffled that participants in our widely covered mainstream sports think they are elite, as the T&F crew strive to shave milliseconds off PBs to compete on an international stage.

The triathletes who quietly go about their 4.30am starts to squeeze in their two or three daily sessions and listen to adulation of the commitment of team sports players.

X million for Y sports inevitably leads to widespread whataboutery from sports A-Z.

My non-Gaelic Football sporting regrets.

Soccer. I was lucky enough to attend Summerhill College, a renowned soccer nursery which deepened my love for playing the game.

Regretfully we were defeated in two All-Ireland Soccer Finals due to inspired performances from Kieran O’Leary (St. Brendan’s) and Michael Boyle (St. Eunan’s) – Future Sam Maguire winners with Kerry and Donegal.

I was lucky enough as a kid to experience the buzz of floodlit Sligo Rovers games at The Showgrounds. 

Regretfully I didn’t get to play even one game of LOI for Sligo Rovers in front of their passionate home support.

(If only the big bad soccer crew had not forced me to make a decision between playing soccer and GAA when I was 16…) Playing even one game of professional soccer is low probability for us all and I admire lads like Johnny Kenny, Phillip Gallagher, Michael McNamara and Sean Flannery who got to play for both the Bit O’Red and Sligo.

I am grateful for all that playing soccer gave me to bring into my GAA career. Technically, more touches of the ball in each training than a year of noughties GAA preseasons.

Tactically, an awareness around off the ball positioning that the 15v15 game wasn’t interested in at the time.

Physically, (some!) deceleration, acceleration and footwork that couldn’t be mimicked or developed in thousands of GAA or S&C sessions.

Psychologically, so underrated, a break – a change of environment and emphasis that meant you returned to the GAA group and game hungry, refreshed and mentally reenergised. Regretfully I didn’t consistently play more soccer in adult life.

Rugby. Never knew it existed until I stumbled upon a Munster European Cup game on RTÉ one Saturday afternoon.

What is not to like about a young sportsperson having the chance to play professionally while simultaneously getting a third level education? Not to mention the opportunity to travel the globe and get paid to play the game.

The enjoyment I took from RTÉ showing Ronan O’Gara peppering French corners with spiral kicks sucked me in and ROG is now one of my favourite sportspeople.

In rural North Sligo the local rugby club was out of sight and the option of playing the game was subsequently out of mind. Rugby has its issues to address around how it manages the collisions involved but it has a lot going for it in terms of what it offers the spectator, player, person and the all-round athlete.

Athletics. Struggling through GAA preseason 1km runs watching the lads who dabbled in schools cross country effortlessly finish in the distance.

Trainings and games chasing the speedsters who were thought how to run as kids while I flailed arms and legs in every direction.

Regretfully I was in that blinkered cohort of kids who were too closed minded to consider running if it didn’t involve a moving ball of air and a set of goal posts.

The youthfully dumb playground narrative was that the athletics club was for people who were not good enough to play soccer or Gaelic.

Athletics may well have more to offer all of our other sports than they could ever offer athletic in terms of developing future stars?

Rowing, swimming, surfing. How many lives would be saved on our water each year if this island nation had mandatory swimming lessons as part of the primary curriculum.

How many of these water babies would go on to win gold internationally.

Gymnastics. Watch any gymnastics event and just marvel at what the human body can do. Who would not want to have the foundation of a youth spent developing even a very, very minute percentage of this strength, power, flexibility and poise?

What elements of gymnastics do not transfer to well to movements required in other sports? To movements we need to grow and sustain for life?

30 years on I am glad I had the local soccer club and school to play for, glad of the enjoyment I got from that game and thankful for how it helped me as a Gaelic footballer.

I do wish I had the luck to have been hit in the face with local clubs and facilities that would have made partaking in rugby, gymnastics and athletics inevitable.

(Maybe an enlightened adult environment of multisport magnificence would have helped cure the youthfully dumb playground narrative).

We need a sporting amnesty.

A line in the sand.

Park the ancient, entrenched stereotypes and gripes. Park the whataboutery. See the good things in all sports.

Ensure our youth play as many sports as possible for as long as possible.

Value participation, value fun.

Promote participation, Promote fun.

Share the joy of sports, share our facilities as a conduit for this joy.

What will it take? A Sporting Citizens Assembly of sorts? A coming together to cease fire and communicate a shared sporting vision of sporting common sense.

Some of our most influential stars - Rhasidat Adeleke, David Clifford, Evan Ferguson, Katie McCabe, Tony Kelly, Paul O’Donovan, Ciara Mageen, Daniel Wiffen, Vicki Wall et al making a joint statement that we all just…..COP ON?

To again quote the wise Jamacian, Sanka, “Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its bobsled …every sports time!”