Kieran Shannon: Kids specialising in Gaelic games too early benefits no one, including GAA

When the pitfalls of early specialisation have never been more advertised or known, never has the practise been more commonly practised by its various units.

It’s an issue that arose in Mike Quirke’s podcast last week when his guest was Jason McGahan, the Kerry high-performance manager he would have collaborated with as a selector to Jack O’Connor the past three seasons.

Quirke himself played at the highest level in a couple of sports. At 17 he was already playing national league basketball, and while he didn’t make the Kerry minors that same year, it wouldn’t derail his football ambitions; he’d go on to play U20 for the county. At 27 he both won a Super League with Tralee and an All Ireland with Kerry. For all the challenges that came with it, he was able to play both sports at the highest level into his late-twenties.

Though in his conversation with McGahan, he questioned was it now possible to even play both in your early teens. McGahan was equally concerned with how matters are trending. Although a unit of the GAA employs him, and that county unashamedly views football as an integral part of its identity, he’d admit early specialisation in that sport was a “serious bugbear” of his, much of it stemming from the fact that minor at intercounty level now is at U17.

Some of his comments on the subject have been widely reported. How from almost every vantage point – education, welfare, psychological, growth and maturation, sports science, coaching, holistic – the conclusion is overwhelming: “These athletes aren’t physically and mentally prepared or ready for it.” 

What didn’t get quite as much traction was how he elaborated on the topic. Although the last U18 minor final was played as far back as 2017, McGahan rightly pointed out that we still tend to think of minors “as young adults; we forget these lads are only 15, 16.” And for him, that’s too young to be labelled a county minor, “an elite athlete”.

In almost every case those players aren’t just playing for their county or club. Realistically they’ll be playing with their school U19 as well as U17 team. And that’s without mentioning other sports. 

One of the key principles of the GAA pathway document is encouraging them to play other activities. Like basketball, soccer, rugby. But where are they going to get time to play those other activities? 

Not to mention they’re at that age when they are most keenly trying to find out who they are and who are their tribe, what do they want to maybe study in college or work at. His concern is that more and more kids are more and more being fast-tracked into adulthood and “high performance, intense environments”.

McGahan didn’t necessarily spell it out but minor being a year earlier than it used to be means that development squads are tending to start at least a year earlier than they used to as well.

An increasing number of counties are trialling and selecting and deselecting kids as young as 12 through the winter months. Which means those kids have less or no time to play other sports in winter months.

And that as McGahan points out is the definition of early specialisation. When you play a sport for more than eight months of the year and give up other sports to focus on it. Which can backfire on you and the kid in the long run. By increasing the amount of time they play that one sport, unwittingly you’re increasing the likelihood of physical and mental burnout at some point.

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Dr Philip Kearney of UL ahead of his presentation on skill acquisition at the GAA’s annual coaching conference, and he fondly recalled how, like Quirke, he was spoiled to grow up in a multi-sport town like Tralee. In first year alone in Tralee CBS the number of sports he tried out extended to double figures, from hockey to hurling, orienteering to his beloved track and field.

But now it’s common for first years to be called up into county squads once their club season is over, leaving no time to try out or continue in other sports.

As progressive as it is that such systems are casting the net wider and further, they are in turn reducing the number of sports those kids get to sample, which the research shows could transfer to and benefit their GAA.

I’m seeing it first hand on the ground. For the last five years or more I’ve become immersed in coaching and administrating children’s basketball in Clare. In the last year or two we’re seeing that there is no end to the GAA season, especially for kids who are invited onto development squads or emerging talent programmes as some are termed.

Most clubs and coaches will find some way to cater for the kids and minimise the number of direct clashes. But yet more and more kids are prematurely having to opt out of a sport they really enjoy. And those who keep trying to juggle several balls in the air, dashing from the field to the court or the other way around, are exceeding the number of hours they should be formally playing or training each week (when it should only be whatever age they are).

Other sports are falling into the same trap. Traditionally Basketball Ireland would hold its regional and national tryouts in late October. This past year they held them in mid-September when a lot of kids would still understandably be committed to field sports at weekends: championship semi-finals and finals.

Some of those tryouts were for U14 squads, open to kids just 12 years of age. Too early in the season and too early in their journey to choose and rule out anything or anyone. Too early, as McGahan would say, to fast-track them into adulthood and the system.

Let them be kids for a bit longer. Let them play other sports for a bit longer. Not least because it increases the chances of them playing yours and their preferred sport for longer.