The following is an edited version of a reply to a question posted on a LinkedIn group: At what age should a kid be encouraged to follow a different sport?
The short answer is never. Or maybe always. The point is that kids should follow what they love. The question originally arose from: At what age do you know a kid isn't going to "make it"? There are plenty of reasons to play other than making a professional career out of it, and honestly if being a professional and collecting a paycheck are the primary reasons a ten year old plays, then a) he probably isn't going to "make it" and b) that's a lousy way to spend your childhood.
I know Leo Messi dreamed of being professional much younger than ten -- but you can see in the way he plays it's a love of the game that drives him. Also, it's so much work to get that good, that without a passion for and love of the game, it's just too hard. If all professional leagues ended tomorrow and every player on contract right now had to go get a day job, the vast majority would still play, because love of the game will keep us coming back.
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There is a difference between World Class and elite. At least half of the players that come through La Masia (Barca's youth setup) make professional grade, so the players that are identified as having the talent and drive by age 12 to work at La Masia are likely to spend the thousands of hours it takes to attain mastery. While there are certainly genetic components to success, those genetic attributes really don't begin separating players until a very high level of skill is refined. In short, the difference between 2000 hours of unfocused training (your typical youth club player) and 10000 hours of refined and directed training (an 18 year old player who has come through a professional academy) is the biggest difference between an American youth/college player and a player in a professional league in Europe. I think you can pretty safely say at age 12 whether a player has the drive, committment, and love for the game to spend the time it takes to reach an elite level. However, the difference between elite, that is, playing for a college scholarship or more, and Ballon D'Or (the FIFA world player of the year) are several orders of magnitude apart.
I think the question of encouraging a kid to try another sport is a totally separate issue. If a kid doesn't have the drive to excel in soccer, I can't imagine they will take up ice hockey or alligator wrestling at age 12, and suddenly develop the passion for, and habits of, excellence. Nor do I really think it matters.
I think we, as Americans, don't do a good enough job encouraging the recreational player. It's some better here in England, with five a side leagues and school football, but probably not much better -- there is still a huge pressure to be the best or get out. If I kid just wants to muck about and have a lark with his friends, maybe play a little high school ball, great. (I have no interest in coaching that, but I support the idea.) Not every kid needs to be Lionel Messi. Not every kid needs to be elite. "Just for fun" is a superb reason to play (and millions of registered youth players in North America who have never even seen a professional game demonstrates the point.)
At the end of the day, I think we should encourage kids to do what they love, which might not be the realm where they are gifted. I had a player a few years back who quit soccer at age 12 to focus on equestrian show jumping. She wasn't a very good rider, didn't have a good pony, and didn't have a particularly good coach (and the family was well-to-do, but not mind meltingly wealthy, so the coaching and pony couldn't be easily changed.) But she loved her pony and loved to ride. As a soccer player, she was a dream: hard-working, a two-footed natural lefty, big, strong, fast, smart, talkative. No doubt just playing club ball through 15 and high school for three years she could have been a decent college player, and with hard work, definitely had the tools to be an impact player at a high level. While, she enjoyed playing, she didn't love it, didn't have a passion for the game, so she quit to focus on what she did love. And I was supportive of her decision, and still get a note from her every year or so. She never even won a jumping competition, but loved every minute with her pony, and every second in the ring.
Sports shouldn't be about what we win, but who we are.
