Article: Sam Wilson from Women24
Image: Shawn Benjamin

Imagine the scene. About ten little boys, all lined up in the sun and then a starter's gun. All galloping towards the finish, as little boys do – all gangly limbs and excitement – except for one little guy who seemed to have lost the plot.

After about 20m, little Sean had become mesmerised by his shadow running alongside him and for the remainder of the race his focus was not on the finish line, but rather on getting that delightful shadow friend to respond with more and more elaborate gestures, culminating with a wave.

Everyone laughed. My stomach sank. In that moment I really feared for Sean's future. Will he grow up to be the co-ordination-less kid that never gets picked during games lessons? Will people poke fun of him? My older brother and I had been sporty kids at school, and had enjoyed all the social kudos that come with that… was Sean not going to get the same advantages?

Ridiculous isn't it, for a 17-year-old girl to sit in the stands at a primary school fun day, watching little kids having a lark, and yet have such alarming thoughts. But I did. And if you think about the way child's play is handled, it isn't really so surprising.

I have always felt such ambivalence towards children's sport. On the one hand, what could be nicer than a bunch of children playing outside together, exercising, learning team spirit, self discipline and discovering the delight of mastery over one's own body? A lot of my personal confidence stems from being good at sport when I was younger. What's not to like about activities that bring out the best in you?

Well there's lots not to like… and most of it is a direct result of how grown-ups pervert the natural fabulousness of children playing together by pushing and shoving adult agendas rather than the fun of the game itself. While sport may bring out the best in kids, it often brings out the worst in parents.

In my life, I have watched fathers shouting at cold, wet children, shivering by the side of pools in the early morning light, exhausted from a pre-school training session and unable to do anything but cling to the edge and cry. I have watched desperate teenage boys deliberately foul opposing players in high school rugby matches, and I have heard a collar-bone crack, and then grown men roar in approval. I have seen coaches, puce with rage, shouting at school teams because they don't want "it" enough to "go out there and destroy the other team".

How is any of this okay? And, much more frightening, how did it ever get to be so prevalent? As international tennis players, golfers and swimmers get younger and younger; and their expressions get more and more mask-like, I wonder – why is it that we applaud parents who have taken their 3-year-olds outside and made them play tennis every day from then on? Who gets mini-clubs and spends hour upon hour practising golf swings with children barely old enough to spell the word?

A few years ago, Sean, then in Matric, invited my older brother Quentin and I along to watch one of his rugby matches. It was for what my family has always called "the fish and chips" team, and when we arrived, we realised that he wasn't playing… he was one of the linesman. Quent and I sat together in the empty stands, worrying about the end of the game, when Sean would come over clearly embarrassed because at the last minute he hadn't made the cut.

When the game finally ended, Sean came bounding over, flushed with happiness and success.

"Did you see how well we did?" he smiled up at us. "Do we get celebratory pizza, or what?"

It dawned on me that moment that the worries I have had about Sean and sport said much more about me than him. And they weren't very nice things either. All this time, I had been worrying about the good stuff that Sean was missing and not the judgmental stuff that I was gaining. Kinda shifts what you think you can learn from sport, doesn't it?