10,000 hrs of player development
Posted by Tim Glowienka on Tue, Aug 02, 2011 @ 09:01 AM
How does a player go from a little kid dribbling in the back yard to bringing tens of thousands of fans to their feet with jaw dropping creativity and flair? I was always left scratching my head trying to solve this one. Was it luck? God-given talent? Or maybe having the right opportunities? Well, there are many factors that go into what makes a player truly world class, but I think the major factor is time.
This blog isn't a plug for Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. But if you haven't read I suggest you pick up a copy here http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922. It's the subject of today's blog, and many more that we'll write. It's rather interesting because it cuts through all the noise about what factors made the great achievers great across all spectrums from computers (Bill Gates) to sports (Tiger Woods) to concert violinists. It puts to bed the myth that to be great at something you have to have crazy amounts of God-given talent. And at the heart of all these success stories is 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours to go from a fumbling 4th grade violinist to Itzhak Perlamn. 10,000 hours to go from a middle school computer geek to Bill Gates. 10,000 hours to go from a bright-bright eyed 2 year old on the Mike Douglas show to the record beater Tiger Woods.
So, I thought it would be interesting to take that same 10,000 hour concept and see how our players fair in the US. At what age will our players have a breakthrough? Is the current system allowing our players to get to 10,000 hours? After a player ships off to college or joins the pro ranks, where are they on the road to 10,000 hours? Perhaps doing so will shed some light on current status of player development or lack of player development that exists here. Here we go...
I'm going to make some assumptions to start out here. We're going to break down a player - we'll call him Johnny - from the time they start playing in a club - let's assume 9 years old. And that Johnny has 2 - 1.5 hour training sesssions per week, and a game or two on the weekend. So, let's be outlandish here and say that he is around the game training or in a game for 6 hours a week. Does that sound fair? Shoot, let's say 8 hours/week just to be crazy. Let's do the math: 8 hours/week, 52 weeks/year, which gives us a whopping 416 hours/year. Sounds like a lot. But at that rate, how many years does Johnny have to play until he reaches 10,000 hours? Until that mysterious level where he becomes world class? Let's do the math. 10,000/416 = about 24 years! So, at that rate Johnny, starting at the age of 9, won't get their necessary hours until he's 33! Yikes.
So, let's take a look at where Johnny is on his road to 10,000 by the time he leaves the club and sets off for college. He's been hard at work training for 10 years now. Let's see what the numbers look like: 416 hours/year * 10 years = 4160!!! He's not even halfway there. So, the question becomes, where does Johnny pick up more hours?
If you're wondering how many hours/week Johnny needs to have a breakthrough, it's about 20. So, at 19 when he goes off to college...Actually, he won't be going to college because his game will be so sick that pro scouts and clubs will be knocking on his door.
Player development is all about time. Question is: how do we get our kids to the necessary 10,000 hours? It's no wonder why countries like Brazil and Spain are player factories. It's because their youth are playing small-sided pick-up games at 7pm when our kids are inside playing Nintendo. They, too, are part of club programs just like our kids are in the states, but they're getting their hours a lot faster by playing pick-up, watching their heroes on TV and trying to emulate what they just saw.
So, where do we go from here? More training is an obvious answer, but I think it's got to be a hybrid of training plus pick-ups game, backyard soccer, etc. Next question: why don't our kids play outside of training more?