Marcus Agnew: Inspiring our kids

AS WE roll into another year, scarily February already, we will all have some kind of New Year ambitions, most likely involving some form of physical activity - after all what's more important than our health. Sadly our motivation tends to fluctuate. Generally we know what we should be doing, but the inspiration is not always there!

This gets me thinking about my kids, and all the other youngsters in our community - if only I could be 6 years old again and know what I know now. I sit back and wonder what is going to inspire my kids and their friends in 2016? Their life's journey is just unfolding; they say we're a product of our environment and each year in their development seems increasingly important.

"You damn kids need to be motivated" ... If only I could get them genuinely inspired, I might never have to motivate them again - or try to motivate that is (it usually ends up in an argument and an epic failure; outwitted yet again by a 6-year-old).

So, particularly with regards to sport and physical activity, it can be tough. Especially in the face of today's modern technology and all those gadgets and modes of entertainment for our kids that involve almost no bodily movement at all!

Clearly kids inspired into sport are going to be physically better off, but of course it is more than that - it's all the social skills that go with it that can't be gleaned from an iPad - communication, teamwork, leadership etc, all that stuff that will help them become a decent human being.

Yes they are going to need good coaches and mentors, but how do we get that initial spark, the inspiration - that intrinsic and all powerful want - that fire in the belly to unlock their individual potential that they all have.

Over the past few weeks I couldn't help but see flickers of such inspiration around my kids. At the cycling criterion we saw Eva Goodisson racing, her long hair stood out like a beacon among the bunch of male cyclists - all I had to do is say "wow look, there's Eva" and the girls took over from there. They cheered her around the last few laps as she battled at the front, and even though she didn't win, my young girls were bouncing around talking about Eva, and the next morning demanded a bike ride!

On the way home after the cycling, we noticed a girls' rowing eight while crossing the Clive River and quickly pulled over to see the girls finishing their training - a fleeting yet impactful opportunity. Previously I have seen my kids and others' transfixed watching Bobbi Gichard gracefully complete powerful underwater turns like a mermaid at the Flaxmere pools, and just a couple of weeks back a good crowd gathered at the Sports Park for the Potts Classic athletics, which included outstanding 16-year-old locals Georgia Hulls and Briana Stephenson.

Sadly though, just as kids can be inspired by excellence, they can also be misled by equally powerful negative influences in the community - which is a real parenting fear that our kids might one day be led down the wrong track to who knows where.

However on the whole, most high-achieving sportspeople have pretty sound human qualities, at least in the area of hard work and resilience. Promoting successful character traits has become a big focus of well-developed sport talent development programmes such as the NZRU's, with the humble role model characteristics displayed by All Blacks Richie McCaw and Dan Carter. And just last week we had such qualities and work ethics in Regan Gough, 2015 Halberg award winner for best emerging talent, speaking to NZ's elite young badminton players at the PGA arena.

Most people can name a couple of our local All Blacks - Zac or Israel - but not so readily our budding stars from other sports. I am in a fortunate position to be leading talent development and high performance pathways for Sport Hawke's Bay, and therefore familiar with other sporting talent, but what if we were able to retain more athletes in the Bay, and collectively promote increased awareness of our high achievers amongst all our community - our heroes and role models.

Let's celebrate our sporting stars, not just for themselves and their amazing achievements, but to subliminally promote sport or physical activity as normal behaviour for all our kids (and grown-ups), ie this is what we do; we compete in something, we have fun, respect others and dream big.

If our kids can be inspired, life as a sporting parent will be a whole lot easier, they will have that fire in the belly, and will take off.

No need to bribe them with chocolate, player of the day awards, or fancy equipment - it will be an unstoppable force!

Marcus Agnew leads Talent Development and the Pathway to Podium for Sport Hawke's Bay. He is also a lecturer in sports science at EIT.