OPINION
For 10 years, I have been a netball dad, in which time I have seen enough to be sure that at the school level, the game meets every criteria to be considered toxic - devoid of core values, dominated by adults with big egos and warped ethics and elite players with a hard-to-understand sense of entitlement. What follows are true confessions from my time standing courtside.
By the time my eldest daughter had left school, I realised that she had dodged a bullet when she missed out on playing for the top netball team.
She wouldn’t have enjoyed it, and most likely, the toxicity of the set-up was such that had she endured even just one game at that level, she may have never wanted to play netball, or indeed any sport, ever again.
But more importantly, she would have learned nothing about herself or the value of sport as a development tool in building resilience, perseverance, selflessness and its ability to instil in young people a work ethic.
Instead, she would have been playing in a team that seemed to have no other purpose other than to try to win and define the kids and those involved in the coaching group exclusively by the results they achieved.
And this seems to be where the tension, confusion and misunderstanding sit in school sport.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to win, in fact it’s disrespectful to the contest to not invest heavily to achieve that outcome.
But outcome is a by-product of performance and perhaps the nuance is too subtle for some parents and coaches to grasp, but the best teams don’t bang on about the importance of winning, but instead focus on the importance of hard work, building cohesion, maintaining discipline, understanding commitment and learning more about tactical application.
A healthy team culture is one that looks to drive performance through growing the skill-sets of the players, so they can walk off the court proud of their effort and the way they played, regardless of the result.
I didn’t sense that the top team at her school was growing the people within it – more that it was servicing the ego of the coaching group in an environment that had little emotional stability and must have been dangerously close to destroying the self-esteem of some players given the emphasis that was placed on winning.
This isn’t post-experience bitterness designed to make me or my daughter feel better about missing out – it’s simply the truth, based on everything I saw and heard about the environment and culture of the elite netball teams at her school, and indeed, based on what I witnessed more broadly at the netball centres where she used to play.
Just as outcome is a by-product of performance, team environments reflect the values of the people within them and running them, and if all sorts of toxic behaviour is enabled, it’s inevitable what sort of culture will develop.
Netball, perhaps uniquely, perhaps not, knows how to foster a sense of entitlement and a total lack of respect for opponents, teammates and the game, as well as failing to instil any kind of value system among its elite participants.
It was uncannily good at rewarding tantrums, petulance and a lack of respect, and seemed to operate with precisely no consequences for those who indulged in generally obnoxious behaviour.
Kids who didn’t train or were late to training always got picked. Kids who didn’t turn up for games would still be in the team the following week.
I was flabbergasted when my daughter was warming up to play one week when the head of netball hauled her away to start warming up with the top team as one of their players hadn’t turned up.
She warmed up – and even I noticed that none of the other players wanted to pass her the ball because she wasn’t one of them – put the bib on to start the game, only for the head of netball to take it off her a minute before the start as the girl who was supposed to be playing had turned up.
My daughter missed the first quarter with her own team, but it was the cold and thankless way she was dismissed that surprised me – that and the willingness to let the late arrival play so she faced no consequences for being late.
In my daughter’s final year, the school wanted to enter the two Premier teams in a midweek competition as well as one on Saturdays.
But the top Premier team simply refused, and the other one, despite being entered, didn’t turn up for the first midweek grading game.
My daughter’s team were elevated to take the place of the team that didn’t turn up – and played their hearts out, scrapping to the death even though they were outclassed by a much better side.
They came off to be told that they had lost – permanently – their agreed Thursday morning training slot at the school’s indoor court as the Premier team that hadn’t turned up now wanted it.
The girls who had showed up and displayed all the values the school promotes were left to train outside in the early morning dark and rain, while the kids who had not shown up for their midweek matchwere rewarded.
That the Premier team were able to call the shots didn’t come as a surprise to my daughter and her teammates, as they were aware of a shocking incident the previous year that showed who really had the power.
After not turning up for training in successive weeks, one of the Premier players had been dropped, leading to someone else being promoted to take her place.
This poor girl, though, was victimised by her new teammates, who locked her in a cupboard during school time.
Obviously, the perpetrators should have been punished, but the decision was made to reinstate the girl who had been dropped and return the cupboard girl back to her original team – for her own mental wellbeing and safety.
Kids who refused to play in positions other than their preferred ones always got picked, and kids whose parents were prone to complaining to the coach, teachers or even the principal, always seemed to get whatever they wanted.
There was, famously in school folklore, one girl in the Premier team who couldn’t shoot but was a useful defender.
But after she played one game on defence her mother complained to the school and the edict, allegedly, came down from upon a high that this girl not only had to play at goalshoot, but she was to be given a full game each week while the two better shooters had to rotate.
Kids in the Premiers who were supposed to either umpire or help coach a junior team as part of their “contract” but never showed up or frequently left early, always got picked.
What I have never been able to understand is why these coaches/managers who are obsessed with winning, can’t work out that character is just as important – if not more so – than talent.
Players need to have the personal integrity to train hard. They have to possess the honesty to challenge themselves and the gratitude to respect the opportunity they have.
None of these qualities are instilled by building elite environments that enable kids to develop a sense of entitlement and a certainty the rules don’t apply to them.
And kids who don’t have these qualities don’t graft for the team; they don’t play for each other, they don’t stay in the fight when the going gets tough and they don’t appeal as the sort of kids who will win ego-driven coaches the victories they crave.
Like I say, I’m glad my daughter missed out on what I suspect would have been a tense experience that would have made her miserable, riddled her with self-doubt and left her wondering whether playing sport was quite simply a bad idea.
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