Waving the golden wand

by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
I was cleaning out the Scuttlebutt inbox, and found an email exchange with a friend regarding the youth years of sailing. My take may not be popular, but you know what they say: Opinions are like a**holes – everybody has one:

College Sailing has always been great and still is, though kids are often selecting schools for the team and not for their education. That’s common for other sports where it can benefit your athletic career, but that’s not our world.

When High School Sailing came along, it gives kids a school sport when they would not otherwise have it, and keeps girls in the sport – albeit mostly as crews. All good, but the teen years had previously been a time when youth sailors explored all the options in sailing, and now that has been reduced.

It would be best for High School Sailing to be only a fall sport, as that would help the big picture, and keep kids from missing out on how they may stay in the sport after college. Also, High School Sailing limits overall growth as a sailor. Two-time Olympic medalist Charlie McKee observes how kids are learning “more and more about less and less.”

High School Sailing prepares participants for college sailing, but their toolbox is pretty empty after that. This has been the problem with college grads starting their Olympic campaign, as time and money in the first quad goes toward ‘learning how to sail’ rather than taking bigger steps toward their goal.

Ideally, a master plan in the USA would reduce attrition post school sailing and improve Olympic skills, but these goals are not the same and pertain to different groups.

To reduce attrition, kids need to be exposed to the type of options they can enjoy post-school. These are what is available in their local area, such as one design classes, etc. As for the Olympic skills, this falls into the same issue as why there are not multi-sport athletes in high school. School sailing and Olympic sailing are two different sports, and making a commitment to one or the other is necessary.

Also, the Olympic commitment needs to, in some degree, begin in the teen years while the first quad occurs in college. Nobody wants to be in their late 20s/early 30s when done with Olympics, but with a late start, that’s why it is hard to get multiple quads out of the athletes. Start early while the parents still are willing to help, and then go full launch after school.

As for aspiring Olympians, nobody is saying to not attend college, but is it time well spent? There are a lot of professional sailors that don’t appear to be using this education, and when the cost of an elite 4-year university is approaching $400k, could that money have been invested differently? The first quad? Just saying…