Out the cradle and into the scrum

Wilan van der Berg has perfected his swing on the golf course and now tees off an average distance of 120m.

He is just seven, but already the Grade 1 pupil is part of an elite club of South African children who get to "up their game" through private coaching in golf, tennis and cricket.

Dad André drives Wilan 130km from Ceres to the Paul Mackenzie Golf Academy in Bellville for regular one-on-one sessions, which are starting to pay off.

"About a week and a half ago we played and he won the second nine of the 18 holes," said André, a keen golfer.

"After his last two lessons, they corrected his swing and now he's hitting the ball further and straighter. He has got quite a bit of talent," said André.

Parents are increasingly latching on to the value of private coaching for their children - some hoping that an early start could be the key to being the next Ernie Els or Temba Bavuma.

Former Dolphins cricketer Saidi Mhlongo currently coaches at least 50 youngsters in KwaZulu-Natal - 20 of them are under the age of seven.

story_article_left1

School sport, Mhlongo said, had become very competitive and was behind the rise in demand for private coaches. "Those kids who don't go for coaching are left behind by others who do go," Mhlongo said.

Another proud father, Reagan Fluks, of Malmesbury in the Western Cape, is confident that his son Ruan, 7, will become a Springbok rugby player one day.

Reagan, who plays for a rugby team called Never Despair, said Ruan - who is in Grade 1 and was named after scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar - had a natural talent for the game.

"From the time he started to crawl, he loved playing with the ball. He can outrun older children, he can tackle them. Last year, although he was six, he played in the under-8 team and scored the first try," Reagan said.

Ruan's stepbrother, Duncan Matthews, is playing for the Blue Bulls.

Ruan's talent was spotted early and he has been gettinglessons from an organisation known as Rugga Kids, which seeks to instil a love of rugby in children aged between three and eight.

Leshwin Scholtz, a coach working for Rugga Kids, compared Ruan to the Stormers' relatively small fullback, Cheslin Kolbe, saying: "He [Ruan] is really small, but he's not afraid to run with the ball or to tackle any guy."

Hundreds of parents have also enrolled their children, some as young as two, in a programme run by an organisation called Rugbytots. It "gently encourages rugby-specific skills such as running with the ball, kicking and scoring a try".

Steed Richardson, MD of Rugbytots, said about 400 children were enrolled at branches countrywide.

The children of former Springboks Bob Skinstad, James Dalton and Robbie Fleck have been through the programme.

Skinstad said the Rugbytots programme was "a very safe, structured introduction to rugby for young kids" and "a lovely way" for his son to have fun.

But he was quick to add that he was not interested in building a rugby career for his boy just yet.

full_story_image_hleft1

"I just want him to have fun. What I don't like is when parents get too competitive and they start living vicariously through their children," Skinstad said.

Former Proteas batsman Jimmy Cook is among several top cricket pros on hand to coach boys at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg.

He and his coaching staff offer private training to between 15 and 20 boys aged nine and up.

"If they want to improve their batting, private coaching is obviously best. That's where you see the most progress."

Team sports in a no-win situation

Although many parents see no harm in hiring personal sport coaches for their children, a recent US study ascribed a drop in the number of children taking part in team sports to a shift towards "elite competition".

A survey by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association found that more than 26million children between the ages of six and 17 played team sports in 2014, a drop of almost 4% from 2009.

Baseball, basketball, softball, soccer and touch football - long staples of American childhood - have all taken hits, according to the study, which was published in the Washington Post.

Experts blamed a parent-driven focus on elite travel clubs, specialisation in one sport and the pursuit of scholarships for the decline in participation in youth sports leagues.

Mark Hyman, a professor of sports management at George Washington University, was quoted as saying that the system was now designed to meet the needs of the most talented kids.

story_article_right2

"We no longer value participation. We value excellence," he said.

According to the study, youth sport was the new way of keeping up with the Joneses.

Hyman's colleague Amanda Visek, an exercise science professor, believed that the main reason why some children gave up sport was that it was no longer fun.

Clinton Gahwiler, a psychologist based at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, in Cape Town, also stressed the importance of young children having fun when they participated in sport.

"If a child isn't having fun then it's going nowhere. I see it also in older children and adults - once enjoyment sinks, inevitably performance follows soon after."

It was unfortunate that school sport was increasingly about winning.

"The irony is that in studies which have compared athlete-centred coaches to win-centred coaches, it is the coaches who are athlete-centred who have better win records," said Gahwiler.

govenderp@sundaytimes.co.za