Working in Sport Development - From Dream to Reality (courtesy of SportWORKS)

Working in Sport Development - From Dream to Reality

by Jennifer Brown, CGC SportWORKS Officer, 2014, Botswana

Working in the Commonwealth sport movement developing sport has always been a dream of mine. In Fall 2013 that dream became a reality. I received an email from a friend with an attached job application to work in sport in Africa. “Jen, this job would be perfect for you!” The job was with Commonwealth Games Canada’s (CGC) SportWORKS program. SportWORKS deploys Canadian sport leaders abroad for 1 week-to-1 year placements to gain experience in sport in a different culture and build local sport programs and sport capacity.

At the time, I was completing my Masters in Coaching at the University of Alberta. While I was not actively searching for a post-degree career, I was hoping to pursue my passions of sports while travelling abroad. I applied for the job. three months later defended my thesis and the following day boarded a plane to begin what I thought would be a 1 year placement with the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC ) - in many African countries the National Olympic Committee also serves as the Commonwealth Games Association.

2014 was a busy year for Team Botswana who were involved in the three major summer games: the African Youth Games, the Commonwealth Games and the Youth Olympics. Accordingly a large portion of my placement was devoted to games preparation for Team Botswana. I had the opportunity to assist in many areas of sport management such as team management, marketing and communications. However the primary work for my placement was to implement the Botswana Long Term Athlete Development Plan, or “the BLTAD”.

The BLTAD is a framework that provides age-appropriate training, competition and recovery guidelines for grassroots to podium, and beyond, to ensure long-term success and/or participation in sport. It was adopted by BNOC from Canada’s Sport For Life (CS4L) Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) .  BNOC had begun developing the BLTAD for general sport and were looking for assistance to implement this within specific sports. This is where I came in.

The sport specific BLATD started at the African Youth Games. Prior to the event we branded the BLTAD and created promotional and educational material. At the games I organized a BLTAD program at the games consisting of daily educational seminars and interactive-demonstrations of various FUNdamental Sport Skills.

After the games I updated the BLTAD, delivered BLTAD education to the Botswana sport sector and organized a national “Athlete Development Across the Lifespan” conference. In the later I presented some of the practical results of my Thesis coach-development research on life-long and informal coach learning. I also met with national sport organizations to discuss successes and challenges when delivering their athlete development systems. Though this took time it was a necessary to understand our clients and their situation before collaborating to develop a sport-specific BLTAD framework that is tailored to their context and needs. These tasks were also necessary for myself to build rapport and understand the context of Botswana sport before beginning program implementation.

Overall 2014 was a successful year for the BLTAD. We build a base for further implementation of the sport-general BLTAD and  developed sport-specific BLTAD frameworks. I worked collaboratively in BNOC and with the Botswana sport sector to mentor and teach them to do the tasks themselves. Though quicker results could be achieved without simultaneously teaching others, I am reminded of the African proverb that I saw in the Johannesburg airport when I first arrived on the continent that guided me throughout my placement:  “Alone you can go faster, but together we can go further.”

While I hope my SportWORKS placement had a positive effect on the organization, I can certainly say that it had a positive impact on myself. During my placement I was able to learn and try many different areas of the sport sector, meet new people, experience new cultures, and travel to new and exciting places. Moreover, the placement opened doors for further opportunities. This year I returned to BNOC. My role is to continue roll-out of the BLTAD within specific sports and also to design a national long-term coach education system aligned to the stages of the BLTAD. Given that my passion lies within Long Term Athlete Development and my graduate studies within coach development, I happily accepted the position to return to BNOC.

I like to extend a special thank-you to CGC for the opportunity to participate in the SportWORKS program and to begin a career path towards my dream; and also to my friend, Tim, for sending me the email application that initiated the process – I guess you were right: this job was a perfect match indeed J