THE EARLY AND LATE MATURER

Courtesy of:

Coaching Association of Canada

Physically mature children are more likely to succeed in sports. This selection process often eliminates late maturing children from sports. And more significantly, even after they physically catch up, many will never re-enter sports. By then late maturing children have missed the advantage of early training and they have lost interest because of early failure.

But differences in physical maturation may also hurt the early maturer. There is an old cliché, which says, “The earliest light burns out first”. Its meaning in sports is that the star of the midget league is the first to lose his position of stardom. For those youngsters whose light goes out so that they no longer enjoy the prestige and status of being a star athlete, the psychological adjustment may be a difficult one.

But just how often do early maturing children get passed by as the slower maturing children move through puberty and into post pubescent adolescence? A 12 year study indicated that of the athletes studied, 45% were stars in elementary but not junior high school, 30% were stars in junior high school, but not in elementary school, and only 25% were stars in both elementary and junior high school. In other words, only one out of four star athletes in elementary school maintained such a rating 3 to 4 years later in junior high school.

Every young athlete and certainly every coach of children’s sports should be cognizant of this fact. This information should serve to encourage slow maturing children to persist, for more than likely their day is coming. It should warn fast maturing youngsters that some day success might not be obtained so easily. And it should tell every coach that the practice of eliminating youngsters who may be slow maturing is foolish. How many kids have been turned off sports by coaches who cut them from the team or bench them? How many have been humiliated by their awkwardness because their biological clock ran slower? How many youngsters have had their self-esteem shattered in sports, their attitudes toward sports soured by a coach or parent who failed to understand that “kids mature at different rates and the single most important factor determining their success is their physical maturity”?

Children who specialize in sport and experience a great deal of success at an early age may have difficulty coping with athletic failure later in life.

Research shows that at age 12, there can be a four-year difference in the physical maturity of children. An early maturer can be a foot taller and weigh 30 or 40 pounds more than a late developer. In sports such as hockey or basketball, which require strength, power and speed (and size), the more mature child will usually perform better and fitness levels will be greater than in less developed peers. The uneven spread of early and late developers creates a difficult challenge. Many coaches with no understanding of this phenomenon choose certain kids to play on their teams for the wrong reasons. The early developers may have a lot of success in sport. They are picked first for team sports and receive much of the coach’s attention. This may cause late bloomers to develop low self-esteem and many drop out of sport.

The most famous example of a late bloomer is basketball star Michael Jordan, who was cut from his junior varsity high school team and went on to become one of the greatest players of all time. Same with Guy Lapointe and Larry Robinson, both of who began to skate at age 13. Parents and coaches must encourage and nurture late developers to keep them in sport long enough to benefit from their eventual maturity. Towards the end of adolescence, late developers often surpass and become better athletes than early developers.

Many of Canada’s Olympic athletes have been late developers.