Brent Eastwood 'Sport Thought': Educare Northland Sports Talent Hub to help young sportspeople

Northland's 2019 Talent Hub athletes at a workshop earlier this year hosted by Northland Black Sticks player Brooke Neal. Photo / Supplied

In 2014, Sport NZ identified a real need nationally for an extension to the high performance system that identifies and develops the next level of sporting talent in each region (below the ones already being worked with at a national level in each sport).

And so in partnership with Sport NZ, NorthTec and local company Educare, Sport Northland launched the Educare Northland Sports Talent Hub in 2014, which has subsequently identified the best young Northland sportspeople aged 15-18 and started developing them with a goal of seeing them go on to represent NZ at open level in their chosen sport.

From 2014-18, 51 of Northland's top young sportspeople were selected and given training in the generic skills (strength and conditioning, nutrition, athlete life, performance psychology, drugs in sport and physiotherapy/recovery) required to enable them to enter the national "carded" system within their respective sports.

In 2018 Sport NZ withdrew its funding from the initiative (in favour of giving it to the national sports organisations to deliver) which forced Sport Northland to reconsider the model being delivered, especially given the high resource input to the Hub (financially and human) for a limited number of athletes.

A revamped model is now operating, increasing the number of athletes involved to 40 per year (the previous model catered for an average of 12 per year) and involving a series of educational workshops throughout the year open to the 40 athletes and their parents and coaches.

The programme focuses on developing the athlete, parent and coach knowledge of the key principles of training and being a well-rounded athlete. It is aimed at those up and coming young sportspeople who show potential in their chosen sport.

The 10 workshops per year cover:

• Nutrition

• Mental skills

• Strength and conditioning principles

• Sporting ethics and drug free sport

• Athlete life balance

• Athlete preparation

So far this year, athlete life balance has been delivered by Northland Black Sticks player Brooke Neal, performance psychology by Dr Vernon Reynolds and nutrition by local high performance runner Ady Mackenzie.

The 40 athletes registered come from a range of sports including volleyball, squash, cricket, waka ama, surfing, golf, swimming and hockey.

Northland has traditionally more than punched above its weight in terms of sportspeople performing on the national and international stage, and this initiative builds on this by giving our young sporting talent the generic skills that will give them every chance of succeeding into the future.