Transcript 0:00 Ready? Okay. Y-E-L-L everybody else. Say everybody else. Y-E-L-L everybody else. Say everybody else. Y-E-L-L everybody else. 0:17 Say everybody else. Good job. I often say that if the highlight of your life is winning an under 12 premiership, then you've had a pretty poor life. 0:27 While it's good to win, the whole purpose of childhood is to have fun and learn. 0:32 And what kids need to learn is all the skill and knowledge that they'll need to survive and thrive as an adult, whether it be in a sport, school, or just life. 0:43 I recently attended a carnival and I saw the top teams filled with big kids that could run over the smaller kids. At 12 years old, the biggest and fastest will always win. 0:55 The problem is when those that have been trampled over grow up and they can't be run over anymore. Those big kids have nowhere to turn because they have never learned the skills required because they never needed them. 1:09 I've seen coaches terrorize little kids because they didn't win. The kids are so upset and so scared to make mistakes. They don't try anything new and they don't enjoy it. 1:18 And by not trying anything new, they're not learning. Soon enough, it's those kids that will drift away and be lost to the sport. 1:27 Rugby league, there are plenty of kids who were superstars in junior league but went nowhere. For many of them, they just couldn't handle it when the other kids caught up and they were no longer the biggest and the best. 1:40 I saw a kid a couple of years ago in junior football run over the top of a kid a third his size. Nearly killed this poor little kid. My question is, what is the coach doing about it? 1:52 If he does nothing and the kid, he keeps telling the kid to run over them. But what happens when he comes up against someone who, who is his size and he can't run over them? 2:03 People watch the NRL and they see men run into each other and think that is what they have to do. But there's a big difference between professional level and young kids. 2:13 The other thing is that big boys with skill are much more highly valued than those who simply run hard. 2:21 Arthur Beetson could have made a career out of just taking the ball up, but instead he became an immortal of the game by using his skill to offload. 2:33 George Foreman and Joe Frazier are legends in boxing because of their ability to hit people harder than they could hit back. 2:41 But Muhammad Ali, who couldn't hit as hard as either of them, beat them both and is considered the greatest heavyweight of all time. That's because he used his speed and skill to beat opponents who were much bigger. 2:55 Bill Russell was pretty big. He was six feet, 10 inches, and he played center for the University of San Francisco. 3:03 But he wasn't as big as the centers he played against, but he used his quickness and speed to double team smaller players and block their shots. 3:11 So good was Bill Russell defensively that the National College Organization, the NCAA, introduced two rule changes to try and limit his influence on games. 3:23 Now, Wilt Chamberlain was a giant of a man at seven foot, one inch. He was three inches taller than Russell and 27 kilograms heavier. 3:33 He's the only player in the history of the NBA to score 100 points in one game, and he also collected 50 rebounds in another game. 3:43 Chamberlain and Russell went head-to-head during their career, but it was the smaller Russell who had the wood on the bigger Chamberlain. 3:51 Russell played 12 seasons in the NBA with the Boston Celtics and won 11 championships, while Chamberlain won just one. 4:01 Chamberlain scored twice as many points, but whenever he played Russell, he struggled to overcome him because he could not bully him the way he could bully other players, and he had nowhere else to go. 4:14 Wayne Gretzky is known as The Great One in the sport of ice hockey. 4:18 While the sport is known for its hard-hitting and often violent nature, it was Gretzky's extraordinary skill that saw him rise above the pack to become the best there has ever been. So skillful 4:32 was he that in 19- in the 1980s, his teammates at the Edmonton Oilers implemented a strategy they called the Gretzky Rule. 4:40 They would deliberately incite penalties with the other teams that resulted in a player from each side being put in the sin bin or the penalty box for a short period. 4:51 That meant there was extra space on the ice, which allowed Gretzky more room to maneuver, and his vision, playmaking abilities, and scoring were able to shine. 5:01 The National Hockey League took proactive measures to address and mitigate the tactic because Gretzky was already dominating the league with his individual play, racking up 100-point seasons year after year. 5:14 Despite the changes, Gretzky adapted and continued dominating. 5:20 The Oilers created a dynasty, winning the Stanley Cup five times in seven seasons on the back of Gretzky, but not his size, but his skill and his extraordinary talent. [crowd cheering]
