Sport has been part of my life and our family for many decades. My father ran middle-distance races and was regional champion in the mile and 1,500 meters. He also led me to sport from an early age. Even though I always wanted to play football and did not really want to play hockey, I still ended up in our family sport, athletics. With short breaks, I stayed with it for almost 30 years. I ran distances up to 400 meters. I can probably mention a national high-school title in the 4x100 relay and a regional championship title in the 100 meters, which was a respectable result at that time considering the competition from two Youth Training Centers that I refused to join. Records from my home club have been waiting for more than three decades for someone to break them.
I always led all of my children to sport as well. My goal was never to raise elite athletes at all costs, but decent and smart people with genuine love for sport. We apply the same principle to our clients. I intentionally avoided athletics, even though all my sons wanted to try it at certain stages of their development. I believe that continuing family sport traditions is not the ideal path today and only rarely works out.
As is often the case, our family care included more children than just my three sons. For all six, I consistently pushed for at least two sports for as long as possible, with emphasis on education. I also always considered cost and local accessibility. Circumstances led the first one to hockey and later athletics (already without my direct involvement), and for the others it was always football and hockey.
Thanks to colleagues in our team, we also have broader practical experience from successful development stories of young athletes in golf, volleyball, basketball, tennis, and other sports. We now offer all of these hard-earned practical insights to our clients.