The era of sports specialization at a young age is upon us, despite alarm bells sounded by medical professionals who say we are putting young athletes at risk of burnout and overuse injuries at ever younger ages. Their young bodies rebel.

. . .

The irony in the sports specialization trend, according to Joe Baker, a professor in 91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health, is that there’s simply no evidence to suggest specialization at a young age improves an athlete’s chance of success, wrote the Vancouver Sun Oct. 16. In fact, the evidence is that the majority of successful athletes come from what he calls a “sampling background,” meaning they have played a variety of sports.

Baker said he’s talked to elite coaches around the world who have told him that athletes who don’t have exposure to a variety of sports and unstructured play lack fundamentals.

“They are good at performing motor skills associated with their sport, but they can’t creatively experience or creatively demonstrate something novel.”

Indeed, research suggests that playing a sport in an unstructured way improves one’s chances of excelling at it later on. A German study comparing soccer players who were involved exclusively in structured training to those involved in unstructured play found the latter group to be more creative on the field.

“If you look at hockey players and the types of training they do when they are really young, they play a lot of structured hockey. But if you look at the bulk of their time, it’s road hockey, it’s pond hockey, it’s pickup scrimmage games with the neighbourhood kids,” Baker said.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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On March 9, the Globe published an article on the . The story was part of its special report on university research and also appeared in the Report on Business section:

The study of literature is rarely associated with economic growth, yet that is precisely the argument made by Impact Group co-founder Ron Freedman: "The Stratford Festival generates huge economic benefit for the local community. What's its core technology? Old English."

According to Mr. Freedman, who authored a report on the economic role of social sciences and humanities research, this type of research doesn't get its fair share of credit for its contributions to the Canadian economy and society.

Discussions about the role of research in economic growth are usually dominated by the so-called "hard sciences," biomedical and technology in particular, and the Conservative government's recent Speech from the Throne was no exception, with its promises to continue investing in the Science and Technology Strategy, create a digital economy strategy and support advanced research in space-based technologies.

But many in the research community believe that focusing funding primarily on science and technology to strengthen the economy is a mistake. "The humanities and social sciences are moving to centre stage," said SSHRC president Chad Gaffield recently in a speech.

Two projects lead by 91��ɫ professors were mentioned in the coverage:

There are thousands of groups across the country trying to end homelessness. Yet, often being under-resourced, they lack funds to research whether their programs are effective. Enter Professor Stephen Gaetz of 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education and nursing Professor Bernie Pauly of the University of Victoria who teamed up with community partners to help them evaluate their programs and share their great ideas with other communities.

Megan Davies, a professor in the Department of Social Science in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, had long wanted to share the wealth of knowledge she had accumulated about the history of mental health in Canada with young people, wrote the Globe. So, together with Anne Marshall, director of the Centre for Youth & Society at the University of Victoria, she developed high-school material that teaches students to understand their own mental health and be compassionate toward others with mental illness and made it available to teachers online at the Web site CaringMinds.ca.

On March 8, the Globe also published an article on that included 91��ɫ's Knowledge Mobilization program, which partners researchers with community organizations and government policymakers to produce mutually-beneficial research.

“The future lies in exchanging all forms of research not just with industry but with government and with the community at large as well,” says David Phipps, director of the Office of Research Services at 91��ɫ. “In past, the focus has been on technology. Now we are extending it to business, law, the social sciences and the humanities.”

...

At 91��ɫ, Mr. Phipps has two full-time staff working on what he calls knowledge mobilization. To date, they work with the United Way of 91��ɫ Region and The Human Services Planning Coalition of 91��ɫ Region, which represents 15 different social services agencies.

Representatives from those agencies meet regularly with 91��ɫ researchers for what he calls KM in the AM — a knowledge management breakfast — where the agencies get to pick what area of research they want to hear about and a 91��ɫ professor specializing in that area delivers a presentation.

"After that we leave it to the agencies and the professors to follow up," he says.

On March 10, Professor Joe Baker in 91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health was profiled as one of several . It highlighted his research on the benefits of exercise and competitive sport to older people.

“We’re finding that a lot of things that we used to attribute to getting older, like decreases in cognitive functioning, depression and increased substance abuse, are really more a symptom of disuse rather than aging,” says Baker, a member of 91��ɫ’s Alliance in Graceful Aging, a multidisciplinary research team.

He also examines how society’s negative stereotypes about aging influence people’s behaviours as they grow older. “We are very much a culture that values youth and devalues the older person,” he says.

His findings so far suggest people’s expectations about aging play a significant role in their declining physical and cognitive abilities. “We’re just starting to get a handle on how big an influence these negative social stereotypes are on overall health,” he says.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of .

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