Space has always fascinated us, all the more so since we have had the benefits of television. Many readers may remember watching the first man to land on the moon on the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969 with the understatement “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. It was seen to be the wonderful ending to the project launched by President Kennedy in his acceptance speech for the Democratic Party nomination, delivered on July 15, 1960, at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, when he spoke of this New Frontier as “not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges.”
Interestingly the ‘New Frontier’ became ‘Space: The Final Frontier’, a phrase famously spoken by Captain James T. Kirk in the opening monologue of the television series ‘Star Trek’ that first was aired in 1966 and which was used to introduce every episode of that first series. Do we remember the lines: “These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”. As one reviewer put it, “It focused on uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, and untapped pockets of ignorance and prejudice”.
The ‘Star Trek’ series might be seen as only the tip of the galaxy as so many films and books consider space. The ‘Star Wars’ fanatics will be first to stand up but who can forget from different generations ‘2001: Space Odyssey’ or ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe’, ‘Dune’ ‘Gravity’ or ‘Apollo 13’? They had us all on the edge of our seats, or maybe even floating in the air, spellbound. Space enthralls us; space must be explored and discovered afresh.
As that is so true of us in books and films, so space, as anyone involved in sport knows, is what must be explored on the sports field. Space is more limited on the sports field and therefore it is vital to find that space if we are to be successful in achieving what we desire. Children need to learn to play the ball into space and not just to pass to the player; they need to use space. They need to find space. Equally, any sportsman must not just find space but also make space, both for himself as well as for his team, finding room away from the opposition. Players should therefore not run with the ball in the direction they pass the ball, as in running in that direction they are only bringing the opposition to that space, closing it down, and making it harder for the player receiving the ball.
As coaches we tend to work on developing their skills and less on this important aspect of understanding space on the sports field. But in fact, we as coaches are also guilty of ignoring an even more important aspect of space. We as coaches need to give children space. We need to give them space to learn for themselves, to think for themselves, so we need to stop giving them the answers all the time. We need to give them space to be themselves, not force them into a space that we want them to be. We need to give them space to find themselves through sport, to learn more about themselves in different situations which will help them as they go through life. There is so much to explore in space, just as there is so much for them to discover in their own personal lives.
If we do not help them in this way, it will not be the final frontier but the final barrier that will block or trip them. It is not all that big a step for coaches, though it may appear like a trek too far. As coaches this is a voyage of producing stars through our enterprise. It is more than a five-year mission even if we boldly go where no man has gone, exploring strange new worlds. We will though give them new life and help civilization as a whole. The space is vast.
It must not be just President Kennedy calling for “new men to cope with new problems and new opportunities,” challenging compatriots to be pioneers and show “sacrifice and commitment to the common good rather than simply offering them benefits”. We might take that for ourselves as coaches and parents with regard to our children’s sport, to refer to the importance and desire for them to find space in life, to find space to tackle those very unsolved problems and issues by themselves. That is the new frontier for us as coaches; space is the final frontier that we must help our children to cross. In truth it should be the first thing they learn. Let us launch ourselves into this vast new space; let us go boldly now. We shall be the stars then.