The Problem with Unicorns

The problem with unicorns is that they eat too much.

Or at least they can if we let them.

There is a very real risk in community sport, that unicorns inadvertently eat up the focus, attention, and resources from the wider community. And it is this very community that is meant to raise and nurture future unicorns and the broader support network they rely on to thrive.

Here then is the challenge. How do we feed the unicorns in such a way that they can thrive and we can be inspired by them, while simultaneously nurturing the much wider base of community members that make the ecosystem viable and sustainable?

In truth there is no easy answer, but it must start by consistently staying true to the broader objectives and mission of community sport despite the periodic distractions of shiny objects. The goal must be development of the whole, empowered by the confidence that the health of the greater community's experience in sport will ultimately yield high performance success stories in greater numbers and on the shoulders of a more inclusive and sustainable system.

This requires unrelenting focus on the development needs of the widest range of participant even when the loudest voices, greatest distraction, and perceived sense of importance often come from the pathway to notoriety and a narrowcast definition of success. Success can certainly be seen in the rise of a unicorn, but the positive impact on community of more kids staying in sport and being bettered by it through to their late teen years and adulthood, is another form of success that deserves very real focus and accolades.

Because if we only feed and tend the unicorns, we miss the opportunity to nurture the broader base and diminish the potential for higher numbers entering and staying in the pathway.

So let's keep raising unicorns, but be sure to have enough to feed the wider need.

#PlaygroundsBeforePodiums #DoneDifferently #CommunitySport #SafeSport