MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Sport Studies
BACHELOR’S THESIS
Brno 2020 Martin Hroch
MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Sport Studies
Department of Social Sciences and Sport Management
Comparison of systems of development of youth athletes in the Czech Republic and the USA
Bachelor’s thesis
Supervisor: Mgr. Dagmar Heiland Trávníková Ph.D.
Presented by: Martin Hroch
Field of Sport management
Brno 2020
DECLARATION
I declare that I have prepared the bachelor’s thesis independently on the basis of literature and sources listed in the sources used under the guidance of Mgr. Dagmar Heiland Trávníková Ph.D.
In Brno, ………. …………………….
Martin Hroch
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Dagmar Heiland Trávníková Ph.D. for guiding me and giving me the right advice during the processing of this Bachelor’s thesis. I would also like to thank to all the people that provided me an interview for my practical part of this thesis because without them this work would not be fulfilled.
Bibliographical identification
Author’s first and last name: Martin Hroch
Title of the bachelor’s thesis: Comparison of systems of development of youth athletes in the Czech Republic and the USA
Department: Department of social studies and sport management
Supervisor: Mgr. Dagmar Heiland Trávníková Ph.D.
The year of the final thesis submission: 2020
Annotation:
The bachelor’s thesis describes and analyses American system of education and development of youth athletes in the United States of America. It is based on real data collected in the United States directly by the author of this work while being an exchange student stay in Wisconsin.
The theoretical part describes Czech and American system itself and compares these two with a goal of trying to find parts from the United States that could possibly be used in the Czech Republic. The empirical part is composed of semi-structured interviews with current or former athletes that are or were competing in one of the two systems and analyzes the given information. It allows us to get a personal view on the problem from the side of a youth athlete.
Key words: education, development systems, sports, youth athletes, USA, college sports
Bibliografická identifikace
Jméno a příjmení autora: Martin Hroch
Název bakalářské práce: Srovnání systémů rozvoje mladých sportovců v ČR a USA
Pracoviště: katedra společenských věd a management sportu
Vedoucí bakalářské práce: Mgr. Dagmar Heiland Trávníková Ph.D.
Rok odevzdání bakalářské práce: 2020
Anotace:
Bakalářská práce se zabývá popisem a analýzou amerického systému vzdělávání a trénování mladých sportovců v USA. Je založena na reálných datech a výstupech, jejichž sběr autor provedl přímo v USA v rámci svého studijního působení. V další části také rozebere system fungující v České republice a porovná výhody a nevýhody obou systému a případnou aplikaci prvků používaných v USA v ČR.
Empirická část se skládá z polovedených rozhovorů se současnými nebo bývalými sportovci, kteří si osobně prošli jedním ze dvou systému a umožňuje tak detailněji nahlédnout na problematiku výchovy mladých sportovců v daných zemích.
CONTENT
1 INTRODUCTION ...... 9 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...... 10 2.1 The importance of sports in society ...... 10 2.1.1 Social integration, equal opportunities ...... 10 2.1.2 Strengthening health and quality of life ...... 10 2.1.3 Recreation and strength restoration...... 11 2.1.4 Sport as an education tool ...... 11 2.1.5 Sports performance ...... 11 2.2 Mentality ...... 12 2.2.1 Statement of philosophy ...... 13 2.2.2 Academic eligibility ...... 17 2.2.3 Attendance ...... 18 2.2.4 Conduct violations ...... 18 2.2.5 Consequences and penalties ...... 19 2.2.6 Penalty execution ...... 21 2.2.7 The importance of education and it’s connection to sports ...... 21 2.3 Sports ...... 23 2.3.1 Introduction to sports ...... 24 2.3.1.1 American football ...... 24 2.3.1.2 Baseball ...... 25 2.3.1.3 Basketball ...... 26 2.3.1.4 Ice-hockey ...... 26 2.4 Americans’ favorite spectator sports ...... 27 2.5 High school seasons ...... 30 2.6 The system of college sports ...... 30 2.6.1 Organizations ...... 31 2.6.2 NCAA ...... 31 2.6.3 Tournaments and events ...... 32 2.6.4 Scholarships ...... 33 2.6.5 Drafts ...... 36 2.7 Systems of financing ...... 39 2.7.1 Financing of sports in the Czech Republic ...... 39 2.7.2 Financing of sports in the United States of America ...... 44
2.7.3 Salary Cap ...... 45 3 OBJECTIVES, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND MAIN GOALS OF THE THESIS ...... 49 3.1 Objectives ...... 49 3.2 Research questions ...... 49 3.3 Main goals ...... 49 3.4 Methodology ...... 49 4 PRACTICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 51 4.1 Interviews analyzes ...... 53 4.2 Comparison of the systems ...... 57 4.2.1 Summary ...... 57 4.2.2 University leagues ...... 57 4.3 Discussion ...... 60 4.3.1 Question number 1 ...... 60 4.3.2 Question number 2 ...... 60 4.3.3 Question number 3 ...... 60 5 CONCLUSION ...... 62 6 LITERATURE ...... 64 7 ATTACHMENTS ...... 68 7.1 Interviews ...... 68 7.1.1 Jack Collins ...... 68 7.1.2 Jakub Jokl ...... 78 7.1.3 Jan Dám ...... 82 7.1.4 Jacob Russell ...... 90 7.1.5 Karel Vejmelka ...... 97
1 INTRODUCTION
The topic of my bachelor thesis is quite personal for me because I had a chance to experience both models of education and also to play sports in both countries. Not so many people in the Czech Republic know how system in the United States works and that is why I would like to explain the model and compare it to the one we are using in our country. Thanks to my exchange stay in Wisconsin I made many contacts with professional athletes and by interviewing them in the empirical part of this work I believe I give an inner view on the problematics.
Every year, sports in the world get more and more spectators. The Olympic Games and world championships have more and more participating athletes and the level of competitions gets higher. From 241 participants representing 14 nations in 1896, the Games have grown to about 11 000 competitors from 207 nations at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Also, the Olympic broadcasting revenues grew from 35 million dollars in 1976 to 2 600 millions in 2012, when the London summer Olympics took place. But the dominating country is still the same one – The United States of America. With 2864 medals from the Olympics they have absolutely no competition.
While spending one year in the United States, I had an opportunity to see how their system of developing youth athletes works and to be part of it. It is very different from what we are used to in the Czech Republic and that is the reason why I would like to share this experience and show why developing model in America is more successful than in any other country.
9
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 The importance of sports in society Sport is a human activity based on social, educational and cultural values. These values are same no matter what gender, race, age, sexual orientation or even economical background individuals are from. Nowadays, sports represent social and economic phenomenon that becomes more important every year and helps in developing of society. In the European Union countries, a big percentage of population is taking part in some kind of sport, either tourism or organized sport such as soccer. About 20% is organized in clubs but the majority is not. This fact reflects the active attitude of European institutions who want to support the development of these activities.1
2.1.1 Social integration, equal opportunities Because sport is supported by a big number of people, it also has a huge potential of bringing them together and catching their attention no matter what age or gender the people are. Thanks to that it strengthens economic and social cohesion and creates more integrated society including gender equality. This is particularly important for young people, people with disabilities and people with tougher social backgrounds. Sport creates a sense of belonging and participation – it can therefore be an important tool for integrating immigrants and excluded groups of society.
2.1.2 Strengthening health and quality of life There is enough evidence that lack of physical activity increases the incidence of overweight, obesity and numerous chronic disease (cardiovascular diseases and diabetes) that reduce the quality of life, but also endangers individuals’ lives and burden the state budget, especially the health budget. Therefore, sport can act as a tool of prevention and health-enhancing physical activity has a far-reaching impact than any other social movement. Sport attracts people and is positively perceived. In this context, we can cite a figure from the Economic Forum panel in Davos from February 2009 (Sport: An
1 MINISTERSTVO ŠKOLSTVÍ, MLÁDEŽE A TĚLOVÝCHOVY A ČESKÝ OLYMPIJSKÝ VÝBOR. Analýza financování sportu v České republice. 2009. Dostupné také z: http://www.msmt.cz/sport/analyza-financovani-sportu-v-ceske-republice. 10
Untapped Asset) „Every dollar invested in sport saves four dollars in health care2“ which confirms the findings of an earlier Austrian study Sport und Gesundheit3.
2.1.3 Recreation and strength restoration Sport in this sense is an individually and socially beneficial activity. Physical movement is one of the basic factors of active rest, which effectively compensates for work strain and frequent one-sided contemporary life, which is also marked by lack of movement. Although it is primarily a recovery from work and the maintenance of physical and mental fitness through sport, it can also be seen as an intergral part of spending ones’ free time and lifestyle supplementation and, consequently, the cultivation of the creative forces of a human.
2.1.4 Sport as an education tool Sport takes part in formal but also a non-formal education and by that it helps in strengthening the human capital. The values that sport carry along contribute to the development of knowledge, skills, motivation, personality formation, resilience, character formation, responsibility, self – esteem, sense of duty, relationship with others, toughness, self-confidence, self-control, engagement, overcoming obstacles and many others. It positively influences the physical and mental development of children. It also helps to learn certain rules and respect equal opportunities, promotes the development of the ability to concentrate, learn and build confidence. In summary, these are elements of socialization and morality influencing people’s behavior in relation to the human community.
2.1.5 Sports performance Sport also includes special recognition of extraordinary performance. The high level of sport convinces from the cultural view not only in itself, but also protects against provincial smallness. That's why high performance in sports - as in music, dance, ballet or painting – in a way meaningful and inspiring, reach the current limits of human boundaries. In comparison with other areas of life, this is explicitly done by following the given rules. In sports, not everything that is possible is allowed, though within the rules sport has no limits. And that is precisely its special charm, sometimes its immensity, but
2 World Economic Forum. (2009, January 31). Sport: An untapped asset. Davos, CH: Author. www.weforum.org/sessions/summary/sport-untapped-asset. 3 ROST, Richard. Sport und Gesundheit: Gesund durch Sport. Gesund trotz Sport. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2013. ISBN 13:978-3-540-57602-0. 11 also its authenticity. For spectators, performances in sport are a dramatic experience, especially for the young. At the same time, there is a great potential for influencing (positive, assuming that they are present not only the results of competitions, but also behavior and atmosphere that is not deviating from recognized social standards)4. In this aspect, when we compare the high school sports in the United States of America and in the Czech Republic, the youth athletes in the United States are way more recognized than the athletes in the Czech Republic and therefore there can be expected to have much bigger motivation to succeed and perform the best they can.
2.2 Mentality As a other part causing the big difference we need to consider a thing that is hard to scientifically prove and that is the mentality. With no doubt there is a huge difference between the mentality in the United States and the mentality in Europe / the Czech Republic.
Young athletes in the Czech Republic are often not recognized until they reach the highest leagues and that might affect their motivation to do sports. When we look at the United States, successful athletes are known in school from their young age and people look up to them. Starting with primary school, where most of the kids do some kind of a sport and become better than others. In the 8th grade, they go to high school and teachers, coaches and other students already know that this player is not only good in the specific sport but also something more. It is not unusual that a freshman makes it on the high school varsity team and when this happens, everyone knows that he is going to only improve for another 4 years.
Sports clubs in the Czech Republic are mostly privately owned and it has been that way since the fall of communism in the 19895. How much does it affect the number of athletes competing on the international level and number of professional athletes? And what is the main difference between the system working in the United States of America and the system being used here in the Czech Republic?
Czech sport fans are known for being very competitive and having a very high requirements on the athletes competing for their nation. In the history, we could see this
4 (MINISTERSTVO ŠKOLSTVÍ, MLÁDEŽE A TĚLOVÝCHOVY A ČESKÝ OLYMPIJSKÝ VÝBOR. Analýza financování sportu v České republice. 2009. Dostupné také z: http://www.msmt.cz/sport/analyza-financovani-sportu-v-ceske-republice). 5 NOVOTNÝ, Jiří. Sport v ekonomice. Praha: Wolter Kluwer Česká republika, 2011. 12 a lot in soccer, nowadays it is mostly ice-hockey, since the Czech soccer has fallen down and is not considered a threat to big soccer countries such as Spain or England.
2.2.1 Statement of philosophy When there is something, in this case sports, connected to school, it most likely has rules. And the United States of America are known for a lot of rules. But with time, these rules became part of American mentality and nowadays are normal for students and people living in this country. On the other hand, in the Czech Republic, we are not that limited and although we have rules, we rely more on our good judgement than written rules. As one example, I would like to note an affair that happened in the Czech Republic few months ago, just to show how striking the difference can be. In November, 2019, Czech university student Eva Šindlerová, who studies at the University of Ostrava, came to school with a see through t-shirt to later post a picture of her clothes on twitter with a caption saying “Today I was warned at the university for my scandalous clothing style (picture number 1). Do we really live at a time when it is normal to attack a woman for shining breast under a transparent top as roughly vulgar?” Thanks to a big reach of this tweet, the university noticed and made a statement saying “The teacher regrets this whole media case. We talked to him about it. He also talked to the faculty management. He did not tell her, that she could be excluded for such clothes, he only politely warned her that a similar outfit is not suitable.” The spokesman added, that the whole incident is being solved by the legal department of the university. “Our university does not have any rules, how the students should be dressed, I do not know, why she wrote what she wrote on the social media.” The spokesman of Czech Ministry of Education also spoke on this problem saying: “The issue of clothing worn by a student while teaching at a public higher education institution is not explicitly addressed in the law of universities, neither in legal regulations.”
Just to show this difference, I would like to share a dress code stated in the Denmark High School (Wisconsin, USA) Student Handbook, a school where I had a chance to study for one year.6
While fashions change, the reason for being in school does not. Students are in school to learn. A student’s dress, like their conduct, is a personal matter limited only by the
6 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 13 realities of health, safety, guidance or disruption of normal school operation. In order to maintain an effective learning environment, all students will be expected to adhere to the following guidelines:
1. Footwear must be worn at all times.
2. All shirts must cover 1.5 inches (3 fingers) of the shoulder.
3. Hats, caps, headscarves (do-rags), bandanas, stocking caps, hoods,
sunglasses, and winter jackets may not be worn in school during school hours.
Further, they may not be carried around by the student during the day.
4. Clothing must cover the torso from above the chest cleavage to mid-thigh.
5. All apparel must be worn to allow for no exposure of undergarments.
6. Holes above mid-thigh length should not show skin or undergarments.
(Leggings are not considered undergarments.)
7. Any clothing (including lanyards for student ID’s) with inappropriate
(profane, vulgar, sexually explicit or suggestive, racially or ethnically offensive,
alcohol, drug or gang related) sayings, slogans, or graphics will not be allowed
This list is not all inclusive.
8. Hazardous items cannot be a part of the student’s attire. Wallet chains, spiked
necklaces or bracelets, and any other item that could cause injury to self or
others are not allowed. This list is not all inclusive.
9. The board authorizes administration to make judgments for the health, safety,
and welfare of all members of the Denmark School community.7
7 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 14
Picture number 1 – Eva Šindlerová
Source: Twitter @NeumimTweetovat
How is this connected to the development of youth athletes? Well, rules make routine, responsibility and also diligence. Because when we know what we can and cannot do, we create certain paths and respect towards not only the rules themselves, but also towards other people. And by creating these rules at American high schools and universities, the students get used to them and therefore focus on the education just as much as at sports, because they know that without education or good life style, they would not be able to make it to the team. This rule was just an example, but through that we can see that there is a lot of differences between the mentality of people from the Czech Republic and people from the United States. Because everything is connected, the rule most important for the athlete development would probably be the Co-Curricular Code of Conduct (table number 1). Taken again from the Denmark High School Student Handbook, you can read the Statement of Philosophy.
Participation in Denmark co-curricular activities is an integral part of the Denmark Middle/High School curriculum, which is a privilege and should elicit great pride in both the student and his/her family. While our number one goal as a school district is to provide a sound academic experience for all students, cocurricular activities provide unique opportunities for students to promote their mental, physical, social and emotional development. By providing a strong co-curricular program, the Denmark School District extends the privilege of enriching the mind and body to any student meeting district, Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA), and any other
15 applicable governing body’s requirements. Like anything of value, it comes with a price tag. That price tag is a commitment by each student to follow established rules. Co- curricular participants who comply with this code of conduct demonstrate a desire to dedicate themselves to self-improvement as well as to enhance the best interests of fellow teammates, advisors/coaches, and school. If accepted, this privilege carries certain responsibilities, and this co-curricular code presents these responsibilities.8
There are a lot of different co-curricular activities of the school which are part of American educational system. It gives a chance to learn new experience and it has a lot of goals, such as: to be fair and treat others as one wishes to be treated, to show respect for authority (e.g. coaches, officials, captains), to generate a sense of pride and unity in co-curricular programs for students, staff and community.
Participants of co-curricular program also have responsibilities. They should develop strength of character, get the greatest benefit from their high school experience, live healthy and respect their mental and physical wellbeing. It prepares them for their life as an adult and that is why they should be a role model for others. Because the student body and community know them, they are very visible both on and off the field. Because of this role of leader, they should also assist in developing the school spirit and community pride. Denmark students are a class act! We are known as a program of character and excellence.9
Participant also have responsibility to their family. They should always show them the best of their abilities, so their family can be proud of them. Responsibility to younger student sis not an exception. Younger students also watch them because maybe someday they want to grow up to be just like them, so the athletes should be an example for them and make the youth proud. Younger students will most likely copy them in many ways.
Co-curricular code is divided in two groups (1 and 2) of sports or activities in which students may be involved. Because of their differences, rules depend upon whether the student is in a group one or two activity. Group one activities are especially sports,
8 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 9 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 16 such as baseball, basketball, football or others. Group two activities are mostly interest groups, for example student council or art club.
Table number 1 – Table of contents
Source: Denmark High School Student Handbook10
2.2.2 Academic eligibility Another important part of American school system is academic eligibility. Students who do not have great results in school, cannot participate in school activities. Which puts the education on the first place and sports second, and that is an important aspect of the American attitude. But how does it work in the Czech Republic? Well, because sports are not directly connected to schools, most of the teams do not care about
10 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 17 results of a player. This can become a problem, because athletes then start focusing on one of the two things and can become worse in the other, it is material to find the right balance and that is what academic eligibility does. In the Denmark High School, a student has to satisfy District and DPI requirements defining a student who studies full time. Students are required to maintain a current term GPA of 1.75 or above and must have no more than one “F” at the end of the most recent grading period prior to the start of a particular athletic or activity season. Incompletes are considered failing grades until the work is completed and a final grade is entered. Grades are reviewed on the 15th and 30th day of each term, and at the end of each term at the High School and Middle School. Students will immediately be placed on co-curricular probation or suspension if the academic criteria are not met when the grades are reviewed. Suspension list will be sent to coaches and advisors.11 Students who participate in interschool sport also have to be aware of rules stipulated by the Wisconsin International Athletic Association (WIAA).
2.2.3 Attendance It is really important to excuse all absences from scheduled school activities to the couch or advisor. Coaches have to report all unexcused absence of athletes. The penalty for a first offense of an unexcused absence will be suspension from one event/contest/performance. For any succeeding unexcused absences, the penalty will be termination from the co-curricular activity for the remainder of the season.12 Exceptions must have administrative approval.
2.2.4 Conduct violations Athletes and students are hoped to follow all rules of school and to show respect for others, use of appropriate clothes and of course good behavior. All students must stay out of any conduct that would reflect bad light on them or the school. Conduct includes the following: Use, sale possession or distribution of any drug paraphernalia or controlled substances, including alcohol products, illegal drugs, steroids, inhalants or prescription drugs used in a manner other than they are supposed to be for. Use, purchase or possession of tobacco products. Organization or attendance of a party where are drugs or alcohol being used or consumed. Criminal offense or criminal infraction such as damage to
11 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 12 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 18 property or vandalism. Appropriate representation on the internet including social networks and online messaging.
Coaches can adopt the rules but these rules cannot be in conflict with Co- Curricular Code. Presence in bars is also prohibited. Students can be at ceremonial functions such as wedding where alcohol is served, but they are prohibited to consume it. If a student is at a party where alcohol is served, he must immediately leave and try to take as many classmates as possible with them. To proof that student was attending some event out of school may be gathered for example by a police report or visual evidence.
2.2.5 Consequences and penalties Students are expected to follow the given rules, if they do not, a punishment can come. Before a student can start serving a code violation, she/he must be academically eligible. There are different penalties for Group 1 and Group 2 activities, because in Group one we can find mainly sports, which are punished differently than just school activities.
• For Group 1 activities, the length of the disciplinary period shall be determined from the mathematical equivalent of the number of scheduled contests (to include the first WIAA playoff contest) rounded up to the nearest whole number.
• The ending date of the disciplinary period shall be the conclusion of the prescribed number of contests and/or period of time as determined below.
• If the suspension is not completed when a season ends, the remainder of the suspension will be served during the next season in which the students participates. For example: If a student is suspended during football (Group 1 Activity) and serves a suspension of 2 out of 8 games, or 25% of a 100% penalty, then the student must serve the remaining 75% during the next Group 1 activity in which he or she participates.
• If a suspension carries over into the next Group 1 activity the penalty served will only be valid if the student completes the season, discouraging students from joining an activity simply to serve a suspension.
• A student with a code violation is ineligible for any dance court. In order to be eligible for dance courts, student must not be on suspension list at time of vote through the day of the event.
19
*After two calendar years of most recent violation, student has not participated in any co-curricular activities, and student has no subsequent violations, student is clear of all violations.
Table number 2 – Punishments at Denmark High School
Source: Denmark High School Student Handbook13
*Penalties will carry over into the 2nd Group 1 activity or Group 2 activity if the suspension is not completed in the original season/activity or from one school year to the next.
† If a student wishes to return to co-curricular activities after the two-year suspension has been served, they must provide evidence of completing AODA counseling (at parental expense), when all violations were alcohol or drug related.14
As we can see from the table number 2, it is a strict system that is being used in the United States and compared to the student’s handbooks usually used in the Czech Republic, this is very long and complicated. Student’s handbooks in the Czech Republic usually have around 5-10 pages, the ones from the United States around 40-60. Could this be the part of athlete’s behavior and their mentality? Being raised under the strict system gives student a certain routine and self-discipline which can be then a big factor in future life.
13 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 14 Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf 20
2.2.6 Penalty execution One very important thing to notice is that it is not only during the school year when student can break the Code of Conduct but also during the holidays. If it happens so, student is obligated to begin serving their penalty from the first day of their next school year. Students from Group 2 activities can start their serving of penalties on the day they are suspended but to participate in any activities, they must complete all the community service hours.
2.2.7 The importance of education and it’s connection to sports While studying in the United States, I noticed one major difference between the two countries and that could be the key to answer our questions.
How to connect education and a professional sports career? Well, in the Czech Republic, it is not that common for a professional athlete to have a university diploma, even though it becomes more and more popular and there are more and more different degrees that allow the athletes/students to study at university and still be able to invest a lot of time in sports. But it has not always been like that, especially in the history. Just a few years ago, it was not possible to study bachelor’s degree just for three years and have a college diploma. Back in the days, after the communism fell down, it was usual to go to college for 5 years and get only Master’s degree. Also, there were not as many different types of school as there are now. This changes the situation and nowadays allows the athletes to get educated and do sports at the same time, which is huge progress. On the other hand, we are talking about universities, but what about high schools? In my research based on the data from the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Physical Education there are only 17 sport high schools in the whole Czech Republic, usually one or two for each district. Each of these schools focus on different sports and allow athletes to study with an individual schedule with bigger absence allowed or different attitude built towards the students with understanding that sport is what they want to do at some point in their life.
When we look at the American high school system, we would not find a school where there is no high school professional team, either in American football, basketball, volleyball or for example baseball. It is part of the American mentality and tradition to have these teams and allow the students to evolve in sport and study at the same time with the same importance of both. The kids have an option to choose a sport they like and play
21 it, the practices are several times a week, right after school and because of the block system of studying, everyone finishes at the same time, every day, the whole school year. So, the teachers and coaches exactly know, when they can start their practices and because of the whole school connection, they also can excuse the students from school in case there is a game some hours away from their home town. In the United States, for a high school student, sport is an important part of everyday life and most of the kids are taught this from the kindergarten. Sport is a way to connect with your classmates and create new friendships. These bonds then last from the first day of school until the end of high school.
In 2016, Gallup did a research on the topic “Do former student-athletes outperform other college graduates on important career and life outcomes?” They found out that female college graduates are significantly more likely to be engaged in their work and thriving in several areas of well-being compared with other college graduates.15 As a well being here, they consider factors such as social live, physical well-being, having strong and supportive relationships. In their previous research, they found out that girls who participated in high school sports were more likely to get better grades and graduate than girls who did not play sports. Also, girls and woman who play sports have higher confidence and self-esteem levels. Female college graduates who played NCAA Division I, II or III sports in college are more likely to be employed full time for an employer (62%), compared with female graduates who were not student-athletes (56%). They are also more likely to be participating in the workforce than their non-athlete peers -- 9% of female former student-athletes are not part of the workforce, compared with 17% of female non-student-athletes. Female former student-athletes are more likely to be employed and are somewhat more likely to be engaged in their work (48%), compared with female non-athlete grads (41%). And not only do they outperform their female non- athlete counterparts on this measure, they also top both male former athletes (38%) and male non-athletes (36%) by a wide margin. When it comes to the likelihood of having a great job, female former student-athletes win across the board on these comparisons. When it comes to physical well-being (having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis), female former student-athletes distinguish themselves the
15 BUSTEED, Brandon a Julie RAY. Former Student-Athletes Are Winners in Well- Being [online]. 17.2.2016 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/189206/former-student-athletes-winners.aspx 22 most: 47% are thriving in physical well-being, compared with 33% of female non- athletes, 36% of male former athletes and 32% of male non-athletes.16
Picture number 2 – Comparison of well-being of student athletes and non-athletes
Source: Gallup17
2.3 Sports In the United States of America, sports are necessary part of its culture and that may also be one of the reasons why the United States are so dominant in most of them. It has been a tradition for a very long time and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 19% of the U.S. population was engaged in sports and exercised each day in 2017.18 Male participation was about 2% higher than female participation rate. The statistics include participations in sports but also any exercise or other movement activities. According to Statista survey that was done in 2016, about 25% of American population did some exercise on daily bases.
Talking about sports in the United States of America, it is very different in comparison to favorite sports in the Czech Republic. There are five major leagues in the United States. The National Football League (NFL), The National Basketball League (NBA), The Major League of Baseball (MLB), The National Hockey League (NHL) and the youngest – the Major League of Soccer also known as the MLS.
16 BUSTEED, Brandon. Female Student-Athletes Win Big on Great Jobs, Lives [online]. 17.2.2016 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/189227/female- student-athletes-win-big-great-jobs-lives.aspx 17 BUSTEED, Brandon. Female Student-Athletes Win Big on Great Jobs, Lives [online]. 17.2.2016 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/189227/female- student-athletes-win-big-great-jobs-lives.aspx 18 GOUGH, Christina. Physical Activity - Statistics & Facts. In: Statista [online]. 11.9.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.statista.com/topics/1749/physical-activity/ 23
In the United States, sports are particularly connected to the education, with the most school organized sports in the world. College, but also high school sports play a big role in American culture and especially college American football and basketball are as popular as professional leagues.
2.3.1 Introduction to sports 2.3.1.1 American football When people say a word football in Europe, they mean soccer, when people say word football in America, they mean American football. For Europeans, there is no such thing as soccer, but on the other side of the Earth, American football has grown with an incredible speed since its birth.
The start of a professional football is dated to the 12th of November 1892. On this day, the Allegheny Athletic Association football team defeated the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The game was not special for its sports attractivity, but for the fact, that for the first time in history, one of the Allegheny Athletic Association players, William Heffelfinger, was openly paid 500 dollars to play the game. It is now more than 100 years ago and at that time, no one could possibly have the slightest clue what this moment provided for the games popularity in the future.19
Officially, the roots of American football reach back to 1869, when Rutgers and Princeton played what now is known as the first college football game. It was not until the 1880s when a great rugby player Walter Camp changed rugby rules and helped to transform it into American football.20
The main objective of the game is to score more points than your opponent in the allotted time. To score a point, players must move the ball forward into the ‘endzone,’ which is an area behind the end line at each side of the field. When a player holding a ball runs across the base line, the play is called touchdown and his team earns six points. Touchdown can be achieved by either receiving the ball in the end zone – behind the base line, or by running with the ball into the endzone.21
19 Birth of pro football. In: Pro football hall of fame [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/birth-of-pro-football/ 20 Birth of pro football. In: Pro football hall of fame [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/birth-of-pro-football/ 21 American football rules. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football_rules 24
After deciding by a coin flipping which team starts on the ball, each team gets 4 chances (downs), to move the ball 10 yards (9.1 meters) forward. Once the team passes the 10 yards point, their owns reset and they start again for another 10 yards. If the team fails to pass the 10 yards, the ball will be turned over to the defensing team. By passing these 10 yards for a number of times, team can possibly get to the end of the field and score a touchdown. After the touchdown, the team has a chance to score an extra point. An extra point can be scored either by kicking the ball in between the upright posts or by making an extra play, when the team goes for another touchdown and starts at the 10- yard offensive line.
There are two more ways to score. One of them is kicking the ball in between the posts instead of going for a touchdown. The team has opportunity to kick the ball from anywhere in the field and in case they manage to kick the ball in between the two posts, they get three points. The other way is when the defensive team manages to tackle an attacking opponent in their own end zone, for this the team will receive 2 points.
The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, if the number of points is the same, there will be an additional quarter played until the winner is found.
The duration of the game is 60 minutes, divided into 4 quarters. There is a 2- minute break between the first and the second quarter and the third and the fourth quarter. In the half of the game, there is a 15-minute break, this pause is called the half time.22
2.3.1.2 Baseball Baseball, at one point in the history, the most favorite sport to watch in the United States is purely an American invention. In September 1845, a group of New York City men founded the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club. One of them—volunteer firefighter and bank clerk Alexander Joy Cartwright—would codify a new set of rules that would form the basis for modern baseball, calling for a diamond-shaped infield, foul lines and the three-strike rule. He also abolished the dangerous practice of tagging runners by throwing balls at them. Cartwright’s changes made the burgeoning pastime faster-paced and more challenging while clearly differentiating it from older games like cricket. In 1846, the Knickerbockers played the first official game of baseball against a team of cricket players, beginning a
22 American Football rules. In: Rules of sports [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/american-football.html 25 new, uniquely American tradition.23 Nowadays, baseball is very popular not only in the North America, but also in Canada and Japan.
The game is played between two teams, each having nine players. Duration of the game is 9 innings with each team alternating between betting and fielding in every inning. The objective of baseball is to score more runs than your opponent. It is based on the idea of hitting the ball thrown by a pitcher and running as far as the player can. If he is fast enough to run around all 4 bases that are placed in the shape of diamond, before the ball is caught and thrown to a catcher standing at a base where the player is trying to get, he gets a point. Each team has three outs per inning before they swap roles.
2.3.1.3 Basketball Basketball, nowadays the second most played sport in America is played on the rectangular field with rounded ball. Players try to get the ball to the opponent’s basket placed at the height of 10 feet (3.048 meters) at the end of the field. Player’s positions are offensive and defensive, the most famous technique of this game is dribbling. For basketball there are typical events like the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) annual tournament and the National Basketball Association (NBA) play-offs.
2.3.1.4 Ice-hockey Ice-hockey, for the people from the Czech Republic, is a common thing, but how is it really with the sport in the rest of the world? When we look at the number of registered players in 2018/2019, the Czech Republic sits on the third place with 121 613 players, which is an incredible number. Only Canada and United States are in front of this little country in the middle of Europe, with 621 026 players in Canada and 567 908 in the United States. Considering only statistics, we can say that ice-hockey is a huge phenomenon in this country and from our – Czech perspective, it is an obvious thing to watch the World Championships and other ice-hockey competitions, but in the rest of the world, it is not the same at all. In total, there are 20 countries with officially registered players in the whole world, which is compared to soccer – the most popular sport in the Czech Republic, a small number.24 Soccer is played by more than 250 million payers in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world’s most popular sport according
23 STAFF, History. Who Invented Baseball? [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-baseball 24 GOUGH, Christina. Registered ice hockey players by country 2018/2019. In: Statista [online]. 23.10.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282349/number-of- registered-ice-hockey-by-country/ 26 to statistics.com. Looking at these numbers, we realize that it is incredible what ice- hockey has become in the Czech Republic but also that we cannot consider it an important international sport and that is maybe the thing sometimes we do not realize. Its market is about 100 times smaller than soccer market and therefore the revenues and investments will always be lower.
2.4 Americans’ favorite spectator sports Graph number 1 – Americans’ Favorite Sports, 1937-2017
Source: Gallup25
According to Gallup, the most favorite sport in the United States from the spectators’ side is American Football, which was picked by 37% of adults as their favorite sport to watch. On the second spot, we can find basketball with 11% and on the third, it is baseball, favored by 9% of the people asked (graph number 1). Gallup has been doing researches since 1937 and the number of people who picked baseball is the lowest since the research start. Until 1972, baseball was twice named as the most popular sports in the United States, but ever since 1972, football has started dominating.26
25 NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football-americans-favorite- sport-watch.aspx 26 NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football-americans-favorite- sport-watch.aspx 27
On the other hand, the popularity of soccer in the United States grows rapidly. To this date, 7% of people voted soccer as their favorite sport to watch and it has been the highest number that any other sport than the major three – football, baseball and basketball, that people voted. This only happened once in the history and that was in 1997, when the car racing went through huge boom.
Even though American football is still number one in the United States, we can notice it has been slightly losing its popularity in the past few years. According to Gallup research, in 2006 and 2007 American football was at its peak with 43% of question people choosing football as their favorite sport to watch. It started dropping in 2008 when 2% less voted and then dropped again in 2013 to 39%. The last research done by Gallup was in December of 2017, when 37% of the people chose football as their number one (table number 3).27 There have been discussions about why is this drop happening and some people started assuming it might have been caused by numerous reasons. One of them can be violence of football players in their personal live. There has been a lot of issues and especially one of them, that happened in 2014 caused a big question about state of mind of football players. Back then, huge star of the NFL Ray Rice was caught on video punching his wife in an elevator and then dragging her unconscious out of there. By far this was not the only case. The most recent one happened in September of 2019, when one of the best receivers of the NFL was fired by his team New England Patriots because of sexual assault allegations. Antonio Brown was also accused of writing threatening messages to one of the two women that accused him of sexual assault. These scandals can have big impact on peoples’ view of the sport. The second reason could be the number of concussions connected to American football. There are number of studies and documents showing how often this injury appear and how it effects not only physical but also mental health of the athlete. Concussions are not only happening in American football, but in big amount also in ice-hockey. One of the studies done on this injury inspired Peter Landesman to direct a movie Concussions, which brings this problem into the public. In the Gallup poll, women are less likely to vote for football as their favorite, which might also be caused because of the roughness of this sport or the mentioned problem of assaults on women done by football players. Maybe a little surprisingly, the age group that watches football the least is group from 18- to 34-year-olds who may be future athletes.
27 NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football-americans-favorite- sport-watch.aspx 28
Soccer is preferred by younger population and on the other side baseball is mostly prefer by audience 55 years and older.28
Table number 3 – Americas favorite sports to watch
Source: Gallup29
Gallup Survey Method
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Dec. 4-11, 2017, with a random sample of 1,049 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within
28 NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football-americans-favorite- sport-watch.aspx 29 NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football-americans-favorite- sport-watch.aspx 29 region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.30
2.5 High school seasons In the American high school system, there is are certain rules that are applied in each state. As an example, I chose Wisconsin to describe the seasonal sports system.
Because in Wisconsin school usually starts in the beginning of September and ends in the end of May, the school year is divided in two semesters. In sports, it is divided in three different seasons, in which there are always different sports an athlete can choose from to compete in. Starting with fall, at the Denmark High School in Wisconsin.
Autumn season, which lasts from September until the end of November. Winter season, which takes place from the beginning of December until the end of February. And the third, spring season, which continues after the end of spring season until the end of the school year. Because in Wisconsin, the winters are heavy, athletes spend one third of the school year on the inside, in other states, it can be very different.
In autumn season, athletes can choose from cross country, soccer for boys, golf for girls, volleyball and American football, the most common and favorite sports in the United states. In winter season, there is boys’ and girls’ basketball and wrestling. In spring, it is baseball, golf for boys, girls’ soccer, softball and track and field. As we can see, they put one primary sport (as a primary sport it is meant one of the top five sports in the U.S.) in every season, so they do not cover each other and students can still play all of them. At our schools, at this time, when student is sixteen or seventeen years old, it is not usual that he or she plays more sports at a high level. So that is the first very big difference we can find in the systems.
2.6 The system of college sports College sports in the United States has been popular since the 1920s and their popularity started growing massively as the games started being broadcasted on TV. It is not only about the popularity of sports, college athletics are important both culturally and economically. Intercollegiate sports create both racially and culturally diverse environment for athletics and academics and on the economical side, a lot of schools are
30 NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football-americans-favorite- sport-watch.aspx 30 benefiting from their athletic programs through merchandise sales, ticket sales, donations etc. College programs in the United States cover more than 24 different NCAA sports with 460,000 student-athletes, both male and female.31 It also gives a big number of jobs to coaches, trainers and administrative staff. The importance of college athletics in the U.S. is enormous because of its role in the hierarchy of sport organizations. It starts the pyramid scheme with small schools and organizations and progresses with better and better competitive colleges, where professional clubs draft their players. This system is unique and very different from most other countries in the world, because it serves as a government-funded source for professional competition.
2.6.1 Organizations College sports in the United States are primarily sports and athletic competition organized and funded by institutions such as universities or colleges. The system is based on two tiers, the first one includes collective sports that are led by one of the governing bodies such as National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA). On the second level, the individual sports have their own organizations such as National Collegiate Boxing Association, USA Rugby and others. The first tier additionally selects its participants, because only the elite teams are able to compete and offer scholarships to their athletes. In total, there are around 460,000 student athletes who participated in athletics every year. The largest organization is the NCAA and the most participants are in basketball with 2,197 basketball teams at all levels. Second most popular is cross country and the third is baseball/softball.32
2.6.2 NCAA The NCAA is a non-profit organization which associates more than 1,250 institutions and conferences. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana and organizes athletic programs for more than 460,000 college student athletes who compete in college sports. It was founded on March 31st in 1906, more than 114 years ago.
In its 2016-17 season, it created a revenue of 1.06 billion dollars of which 82% was generated by the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The NCAA works in a
31 Student-Athletes [online]. 2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: http://www.ncaa.org/student- athletes 32 Student-Athletes [online]. 2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: http://www.ncaa.org/student- athletes 31 three-division system of Division I, II and III. Under the NCAA rules, Division I and Division II can offer scholarship to student-athletes for playing a sport. On the other hand, Division III schools may not offer any athletic scholarships. Usually, bigger schools compete in Division I and smaller schools in Divisions II and III. Because American football has a huge number of participants, it was further divided into Division I-A and - AA in 1978, Division I-AAA was added shortly.
The NCAA currently awards 90 national champions yearly for sports including: basketball, baseball, beach volleyball, softball, football, cross country, golf, ice-hockey and many others. The most popular sports are basketball, cross country, gold, track and field and football.
2.6.3 Tournaments and events The NCAA organizes variety of different tournaments, which are the main source of revenue. As noted before, in 2016-17 fiscal year, 85% by revenue was created by the tournament called March Madness – the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Events like these are not only creating revenue, they are also one of the most popular TV Broadcasts in the United States and also the most attended events in all sports. When we look at the attendance records in university games, they are simply unbelievable. Just for comparison, the biggest attendance at a college football game was in 2016 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee with 156,990 spectators compared to the biggest Super Bowl attendance which happened in 2011 between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers or even the best attended Champions League game held at Wembley Stadium in England in 2016 with 85,512 spectators.33
As already mentioned earlier, the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament also known as March Madness is a single-elimination tournament played every March in the United States. It has 68 participants from different colleges and universities across the U.S. and it determines the national champion. The tournament was established in 1939 and it is now one of the most iconic sporting events in the United States. The tournament teams include champions from 32 Division I conferences and 36 teams chosen by an NCAA selection committee. The 68 teams are later divided into four regions and matched up in single game elimination. The last four teams also known as the Final Four from
33 ROVELL, Darren. NCAA tops $1 billion in revenue during 2016-17 school year. In: ESPN [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.espn.com/college- sports/story/_/id/22678988/ncaa-tops-1-billion-revenue-first 32 each region compete in the first weekend of April in preselected location for the national championship. This tournament has been broadcast since 1969 and the games are currently broadcast by one of the biggest names in sports industry such as CBS or TBS. The CBS broadcast provides the NCAA with over 500 million dollars annually and makes up over 90% of the NCAA’s annual revenue.34 This year, 68 teams got an invitation to play in the tournament. Each of those team’s conferences will get a piece of a pot of money known as the basketball fund. The basketball fund was $200 million in 2015 and equates to 30% of the TV ad money received by the NCAA. For each game a team plays, its conference gets a payout, which is based on their performance over a six-year rolling period. Conferences get “units” for their tournament participation, which each unit equating to roughly $250,000—for the 2013 tournament. If a team makes it all the way to the final game, it can earn as many as five units. If a team makes the final game from the first-four bracket, it could earn a total of six units.35
Among other tournaments, there is one that should not be skipped, the NCAA Division I Football Championship. It is an annual post-season college football game played to determine the national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). It is one game between winners of bracket tournament between the top teams in FCS. Since 2013, 24 teams participate in the tournament, some of them determined by a selection committee, the others as winners of their divisions. The championship game is played every January and shows huge amount of talent, therefore a lot of scouts and agents from NFL teams attend to see potential draft picks for their team.
2.6.4 Scholarships Scholarships are very important aspect in student’s life in the United States of America because unlike in the Czech Republic, the college education is not for free. The average college year at a public school in the state the student is from 25,290 American
34 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Men%27s_Basketball_Tournament 35 PARKER, Tim. How Much Does the NCAA Make off March Madness? In: Investopedia [online]. 31.10.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/031516/how-much-does-ncaa-make-march- madness.asp 33 dollars, according to ValuePenguin research in 2019.36 More detailed review of American university system is listed in the chapter Colleges and Universities.
Scholarship is basically an award or money given to a student mostly from companies but also from universities, private investors, sports teams and others. Unlike in the Czech Republic, no college athlete playing a sport for American college or university can receive any money from the school, therefore it is very hard to finance a student with this amount of expenses by a family or an athlete himself and only a few individuals choose to go this way. On the other hand, in the Czech Republic, athletes studying college usually already have their professional contract and receive at least some kind of money support from the team, therefore they do not have to stress about their financial situation and can focus on the sport. Scholarships are given to students for various reasons: the student can qualify for it or win it by his or her athletic, academic or artistic ability. Or on the other side: by agreeing to follow a specific career. There are various types of scholarships but the two most common are merit-based and need-based scholarships. The donor or department funding the scholarship sets the criteria for recipient selection, and the grantor specifically defines how the money is to be applied. The funds are used to defray the costs of tuition, books, room, board and other expenses directly tied to a student’s educational cost through the university.37
The National Center for Education Statistics reports there are 750,000 scholarships earmarked for qualified students, totaling $1.2 billion. Much of that money comes from Uncle Sam. In fact, nearly 40 percent of enrolled college kids receive free government money in the form of Pell Grants. Such awards are granted to needy families who meet certain financial criteria. The average size of a government scholarship runs $2,001. Private scholarships average $2,051 and are awarded to both needy and non- needy students alike. Only 6 percent of college students receive them, which means the
36 SONG, Justin. Average Cost of College in America [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/average-cost-of-college 37 What is a Scholarship? [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.southalabama.edu/departments/financialaffairs/scholarships/whatisascholarship.ht ml 34 odds of actually scoring a private grant run about 1 in 17. Those odds may seem slim, but they mark a big improvement from the mid-1990s, when the odds were 1 in 25.38
Athletic scholarships are a little bit different from the other ones. Depending on athlete’s high school performance, he/she can contact a university matching his/her level and start communicating with them about maybe a future career there. But it is not always that the athlete has to contact the university, there are lots of scouts going around high- school game to watch extremely talented athletes to offer them to play for their university after graduating for high school in exchange for part or complete coverage of college expenses. This gives high school athletes a huge motivation to become the best on the team and really stand out from the crowd because even if the student does not succeed in professional sport career, he/she can get free college graduation.
Athletic scholarships are typically one-year agreements between the college and the athlete, although some are multi-year. They are offered at the NCAA DI and DII levels, as well as at the NAIA and NJCAA levels—combined, that’s thousands of schools. DIII colleges do not offer athletic scholarships, but many DIII student-athletes receive some kind of financial aid.39 NCAA Division I is the highest possible level where a college athlete can play. Unfortunately, fewer than 2% of high-school student-athletes are offered athletic scholarships, but the amount of money given to the students still reaches an incredible amount of 3.1 billion American dollars for Divisions I and II alone, so there is certainly a lot of money out there. However, it is important to understand that most of the money goes to the most popular sports (Chapter: “The most popular sports”), because those are the sports from which school receive the most money. For men, it would be Division I basketball and Division I-A football, for women it is Division I basketball, tennis, volleyball and gymnastics. It is up to the coaches how they divide their scholarship money among the student-athletes. That means that they can either pay very few extremely high-level athletes, or they spread the money out among multiple athletes, which is more common. Equivalency sports for DI men include baseball, rifle, skiing, cross-country, track and field, soccer, fencing, swimming, golf, tennis, gymnastics,
38 Secrets of the free ride: Scholarships are there for taking. You just need to know where to look. [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://money.cnn.com/2002/06/11/pf/college/q_scholarship/ 39 Athletic Scholarships: Everything You Need to Know. In: NCSA [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting/how-to-get-recruited/scholarship-facts 35 volleyball, ice hockey, water polo, lacrosse and wrestling. For DI women, equivalency sports include bowling, lacrosse, rowing, cross-country, track and field, skiing, fencing, soccer, field hockey, softball, golf, swimming, ice hockey and water polo. All DII and NAIA sports are equivalency sports.40
It is known that the best way to finance a college for an athlete is to combine athletic and academic scholarship. Therefore, it is not only important how the athlete performs on the field, but also how he/she does in academic way.
2.6.5 Drafts A draft is a process used mostly in the United States to allocate certain players to teams. In a draft, teams take turns in a selection of eligible players and when they select one, they receive exclusive rights to sign a contract with that player for a given period of time. No other team can sign a contract with that player during the given time period – usually 3 years. All four major sports in the U.S. – baseball, football, basketball and hockey use similar draft mechanism. Depending on the caliber of players eligible in a given year, the draft can provide much drama and get publicity.41 The draft picks are usually given based on the teams last year result, so the league stays balanced. For example, in the NHL, the entry draft happens every year and includes players from 18 to 21 years old. The selection order is determined by a combination of lottery, regular season standing and playoff results. The first 15 picks are given to the teams that did not qualify for the playoffs the previous season (table number 4). The worst the team was, the bigger chance for number one pick it has. For example, let’s have a look at the results of 2018-2019 season. The last placed team was the Ottawa Senators. By being ranked the 31st, they got 18.5% chance to win the first draft pick position. The second team – Los Angeles Kings were given 13.5% chance for the first pick (table number 5). The reason why teams are not given the picks directly is that in the history, when the teams knew they could not compete for the playoffs anymore, they began to boycott the matches and tried to finish the last – to get the number one pick. Therefore, NHL decided to change the system of draft lottery and is now giving the spots based on the lottery. Ottawa Senators decided to trade the number one pick to Colorado Avalanche, so as you can see
40 Athletic Scholarships: Everything You Need to Know. In: NCSA [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting/how-to-get-recruited/scholarship-facts 41 Jeffrey A. Rosenthal, The Amateur Sports Draft: The Best Means to the End?, 6 Marq. Sports L. J. 1 (1995) 36 in the tables below, the first pick is noted as a pick of Ottawa Senators, but in the end the pick was owned by Colorado Avalanche.
Table number 4: Draft lottery 2019
Source of pic: Daily Hive42
Table number 5: Draft lottery 2019
Source of pic: Wikipedia – NHL 2019 Entry Draft43
42 WILLIAMS, Rob. Everything you need to know about tonight's NHL Draft Lottery. In: Daily Hive [online]. 4.4.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/nhl-draft- lottery-time-2019 43 2019 NHL Entry Draft. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_NHL_Entry_Draft 37
Picture number 3: 2019 NHL Draft Lottery
Source: Beer League Heroes – 2019 NHL Draft Lottery44
Table number 6: NHL Draft picks 2019
Source Wikipedia – 2019 NHL Entry Draft45
Even with almost 20% chance to get the first the number one pick, the draft lottery moved the Colorado Avalanche to number 4 and the first pick was given to New Jersey Devils, who had 11.5% to get the number one pick (picture number 3). New Jersey Devils chose Jack Hughes as their pick who was ranked as number one prospect throughout most of the year (table number 6). The Devils inked No. 1 overall pick Jack Hughes to an entry- level contract on Friday morning, a three-year pact carrying an annual average value of $3.775 million. The deal carries a $925,000 annual salary with $2.85 million in bonuses,
44 Draft Lottery 2019 [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://i0.wp.com/www.beerleagueheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/04- 09_hawks_draft_lottery_1920x1080_1485031491538.jpg?fit=656%2C369&ssl=1 45 2019 NHL Entry Draft. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_NHL_Entry_Draft 38 making the pack worth a total of $11.325 million, according to CapFriendly.com. The No. 2 pick in the 2019 draft, Kaapo Kakko, received a similar deal worth $10.75 million from the Rangers that week.46
2.7 Systems of financing We cannot deny the huge difference between the parts of the world between 1948 to 1989. Different ideologies that ruled in the countries also projected on how nowadays sports are being financed. In Europe, most of the clubs are privately owned, in comparison to the North America, where most of the teams for young athletes are school clubs.
Part of professional sports is also taking care of talented youth athletes. The main interest is focused on the most talented athletes, who will be able to compete on a state level after a short period of practice time. This preparation has a lot of expenses and that is one of the reasons why it cannot be left to only the family to take care of. In this case, athletes from socially weaker families would be eliminated and would not be able to get a chance to find out their talent and skills in specific sport. On the other hand, the development of a young athlete also cannot be left only to a school or other physical education organization. The only exception could be an education orientated for a special needs of a certain sports club.47 If a country wants to be successful on the world scale, it needs to have the right system of taking care of young athletes and enough sources to support the athletes and let them develop.
2.7.1 Financing of sports in the Czech Republic In one research done by Vosyka, Kynos, Jon and Kejval in 2009 for a project Analýza financování sportu v České republice, we can see the amount of money invested only in sports throughout years 1989 – 2008 (graph number 2). The main effort of the author team was to elaborate a time series of state expenditures in the field of sport from 1989 to 2008. To compare data collected in different policy environments, in different states, in different countries ownership and legal conditions, the team tried to eliminate these influences. The basic guide was to record only those resources that go directly into the sports environment. The results show that during years before 1990, sport was a preferred industry. After 1989, there was a sharp decline in funding sport. It hit the bottom
46 Jack Hughes, Devils make it official with three-year contract. In: New York Post [online]. 12.6.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://nypost.com/2019/07/12/jack-hughes-devils- make-it-official-with-three-year-contract/ 47 NOVOTNÝ, Jiří. Ekonomika sportu. Praha: Vysoká škola ekonomická, 1995. 39 in 1997-1998, when spending on sport was less than half of the percentage of state spending budget compared to 1989. After that, resources started increasing and it culminated in 2001. Then, mainly because of rapid economic growth, which was not adequately reflected in sport expenditure, permanent decline began. This trend was amplified by the decision of the sports environment to finance multipurpose arena in Prague. These factors continued to affect the finance value so that the proportion of money sports environment has recently reached record through in relation to the state budget volume. We can observe a similar trend even in a case when the funds relate to the GDP parameter or to the average wages in the Czech Republic each year (graph number 3).
Graph number 2 – Analysis of financing sports in the Czech Republic 1989-2008
Source: Analýza financování sportu v ČR, 200948
48 MINISTERSTVO ŠKOLSTVÍ, MLÁDEŽE A TĚLOVÝCHOVY A ČESKÝ OLYMPIJSKÝ VÝBOR. Analýza financování sportu v České republice. 2009. Dostupné také z: http://www.msmt.cz/sport/analyza-financovani-sportu-v-ceske-republice 40
Graph number 3 – Government expenditures on sports compared with other EU countries
Source: Olympic - Výdaje na financování sportu, 201249
In the next graph (graph number 4), we can see result of a French study done in 2008 “Study of public and private financing of sport in Europe,” that shows us that the state is not a majority investor in sports but it is the households that actaully invest almost 50% of the total expenditures. In some sports such as ice-hockey, this can become a huge problem for families from lower social levels, who cannot afford to buy equipment for their kids, therefore the potential of a child can be overlooked and never developed.
49 Výdaje státního rozpočtu na sport [online]. In: . 2012 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.olympic.cz/financovani/financovani-sportu/grafy.html 41
Graph number 4 – The structure of financing sports based on a French study “Study of public and private financing of sports in Europe (2008)”
State
Households Regions
Companies
Source: Analýza financování sportu v ČR, 200950
50 MINISTERSTVO ŠKOLSTVÍ, MLÁDEŽE A TĚLOVÝCHOVY A ČESKÝ OLYMPIJSKÝ VÝBOR. Analýza financování sportu v České republice. 2009. Dostupné také z: http://www.msmt.cz/sport/analyza-financovani-sportu-v-ceske-republice 42
Graph number 5 – Government expenditures, red circle shows the Ministry of Education, youth and sports.
Source: MŠMT – Státní rozpočet 2019 v kostce51
51 STÁTNÍ ROZPOČET 2019 V KOSTCE: Kapesní příručka ministerstva financí. 2019. 43
2.7.2 Financing of sports in the United States of America In comparison with the Czech Republic, the model of financing sports in the United States of America is characterized by considerable diversification of sources. If we compare the model to the one applied in the past in the Czech Republic, there are far more resources that exist here. Another interesting point is that athletes themselves are an important part that consumes money. Most of the financial flows go through the element of “top sports,” represented here, for example, by sports federation, the International Olympic Committee, sports event organizers and sports team owners. In addition, professional athletes stand aside and some cash flows are directed towards them with no intermediate link. It is clear from the model that taxpayers are one of the many sources of top sport financing. Immediately through public spending, this is a relatively weak source. On the contrary, the most powerful and important source is the fees for television broadcasting rights.52
One of the next biggest differences in sports financing between these two models is tickets revenues. On the high school or college level in the Czech Republic, there is not material value from revenues from these games, also because there are no games like these. No games that would be interesting enough for a fan to come and spend money for. In the United States, this is a usual thing. People come to watch high school and college games and are glad to spend money there, because they know that they will support their children and the sport itself. These games are popular enough to be even broadcasted, which is not imaginable in the Czech Republic. Is there a simple answer that there is not enough people in the Czech Republic? Or can it be caused by the history of the system and its way of developing?
In the North American sports system, the owners of the clubs/franchises are also the owners of the league and it has a purely private ownership structure. The owners have the exclusive right to decide who is involved and to appoint a ‘commissioner’ that has the full power to make decisions regarding the league (essentially a CEO). Also, since the leagues are privately owned, they do not need to publish any financial statements. Therefore, owners have a lot of power to protect their investment.53
52 NOVOTNÝ, Jiří. Ekonomika sportu. Praha: Vysoká škola ekonomická, 1995. 53 NORTH AMERICAN VS EUROPEAN SPORTS SYSTEM [online]. In: . 27.2.2017 [cit. 2020- 05-06]. Dostupné z: http://sportsbite.blog/north-american-vs-european-sports-system/ 44
2.7.3 Salary Cap In connection with sports financing, we find one very interesting and different aspect between European and American market. It is a salary cap. Salary cap is a limitation for either not spending enough money or not spending too much money, so the competition between different teams in one league is kept on the right level because, of course, every team has a different owner and different capabilities of financing the club/team.
When we look at Europe, or specifically the Czech Republic, we cannot find a salary cap in any league in any sport. The clubs are allowed to spend as much money as they want, or more precisely, that they have. The right question is, how come the league is still balanced? Well, it is not. For the measurement of how much a league is balanced, we can find a factor called competitive balance, which calculates from simple results, how big the difference between each team is in a specific league. But let’s return to salary caps. It is important to say, that the United States are different world from Europe and sport is mainly a big business there. Big, but working. In America, usually, when owner of a club is not profiting and the team is not playing very well for a longer period of time, the attendance lowers and so does the income from sold tickets and so on. What happens if the team is not doing good for few years in a row? The club bankrupts. In the United States, when this happens, the club often finds a new founder and relocates to another city, under the same name, or at least part of it, in Europe, or the Czech Republic, when club bankrupts, it ends. It is very hard to find a new investor and well, how could club be moved to another city in the Czech Republic, when there is probably already one big club in that city. How would the fans accept this? They would not. As an example, I would like to note year 2019, when the annual soccer-transfer frenzy was reaching its usual fewer pitch. Would Neymar Jr., the Brazilian superstar, move back to Barcelona from Paris Saint-Germain? How much would he cost—$200 million? More? At the same time, two small but famous clubs in England, Bury FC and Bolton Wanderers, were—like the Vancouver Grizzlies—facing the end of the road. They were losing money and could not find a buyer. Yet this did not mean relocating to a different city, but the prospect of bankruptcy and ejection. The contrast between American and European professional sports could not be more stark. In the United States, teams live on, just in a new location, and failure offers the opportunity for a reprieve. In the brutal world of European soccer, strength and success are rewarded, weakness punished. In sports, the U.S. and Europe
45 are different worlds, each revealing wider truths about the societies in which they operate—though perhaps not the ones the casual observer might assume.54
As said, in sports, the United States and Europe are two totally different worlds, which can hardly be compared. It might not be that easy to see through a casual eye, but the differences are huge. Europe has developed its own model in terms of playing soccer which can be considered as a form of hyper-capitalism because the strongest teams are not really teams, but businesses, whose lives depend on their ability to win. The few best teams grab enormous amounts of money for prizes in competition and thanks to that, they can secure the top players, who obviously play for the highest wages. The top three money making athletes in the world are all soccer players – Lional Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, who all make over 100 million American dollars a year. How is that possible? Well, in European soccer, there are no salary caps or overall spending caps. It means players are traded as goods, being part of business’s balance sheets. Players are not really traded as it is always written, better said, players are bought. And as it is in the business world – when you spend too much, you bankrupt.
Those that fail competitively, finishing in the bottom few positions in the league, are relegated, removed entirely from the top tier and forced to play with another, lower echelon before they prove themselves worthy of returning. (This holds true for Europe’s elite too. If they do not perform well enough, even for just one season, they cannot compete in the Continent’s preeminent competition: the Champions League, a contest open only to the teams that finish near the top of their domestic league.)55
In the United States, it does not work like it does in Europe. There is no relegation and promotion. Success is celebrated and failure is rewarded. How comes? The worst placed teams are rewarded by the first picks in the following season’s draft of new players. So, in case a team loses for a longer time, there is a very big chance of getting new and talented players and rebuilding the particular team. Also, salary cap works for
54 MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer-football/598012/ 55 MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer-football/598012/ 46 every team in the league, which keeps the competitive balance right. In some competitions, there is even a salary floor, ensuring that the clubs remain competitive.56
American sports are not so because they like socialism—they are simply taking the best path to making money. “In the U.S., they figured out earlier that a league is more profitable if people work together,” Gabriele Marcotti, a senior soccer writer at the sports broadcaster and news site ESPN, told me. “League owners are business partners.” While American sports are collectivist in structure—competition controlled, talent and money redistributed—they remain deeply, exceptionally American. Basketball, football, and baseball were created in the United States, designed for the United States, and packaged for the United States. They cater to American sensibilities—for television and commercial breaks, cheerleaders and half-time shows, and are designed to be consumed, competing not with other leagues offering the same product, but with Hollywood and prime-time TV. That they should want to make money is also less controversial in the United States. The Chicago White Sox, for example, signed a contract in 2006 to change the start time of their baseball games to 7:11 p.m. as part of a sponsorship deal with the convenience-store chain 7-Eleven. In Europe this would be sacrilege.57
At last, it is important to say that the United States have a market that no one else in the world does. What is in America and nowhere else is how America is special. Its size, geographical location, mentality and wealth allow them to do things that nowhere else can be done.58
Look at how American sports were born. There were no other leagues to compete with—they were American sports, not global sports. This gave the organizers more control to shape the way the leagues were run than is the case in soccer, which is buffeted
56 MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer-football/598012/ 57 MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer-football/598012/ 58 MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer-football/598012/ 47 by worldwide, competitive forces. In sports, as in life, the U.S. is big enough and different enough to play its own games, by its own rules. The rest of the world cannot.59
59 MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer-football/598012/ 48
3 OBJECTIVES, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND MAIN GOALS OF THE THESIS
3.1 Objectives This bachelor theses is focused on comparing the systems of development of youth athletes in two different countries. It focuses on the structure, education, mentality and organization and specifics of two chosen countries – the Czech Republic and the United States of America. The selection of these two countries is based on the country where we live and the most successful country in sports in the history if we look at the number of medals from different kind of World Championships and the Olympics.
3.2 Research questions Research question 1: What is the main difference between Czech and American system of developing of youth athletes?
Research question 2: What are the differences between Czech and American mentality in connection to sports?
Research question 3: How does the American system of developing athletes work?
3.3 Main goals The main goal of this work is to explain how American school system operates primarily in terms of sports and comparison with the system in the Czech Republic.
3.4 Methodology This theses uses the method of analyses, comparison and semi-structured interview as three methods that should be able to help to answer the research questions and to describe and show the biggest differences in the two chosen systems.
The method of comparison is based on comparing obtained data and to be able to make a conclusion based on the done comparison. It is important to use methods of observation and description. The comparison is a basic method of evaluating.
The method of analyses is a process of decomposition of the examined object (phenomenon, situation) into partial parts, which then become the subject of further research. It is an analysis of properties, relationships and facts advancing from whole to parts.
49
Semi-structured interview is an interview between the interviewer and the respondent, where the questions are changed during the interview based on the answers of the respondent.
50
4 PRACTICAL FRAMEWORK As a practical part of my Bachelor thesis, I chose to compare these two systems that I had a chance to analyze in the theoretical framework of this thesis and find out what the pros and cons of both systems are, which I am able to do also thanks to exclusive interviews with former and current athletes from both the United States and the Czech Republic. These interviews were led by semi-structured method, which means that some of the questions were formed during the interview, based on the subjects’ answers.
I believe that selecting athletes who went through one or both of the systems can give a very interesting view on the problematics of athletes’ development. Instead of just writing about how the American system works, I picked student-athletes who can describe us exactly how it is to be developed as a player in the United States.
In the end of the interviews, we can compare the answers between the two countries and find out what is the core problem of this topic.
Five athletes were chosen for these interviews, two from the United States, two from the Czech Republic and one former athlete, who has a dual citizenship. All the involved athletes agreed with their name being used in this thesis.
Athlete 1
The first athlete, Jack Collins, is an American baseball player, who grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin and played baseball throughout his whole life. At one point in his career, he was chosen for an all-star baseball team of the State Wisconsin, later signing a Division I contract with Central Michigan University, the highest possible university team in the United States.
Athlete 2
The second chosen athlete is a Czech native basketball player, Jakub Jokl, who is currently a student at the Masaryk University and at the same time professional basketball player for the Czech team mmcité1 Basket Brno, which plays the highest Czech basketball league. Jakub is a player who not only experienced the Czech educational and athlete development system, but also spent one year at the basket academy Gran Canaria in Span, so he could later leave to the American NCAA to play for the University of Utah, which is one of the most successful universities in the NCAA history. At the University of Utah, Jakub not only experienced different attitude, system and education, but also
51 played in one team with for example Kyle Kuzma, who is nowadays a player in the famous NBA team, LA Lakers. In the 2018/2019 season, Jakub returned to Brno and is now finishing his Bachelor’s degree in the field of Sports management. Jakub recently signed a new contract with mmcité1 Basket Brno and has a contract lasting until 2022.
Athlete 3
The third interviewed person is a former ice-hockey player, Jan Dám. Jan was born and raised in Liberec, Czech Republic, where he actively played ice-hockey for one of the Czech well known teams, HC Bílí Tygři Liberec, until the age of 19. Before turning 20 years of age, Jan decided to try something new and left to discover the world to the United States of America. Because hockey was his beloved passion, he wanted to continue overseas and after few tryouts, he started playing for the team El Paso Rhinos, in El Paso, Texas. After one year of playing, Jan became a coach to later start his own club team at the University of Texas in El Paso which was historically first ice-hockey team at the University. After establishing UTEP hockey, Jan moved to Omaha, where he finished his Bachelors’ degree in Kinesiology at the University of Nebraska. Nowadays, Jan is an assistant hockey director for Freymont Flyers Hockey Association that maintains over 200 youth players from 6U through high school. Besides that, Jan is a founder of Surge Sports Advising company, that helps European athletes in the age of 15-20 to connect sports and education at high school and college levels in the United States.
Athlete 4
To be able to compare specific sports, the fourth interviewed person in this Bachelor’s thesis is also a basketball player, but this time, from the United States. His name is Jacob Russell and he is 21 year old. Jacob graduated from high-school in Boise, Idaho, to later move to the city of Los Angeles, where he was offered a basketball scholarship. In his sophomore year, Jacob transferred to the College of Idaho, where he currently runs track and plays basketball.
Athlete 5
The fifth athlete is a Czech well-known name, an ice-hockey player who is currently the number 1 goalie in one of the most iconic and successful clubs in the Czech Republic, Kometa Brno. His name is Karel Vejmelka and besides being a professional athlete, last year, Karel finished his Bachelor’s degree at the Masaryk University in the field of Sports
52
Management and starts his Masters’ degree this fall. Karel’s way was never easy, but as he said, it is the way he had chosen and it has just begun. Karel started playing hockey in his hometown Třebíč, to transfer to Pardubice later, where he first tried the Czech highest ice hockey league – Extraliga ledního hokeje, while he was still at a high school. After graduating from high school in Třebíč, Karel got an offer from Brno, where he moved to study and play. Besides playing in the Czech Republic, where he was part of the team that won 2 Champion titles, Karel was drafted to the most world most famous ice-hockey league, the NHL, where he was chosen in the fifth round by a popular team, the Nashville Predators. Karel’s interview offers a very introspective and special point of view from someone was never finding excuses, instead Karel took actions and besides graduating from a high level high school, he also got his degree at university, which not many professional Czech ice-hockey players were able to achieve.
4.1 Interviews analyzes Let’s start at the beginning of this whole problematics. Children in the United States have an opportunity to start doing sports at young age in school, which would not be the biggest difference between the Czech and the American system. As both Jack and Jacob noted, when they started doing sports, it was not only one sport they focused at. Jack started with football, basketball and baseball, Jacob with soccer, basketball and football. When we look at the interviews of Czech athletes, they both started doing one specific sport. This might be caused by the decisions of their parents, or simply just because there are not that many places your child can go to to try out more sports and simply find out what sport the kid loves. Looking at this, there is a number of children in the Czech Republic who like doing sports. Let’s be realistic, not every kid is meant to do sports, so deduct that from the total number. This is where the problem starts. In the Czech Republic, the children are most likely put by their parents to play certain sport, but if they do not like the sport, it may happen that they will not be willing to try another sport. Or what if they become part of a team with not great environment? This can mean that a child will be looking at sports very differently throughout its whole life. On the other hand, in the United States, the children have an opportunity to try more sports and they are given much more time to find out what they are really good at. Then, after few years, they can focus on sport in which they do better than others and the chance of developing a successful athlete is suddenly much higher.
53
All athletes mentioned that they were their parents who played a huge role in their sports career. Developing an athlete as a parent is definitely not an easy thing to do. Not only it costs a lot of many, it also takes a lot of time. It means parents do play a huge role in athletes’ development, but this is a factor that is harder to change. A small advantage of the American system may be the fact that most of the practices and games happen during or right after the school. Usually, a child starts practicing when the lessons are over, therefore parents have a little more time than parents in the Czech Republic who have to bring their kid for a training from school to sports centers or find a way how to manage it. Equipment is another important thing. It is not cheap to develop a football or an ice-hockey player. In the United States, most of the equipment is provided, as Jack mentioned in his interview: “The majority of the equipment for the sports I played was provided for us. We would usually need to purchase shoes, gloves, and bats. The rest was covered for us. For football we would be given helmets, jerseys, shoulder pads, girdle, and mouthguard. For basketball we just needed to provide shoes to play in and everything else was covered. For baseball we had to provide a glove, and cleats the rest was provided for us.” In the contrary, Karel said that it was not that common to be able to borrow equipment from a club in the Czech Republic.
As Jakub mentioned in his interview, his parents always cared about his education, which may sometimes be quite difficult in the Czech Republic. All Czech athletes agreed that connecting school with professional sports career was very difficult and time consuming. When I asked Karel if there was one thing that he could change to get professional athletes proper education, he mentioned “Definitely closer cooperation with the faculties themselves and creating some personal educational plan based on the options of the athlete.”
On the other hand, Americans do not mention any bigger issue connecting these two areas. Linked to this, both Jakub and Karel agreed it would make a lot of things easier if there was a chance of getting some kind of individual schedule for students who were also athletes at a professional level. Parents of both (nowadays professional athletes) were not sure at the young age, if their kid would make it all the way to becoming a professional athlete, so they wanted to have a back-door for their children, which is the right way to do it. But should this really be concern for parents, or this should be something that government should care about? To make sure that if a kid wants to do sports and education at the same time, that one of it does not have to be limited because of the other?
54
Unfortunately, Jakub described it perfectly by saying “It is all caused by education and sports being two totally different things here in the Czech Republic.”
As Jan mentioned, sports can open many doors. The same was said by Jakub, who has travelled almost all over the world thanks to basketball and who considers at as a life journey. In the United States, student-athletes have motivation to play in front of the full crowds, and not just regular fans, but mainly students and people you meet at your school. Sports also motivate to get better at school, because, thanks to that, they can get more and better scholarships. Jacob and Jack mentioned that it was never too competitive in the locker rooms during the high school years: “It was never a competition on who would throw the most we all focused on helping the team being the best we can possibly be. I don’t think there was really any kind of pressure for me in high school. We just wanted to have fun and win games.“ Jan mentioned teacher asking him to choose between sport and education, that is something that should not happen in a country where sports still play a big part of people’s lives. Karel noted the same problem “The situation around professional sports and university is a very complicated topic here. In contrast, for example with the United States, their system is much better optimized and makes it easier to study for professional athletes. In this regard, our Ministry of Education should make some stops so we could get at least a little closer to a similar system.” On the other hand, what Jacob described the American system of most and education with these words “I think that if you aren’t a freak athlete headed straight to the NBA to make millions and millions of dollars, it’s not only recommended but really in your best interest to focus on school.“
When we look at the environment and money, it seems there is better study and sports environment is in the United States. As Jan said: “Here the rich people invest in junior team for example but because that is something they are interested in and they want that to be impact on young athletes´ development as well as the impact on the community. I know I repeat myself but that is again creating healthy environment. I believe that if more people have the right mindset and think about the right things and do the right things it brings success and joy in the long run.” On the other hand, Karel mentioned that money unfortunately played a big role in the Czech environment. We have a lot of talent and hard workers in the Czech Republic, but we do not have the right environment to develop that number of athletes that would mark a big difference. As Jan said: “We have a great talent in Czech and a lot of hard workers but if they don´t get a
55 chance why wouldn't they leave.” Jan made me aware, to get on the U17 National ice- hockey team in the United States, the players had to make it through 18 camps of 150 people. The Czech U17 national team has always been on coaches and agents recommendations.
Talking about healthy environment and coaches, we can ask who really coaches the youth athletes in the Czech Republic? Are they people who still do it as a passion or they are people who do it for money? Are they going after success, good results in competitions, or they try to build something better for the future? When I interviewed Jan, one thing he said made me really happy and sad at the same time. He said: “I don´t coach to win championships I coach to make people better at hockey and life. I have to say I would do it again here in the US.” – And this is the root cause of the problem, in my opinion. People who have the passion for the sport and love it are not given the space, so they leave to another country. That is just not right. We may want to focus rather on developing citizens who appreciate sport and like doing it than on developing professional athletes. In that way, we would probably also get more people interested in sports and the chance of finding an athlete whose passion for sport would be bigger.
The American system works in a different way. It has more rules, one of them was noted by Jack: “If you had under a 2.0 GPA you would not be able to compete in NCAA athletics”, the colleges are not for free like in the Czech Republic and when I asked about the prices of the tuition, Jack told me that he thinks “that the cost of education is way overpriced in the United States. Most kids are paying over $100,000 to get an education and the jobs they are getting don’t even account for half of that money per year.”
Finalizing my thesis, reviewing all interviews and analyzing them motivated me a lot to start changing the way it is set up in the Czech Republic. It is definitely possible to change things step by step, and that is where I would like to start, step by step. I believe it is possible for schools to build identity based on sports and also bring more and more students to their schools thanks to the healthy environment that sports create. As Karel said when I asked him about his opinion about the between school competition. Karel: “I think that more and more people are starting to understand this. I hope that it’s going to stay this way and if so, the situation could get better and there will be more opportunities.”
56
4.2 Comparison of the systems 4.2.1 Summary What might not be so obvious from common perspective, the American system is not only based on developing great athletes but it also focuses on developing educated young people. A lot of people think that sport in the United States is performed mainly for competitive and financial reasons, but the opposite is truth. Thanks to sports, a lot of young athletes from not so wealthy families get an opportunity to fight for a scholarship that can provide them college education. Because the prices of the tuition can even double an average salary many times, it is not easy to finish a three year program. There are not only expenses for the school itself, but also other expenses such as accommodation and meals. The big advantage of this system is that everyone is given the same opportunity to fight for the scholarships, there are no privileged students. Everybody starts from zero and it is up to them how they use their chance. Based on the research, fewer than 2% of all athletes applying receive the scholarship, but we are talking here the highest possible league. As an example Jacob Russell noted in the interview, in basketball there are six different levels of college competition, where it is possible to obtain some kind of scholarship. What makes this system so special is that you do not need to be the best of the best athletes. If your grades are at good GPA and you are better than average in the specific sport, there is a high chance that you will be granted a scholarship. It is great motivation for young children to do sports and it misses in the Czech Republic. Sports, in connection to school, provide interesting environment, where even the youngest can learn the right attitude which is often rewarded later in life. As the Gallup research showed us, the student-athletes are not only more likely to get a full time job, they also live happier lives and outperform their colleagues who did not participate in sports in the past.
4.2.2 University leagues As mentioned in the above section, the main difference between the Czech and American system is lack of competition among schools in the Czech Republic. Children in the United States are exposed to sports from early childhood and because most of them go to the same school from their first grade until they graduate, this creates certain “school-pride.” As I remember from my own experience, Friday nights were a huge thing for everyone in the small village (the population is around 2000 people) called Denmark, where I lived for one school year. Even though the school capacity was 600 students, about 700 people gathered at the classic football game, that took place at the home field
57 every two weeks on Friday night. I remember my second day in the United States when my home family took me to this event. Everybody was wearing Denmark High School “merchandise,” girls were wearing jersey of their boyfriends, there were cheerleaders, half-time show, drummers and the school orchestra playing. I visited a lot of different sport events in the Czech Republic, from the fifth highest league in hockey through the highest basketball league to the biggest local football games. But have I ever witnessed the pride to be a part of this team that I witnessed in Denmark, WI? Never. And that was not even the fifth highest competition in the state, I cannot imagine how this must be in the higher leagues.
How do we build our pride at the high schools and universities in the Czech Republic? Of course, the numbers are lower than in the United States. But are they? The Masaryk University has more than 40,000 students, the Charles University in Prague has more than 50,000. Universities in smaller cities, such as Olomouc or Zlín still have more than 10,000 students. And these are not small numbers. I do not believe that our country is not capable of bringing up school leagues and competitions, but what matters the most nowadays is revenue and that is what scares me. We have volumes and resources to build something that could actually work. Maybe not everywhere, but there are thousands of high schools which could offer kids a place where they would like to compete, a place where it would be about the pride, not about the professionalism. It is a big concern that almost all clubs are privately owned, so why they would allow their players to compete in school competitions, where they could only get injured but it does not actually bring anything good to the club? This mentality is a problem. How to solve this? First of all, schools would have to support sports even at the cost of some little limitations in education for student-athletes. They would have to make these competitions during time when there are no practices and competitions in private clubs, so that includes a lot of cooperation and talking with clubs. But when we look at some smaller cities, such as Liberec, having population about 100,000 people, there are not so many ice- hockey/soccer/basketball clubs, where young players would compete. So that would make the inter-school and club negotiating much easier. If we started school-provided sport-clubs, where kids could spend their time after school, we might develop new athletes, who do not need to compete on professional level and make the sport their living, but they would want to compete against their childhood friends who attend other high school in the city. But this would, of course, increase school budgets because school
58 would need more employees who would not necessarily be teachers, but someone who could take care of kids after school and coach them in certain sports. In my opinion, both children and parents would appreciate this concept. But what would schools and government think about this? Government would need to invest much more money in the system, which (as seen in the graphs in the theoretical framework of this thesis) is now around 336 mil. Czech Koruna. What is interesting, it is the fact that when we look at the numbers of state officers/state employed people, it grows every year. The growth from 2018 to 2019 was 17 000 officers. In 2014, the number of state employed people in the Czech Republic was 416,645, it is 475, 000 nowadays, which is a record breaking number. We could ask the question if we really need so many state-employed people and where they work? Especially in todays’ world, where the technology takes over in a lot of places, should not the numbers be decreasing instead of increasing? One would say that the highest percentage of state-employed people are teachers, which is correct. But how much has the number of teachers increased over the past five years, when the total number of state-employed officers has increased about 60 000 people? In 2018, the number of teachers was about 158,000. In 2014, it was 153,000. Yes, it has increased, but in comparison with the total number, it only plays a small role.
We can point out one this which has recently happened in the Czech Republic and it is start of the new University league. On teams own initiative, they separated from former European University Hockey League (EUHL) which included teams from many universities across Middle Europe. Although the season was not completed, it made huge progress throughout the season and the founders and teams are most likely happy with the way this is heading. The league contains eight teams from main universities in the Czech Republic. Two teams from Prague, two teams from Brno and Olomouc, Plzeň, České Budějovice and Ostrava, with one participant each. This league has already been broadcasted on Czech sports TV Channel (ČT Sport) and got some positive reviews. It is a great bridge for players who decided to choose the way of studying, instead of playing hockey full-time and also for those who might have not been motivated enough to try and reach the top country teams or simply just wanted college education. As an off-ice member of one of the teams competing in the league, I believe there are still a lot of details that need to be solved, but in my opinion, it is a great start for something that could become really popular and successful in the Czech Republic and could be an example for other sports and universities.
59
4.3 Discussion 4.3.1 Question number 1 What is the main difference between the Czech and American system of youth athletes development?
The main difference between the Czech and American system of developing the youth athletes is the school competition. In the Czech republic, most of the clubs are privately owned and there is just minimum of school teams that would be competing against each other. On the other hand, universities in the United States are paid, which can be both good motivation or demotivation to study there but sports open the options to get a college scholarship and not be able to pay the full tuition.
4.3.2 Question number 2 What are the differences between Czech and American mentality related to sports?
As Jan mentioned in the interview, solidarity and respecting one and another is a noticeable difference between the Czech and American mentality. What I would point out are the stricter rules that are common for the American system. When we look at the high school student handbooks, we see the difference right away, the number of usual Czech student handbook is about 5-10 pages, the American around 50. Also, the children in the United States have much higher motivation to compete, because becoming a good athlete during high school years brings popularity and higher respect to them. Competing in front of crowds that are in some cases hundred times bigger than in the Czech Republic definitely brings some confidence and motivation to get better and be even more successful.
4.3.3 Question number 3 How does the American system of athletes development work?
In the United States of America, it is not just the sports that the children are focused at. They are offered both at the same time – sports and education which is something that is missing in the Czech Republic. Children are offered to do sports at school since their early age and they receive borrowed equipment in most cases, which is a big advantage. There is big variety of sports offered at school, so the kids can try as many as they want, they are not tied to one sport and if they found out they do not like a certain sport, they have the opportunity to try another. The school time table works very well and is adapted to the sports schedule, that way no student-athlete has to skip classes
60 due to competing in sports. Sports are divided in 3 seasons – fall, winter and spring, in each season there are different sports played. That gives the young athletes chance to compete in more than just one sport throughout the year and find out where they really stand out. Parents and children also get the motivation to do sports so they can study at college, because if a kid is a good athlete, it can be offered a scholarship and a place in a team squad at a university. Because of this, America develops huge amount of active people that participate in sports, not just to become a professional athlete, but also to learn the value of team work and experience something that is going to stick with them for the rest of their lives.
61
5 CONCLUSION The research subject of this bachelor’s thesis is the comparison of youth development systems in the Czech republic and the United States of America. The work’s main aims are to explain how the American system works, show the biggest differences of the two systems mentioned and try to find a way of applying some of the American methods into the Czech environment.
The theoretical frameworks deals with the details of American and Czech educational system with connection to sports, mentality, sports financing and the importance of sports in todays’ society. The United States have a unique way of developing athletes throughout their school system, not only paying attention to the sports, but at the same time providing and looking after their education. Starting at early age, letting children try as many sports as possible and giving them the space to do so. Continuing with giving them the environment where they can compete each other, on a healthy level. Building a pride and developing not only their athletic skills, but also social skills, teamwork and a healthy life-style, which increases their chance to get employed over other, non-student-athletes. Stricter rules, different mentality and paid universities ranks among the things that set aside the American system from others. The population in the United States gives the system huge space to work in, with people not only watching the major leagues such as the NFL, but also broadcasting high-school and college competitions, which brings a lot of money back so they can be used again in a circulation. Therefore, the motivation for the children is not only to become a full-time professional athlete as it can sometimes be in the Czech Republic, but for the most of them to be able to reach a college education throughout an athletic scholarship.
In the practical framework of this thesis, we can find interviews with current and former Czech and American athletes, that describe how they feel about certain methods and environment of the system they grew up in. It gives an unique perspective on the research subject, thanks to involvement of different variety of athletes and an ice-hockey coach with dual citizenship.
In the final part of the work, an attempt was made to find a ways of implying some of the methods used in the United States to the Czech environment so it could prosper and become more friendly to student-athletes, because unfortunately connecting
62 education and professional sports career is as both Czech athletes mentioned something very difficult.
63
6 LITERATURE
American football rules. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_football_rules
American Football rules. In: Rules of sports [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.rulesofsport.com/sports/american-football.html
Athletic Scholarships: Everything You Need to Know. In: NCSA [online]. [cit. 2020-05- 06]. Dostupné z: https://www.ncsasports.org/recruiting/how-to-get- recruited/scholarship-facts
Birth of pro football. In: Pro football hall of fame [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/birth-of-pro-football/ BUSTEED, Brandon a Julie RAY. Former Student-Athletes Are Winners in Well- Being [online]. 17.2.2016 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/189206/former-student-athletes-winners.aspx
BUSTEED, Brandon. Female Student-Athletes Win Big on Great Jobs, Lives [online]. 17.2.2016 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/189227/female-student-athletes-win-big-great- jobs-lives.aspx
Denmark High School Student Handbook: Co-curricular Code of Conduct. 2. 2015. Dostupné také z: https://www.denmark.k12.wi.us/1819sthndbknewvikingsecond%20FINAL.pdf
Draft Lottery 2019 [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://i0.wp.com/www.beerleagueheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/04- 09_hawks_draft_lottery_1920x1080_1485031491538.jpg?fit=656%2C369&ssl=1
GOUGH, Christina. Physical Activity - Statistics & Facts. In: Statista [online]. 11.9.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.statista.com/topics/1749/physical-activity/
64
GOUGH, Christina. Registered ice hockey players by country 2018/2019. In: Statista [online]. 23.10.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.statista.com/statistics/282349/number-of-registered-ice-hockey-by- country/
Jack Hughes, Devils make it official with three-year contract. In: New York Post [online]. 12.6.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://nypost.com/2019/07/12/jack-hughes-devils-make-it-official-with-three-year- contract/
Jeffrey A. Rosenthal, The Amateur Sports Draft: The Best Means to the End?, 6 Marq. Sports L. J. 1 (1995)
LORENC, Miroslav. Závěrečné práce - metodika. Lorenc.info [online]. 2013-2017, 1 [cit. 2020-05-05]. Dostupné z: https://lorenc.info/zaverecne-prace/metodika.htm
MCTAGUE, Tom. America's Wildly Successful Socialist Experiment. In: The Atlantic [online]. 14.9.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/09/us-europe-soccer- football/598012/
MINISTERSTVO ŠKOLSTVÍ, MLÁDEŽE A TĚLOVÝCHOVY A ČESKÝ OLYMPIJSKÝ VÝBOR. Analýza financování sportu v České republice. 2009. Dostupné také z: http://www.msmt.cz/sport/analyza-financovani-sportu-v-ceske- republice).
MŠMT. Rozpočet kapitoly 333 MŠMT na rok 2019 a rozdělení závazných ukazatelů mezi jednotlivé školské úseky [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06].
NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020- 05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_Men%27s_Basketball_Tournament
NORTH AMERICAN VS EUROPEAN SPORTS SYSTEM [online]. In: . 27.2.2017 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: http://sportsbite.blog/north-american-vs-european-sports- system/
65
NORMAN, Jim. Football Still American's Favorite Sport to Watch. In: Gallup [online]. 4.1.2018 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224864/football- americans-favorite-sport-watch.aspx
NOVOTNÝ, Jiří. Ekonomika sportu. Praha: Vysoká škola ekonomická, 1995.
NOVOTNÝ, Jiří. Sport v ekonomice. Praha: Wolter Kluwer Česká republika, 2011.
PARKER, Tim. How Much Does the NCAA Make off March Madness? In: Investopedia [online]. 31.10.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/031516/how-much-does-ncaa-make- march-madness.asp
ROST, Richard. Sport und Gesundheit: Gesund durch Sport. Gesund trotz Sport. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2013. ISBN 13:978-3-540-57602-0.
ROVELL, Darren. NCAA tops $1 billion in revenue during 2016-17 school year. In: ESPN [online]. [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.espn.com/college- sports/story/_/id/22678988/ncaa-tops-1-billion-revenue-first
Secrets of the free ride: Scholarships are there for taking. You just need to know where to look. [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://money.cnn.com/2002/06/11/pf/college/q_scholarship/
STAFF, History. Who Invented Baseball? [online]. In: . [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-baseball
STÁTNÍ ROZPOČET 2019 V KOSTCE: Kapesní příručka ministerstva financí. 2019.
Student-Athletes [online]. 2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes
Výdaje státního rozpočtu na sport [online]. In: . 2012 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://www.olympic.cz/financovani/financovani-sportu/grafy.html
WILLIAMS, Rob. Everything you need to know about tonight's NHL Draft Lottery. In: Daily Hive [online]. 4.4.2019 [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/nhl-draft-lottery-time-2019
66
World Economic Forum. (2009, January 31). Sport: An untapped asset. Davos, CH: Author. www.weforum.org/sessions/summary/sport-untapped-asset.
2019 NHL Entry Draft. In: Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia [online]. San Francisco (CA): Wikimedia Foundation, 2001- [cit. 2020-05-06]. Dostupné z: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_NHL_Entry_Draft
67
7 ATTACHMENTS
7.1 Interviews
7.1.1 Jack Collins
Hi Jack, thanks for finding time to do this interview with me, first of all, do you think that you could introduce yourself?
My name is Jack Collins I am from Green Bay, Wisconsin in the United States. I grew up in Denmark, Wisconsin and went to Denmark High school. This is where I met Martin. I just recently graduated from Central Michigan University where I got my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. I am currently running my own baseball business In Green Bay, Wisconsin called Velocity Baseball and Softball. I played baseball in college as well at the Division 1 level as a left handed pitcher.
At what age did you start doing sports and what part did your family and school play in it?
I began playing sports at a very young age, I would say age 6 or 7 is when I began. I played 2 sports to start out: basketball and baseball. Baseball was always my best and favorite sport but my father was a good basketball player so he always pushed me in that direction. I began playing football when I was in 6th grade up until my sophomore year of high school. I played 3 sports year round until my sophomore year. I excelled at a high level in all 3 sports I played. My freshmen year I played varsity baseball, Junior Varsity Basketball, and Junior Varsity football. Most kids that age all start on the freshmen team and have to move their way up to the Junior varsity and then the varsity level. I was on Varsity for Baseball and Football as a sophomore and Junior Varsity for basketball.
My parents played a huge role in my sports growing up and always supported me through everything I did. If I needed a ride or needed to buy something for sports they would always be there for me. Also once I got to high school I would travel around the United States playing baseball in different states which was a lot of hours in the car as well as a lot of money for hotels, travel, etc..
68
School played a role in my sports because it allowed me to be around my friends all the time and play for the school team. The school had coaches they hired to help us practice our sports as well as be there for us as a mentor. They also provided us with jerseys to wear and transportation to games.
Are there any schools specialized on a certain sport in your state, or is it mostly mixture of all sports?
Not in our state of Wisconsin there aren’t any schools specialized on one certain sport it is a mixture of all sports for the most part. I know throughout the country there are a couple schools that specialize in one sport and can offer kids private high school scholarships to attend their school. For the most part schools all offer football, baseball, basketball, soccer, wrestling, cross country and track and field for the guys.
So during your high school years, how often did you practice and at what times?
During my High School years I practiced a lot. Being that I played 3 sports until my sophomore year I was in season year round. Also playing baseball at a very high level I practiced baseball on top of my other sports seasons. For our team practices they would be after school from 3:30 P.M until 5:30 P.M sometimes going longer than that. This would be every day except for Saturdays. After those practices I would practice baseball for another hour or two 3-4 days a week. I would say I was practicing around 20-25 hours a week on top of going to school. This would continue through the summer as well when I wasn’t in school. Also every Sunday during the school year I would drive 2 hours to go and practice for my private summer baseball team.
How much time from your ‘school-time’ and not school time did you have to sacrifice so you could do the sports and be good at it?
In High School, I sacrificed a lot of time from school playing sports and excelling at them. During the seasons we would miss probably 4-6 hours a week of school because we would have to leave and travel for our games. My non-school time was basically spent practicing sports every night so I didn’t have a ton of free time to do other things. Usually the weekends were when I would have the most time to do things that didn’t involve school or sports. During the week I was pretty much booked at night with practice, dinner, study/relax, and then go to bed.
69
In college, I only played baseball and our season was in the spring. In the spring I would miss a ton of classes and sometimes wouldn’t be in school for a week because of traveling to games. The other parts of the year I didn’t have to miss much class because we weren’t in season. Out of school time was pretty much the same as in high school I had very little free time and was either always practicing or studying for my schooling. I sacrificed almost all my free time to practice baseball and study.
Did the teachers respect that sometimes you had to leave class earlier so you could go to the game or was it tough time to time?
The teachers for the most part were always good in allowing me to miss class. I was a good student overall so I never really had any problems with my teachers as long as I would communicate with them. For some of my other teammates they did respect them leaving and their grades would reflect that sometimes. The majority of the time I would try to get everything done before I had to leave or I knew I wasn’t going to be in class. There was a professor or 2 that would downgrade me because I wasn’t in class for attendance or an assignment and my grades would go down because of it. Overall it wasn’t much of an issue.
Did you feel like you still had enough time to study so you could do good in school?
The majority of the time yes I felt like I had enough time. Obviously if I would have had all the extra time I would have been much better in school than I was. My schooling never came too hard for me so I wouldn’t need to put in as much time as others would for schooling. It was very tough trying to balance school and playing baseball but I tried to take as many online classes as possible to help with this. That way I could go at my own pace and finish things when I had the time.
For some guys on my team that were pre-med majors, they really struggled with having enough time to study and do good in school. They would often have to pull all-nighters and study 8 hours a day just to catch up on their schooling. Everyone was different but it is definitely a challenge learning to balance school and athletics.
Did your grades ever affect if you were going to play or not?
Yes, our coaches really pushed us to have a 3.0 GPA or better and if you didn’t it would sometimes reflect playing time. For me I was always above that average so it never
70 impacted my playing time. If we would miss an assignment or have a failing grade our coaches would set us up with a tutor that we would have to see every week to get our grades up as well. Some guys were unable to play because they had bad grades. If you had under a 2.0 GPA you would not be able to compete in NCAA athletics.
For the sports you listed that you did, did you need to buy all the equipment?
The majority of the equipment for the sports I played was provided for us. We would usually need to purchase shoes, gloves, and bats. The rest was covered for us. For football we would be given helmets, jerseys, shoulder pads, girdle, and mouthguard. For basketball we just needed to provide shoes to play in and everything else was covered. For baseball we had to provide a glove, and cleats the rest was provided for us.
So, does money play any role in becoming an athlete during the primary school and high school?
I wouldn’t say money is the direct correlation to becoming an athlete but if you want to train and be the best I would say money is a big factor. If you want the best equipment to help you gain an advantage or your peers money is going to play a factor in that. For example in baseball the type of glove you use as well as the bat you use can help in your performance and the better that they are the more they will cost.
I think the biggest factor of becoming a good athlete that involves money is training and playing on a private team. Things like private lessons, private teams, private work-out sessions add up to a ton of money. These things are super important in becoming the best athlete you can be and rising above your peers. In this aspect I would say money is a big part of becoming the highest possible level player you can be.
How much do you think that high school affected your future life as an athlete? What I mean is, would you still be doing the sport if there wasn’t for school?
High School has a huge impact in your future life as an athlete. Being able to play in a team atmosphere with all of your friends can be the reason why you either continue or don’t continue to play sports. Without high school sports I don’t know that I would still be playing any kind of sports. High School is like the launching ground for kids to play sports and continue playing as they grow older. If you don’t have high school sports a lot
71 of kids would be unable to play at all because private teams cost a lot of money and not everyone has that kind of money.
Playing high school sports is where I met almost all of my best friends and still talk to those guys to this day. Without sports I don’t think I would have the same friends I do today. When we get together we can always talk about certain events that happened during the sporting events and we can all cherish the memories.
When did you get a first thought of becoming a pro athlete?
For me I always had the thought of becoming a professional athlete ever since I was in 6th grade. Whenever teachers would ask what I wanted to be when I was older I always said a professional baseball player. In college I started to get very serious about becoming a professional athlete and filled out multiple questionnaires from teams in the MLB that were sent to me. These were basically contact information for them as well as some different questions so they could get a feel for the type of person I was.
For me I had multiple professional opportunities just none with MLB teams. They were with Independent baseball teams which aren’t a part of Major League Baseball. So it was basically a level below the Minor leagues for baseball but still professional baseball. I wanted to get started with my life and help give back to the game by running my own baseball business.
At what age do you feel the kids separate from the ones that really want to do the sport and the ones that did it just to try and do something?
I think High School is the biggest time when kids separate themselves. The kids who are just there and don’t actually want to be the best they can, usually end up quitting or leaving the sport because they lose interest in it or don’t want to work as hard to become good. Although there are some kids who do the sport because they truly enjoy playing it and find fun in doing so. They may never get to play in the actual game but they love practicing and helping the team become better.
Most kids who have been playing sports their whole lives are the ones who continue onto high school and excel. The kids who are just learning sports in middle school or high school usually don’t end up making it to high school sports before the quit. If they do make it they usually don’t get to play much in the games as it is.
72
Do you/Did you study at college/university?
Yes I studied at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant Michigan as well as the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, ND. I graduated this past summer with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration. My final college GPA was a 3.4 and I took around 130 credits in 4 years.
How does it work with the scholarships, is it hard to get them, how many people usually get them, could you choose from more offers?
Scholarships are very hard to get especially at the Division 1 level. For baseball there are only 11.7 Scholarships to hand out to a team of 35 guys. The average percent scholarship is around 30%-40% athletically. If you are a good student in High school you can stack more money on top of your athletic scholarship and then it usually becomes 60%-70% of your tuition. All sports are different with the amount of scholarships they have and can hand out. With baseball not being a revenue sport compared to football and basketball there aren't as many scholarships.
For other divisions like Division 2 and 3 athletics they have little to no athletic scholarship money they can give out. Those kids have to get academic scholarships. For me I had multiple scholarship offers. I chose the school that was going to give me the most amount of money to go to school. This wasn’t my main reason in choosing the school there were many more but they also happened to offer me the most amount of money. For me 85% of my schooling was paid for in college so I have very little debt/loans that I need to pay back. This is a huge reason why a lot of kids try to play Division 1 athletics in the United States.
So would you say that once they reach Division 1 and get the education, a lot of kids are likely to finish school and then quit on the professional sports career?
I would say a good majority would go that road. Usually the guys that know they are good enough to make it and have a legit chance will go for the professional dreams. Guys like myself who had a chance but not much of a chance of making it, it's a long rigorous path to the major leagues. You have to make it through 5 sometimes 6 different levels before you get a call up to play in the MLB. While doing this you make only $7,000-$10,000 a year and have to pay for housing and other things. It is a long and hard path but for those
73 who make it is well worth it for them. A good amount of D1 athletes aren’t good enough to play professionally so then they move on with their lives and do other things like getting a job.
Being that said, would you mind telling us how much your university tuition was and if you think that the prices for universities are too high in the States? And do you feel like the education you get is worth the money you pay? I mean if you feel like you will really use the knowledge you get in your future life?
For me my cost wasn’t very much because I had 85% of my schooling paid for. Where I went to school with no scholarship the cost of tuition was around $27,000 a year. If you take that for 4 years you end up paying over $100,000 for an education. I only had to pay around $13,000 of that total because I had a scholarship. With that being said I think that the cost of education is way overpriced in the United States. Most kids are paying over $100,000 to get an education and the jobs they are getting don’t even account for half of that money per year. I would on average right out of college the majority of kids are only making 35,000-45,000 a year with their education. Also if you want to go back and get a higher education you're looking at paying another $50,000-$100,000. By the time you are done it's going to take you a long time to pay off your loans and sometimes in the end it may not be worth the cost. Personally I think trade schools in the U.S are a much better deal and pay off a lot better than a college education but everyone wants to have a 4-year college education. As far as worth the money I think I explained that above I don’t think it's worth the cost but a diploma is also something that no one can take away from you once you have it, you have it forever and can use it to help land jobs. I got a business degree and I use a little bit of the knowledge I learned from college but I would say you can learn just about everything you need to by experience and doing the job for a while. I don’t think education is necessary but it gets your foot in the door.
Talking about that, college sport is a huge business, but yet the students do not get paid a cent during their university years. On the other hand, the coaches do get a lot of money. The kids spend all of their time working on themselves but what happens if they for example get injured or do not make it into the professional league (about 2% makes it)?
74
Yes, that is a big question that is always asked to athletes in college, especially division 1. My take on it is I think that the sports that make revenue for the university and their players should be compensated in some way. These sports are pretty much football and basketball; the rest of the sports don’t make any money for the university; they actually cost the university money. I think the coaches are fine with what they get paid but I think the big time athletes at schools who are making money for the schools should be compensated in some way. For me I was a baseball player and we didn’t make any money for the school so I don’t see why we should be compensated. Another topic for that is that our schooling is paid for which could be considered paying us but for some guys who come from poor families they struggle with making ends meet if they don’t have full ride scholarship to pay for everything.
My next question is, do you think the compensation in free-education is enough? Also, sometimes what might happen on the very professional university sports level is that the athletes are put in a paper class to get their GPA up so they are eligible to play, but they don’t actually get the proper education.
Personally, like I said above for some sports, I don’t think so. Yes this is actually very common with a lot of football players and basketball players. They don’t have a very good education background but are very good at sports. They have to take classes that help boost the GPA just to be eligible. For them I don’t think it's fair that they end up leaving college with an education that won’t land them a job just so they could keep a scholarship and play 4 years. I think there needs to be something put into place where this wouldn’t be allowed for coaches to do so. If they are coming to the University they should be required to get a degree and finish that degree even if they end up leaving early.
Many from the university sports are as big as the professional leagues, such as in basketball or football. For example March Madness brings around 1 billion dollars revenue from TV Broadcasting rights and even though it is the athletes who make the whole show, they don’t get a single pence out of it. And the student athletes still need to pay for their food, accommodation etc. Do you think it would be right or wrong to pay professional student athletes some money?
I think they should be paid some money. I think the amount of money that Universities as well as sports broadcasts make off of these athletes is unfair. All they do is showcase
75 the kids and the kids see none of that money. I think they need to be reimbursed for that, march madness is a great example so would the national championship game. Although the athletes do get some prizes for making these games the amount of money that the broadcasters make is substantial to the cost of the prizes they recieve. There should be some kind of payment each year for the kids to have that would be like pocket money that’s included in their scholarship and I think that would help solve the problem.
During your high school or college years, how much of an impact does it make in society when you are one of the best athletes in the school? Because from what I remember, the Friday nights when the football game was on at Denmark high school were huge, everyone from not just the school was there. So my assumption would be that it definitely does give you some extra social credit and those people that do sports might actually be let’s say a little more popular in the school?
Yes I think that it does give you a ton of social credit when you are one of the best. Everyone knows about you from fans, to teachers, to little kids. It makes it much easier to connect with people and people are always wanting to talk with you etc.. I think it also opens up opportunities later in life that you wouldn’t have had. Could be anything from a job opportunity to an old coaching asking if you could talk to his team. I would say that you would get a lot of social credit if you are one of the best.
How big is the competition in schools and how hard is it to stay positive when there is a big pressure from young and talented guys to get in your position. I mean Denmark is not that big of a city, but still there were 3 good pitchers as far as I remember and all of them left handed. I would assume that it must be a little bit stressful for you to keep proving you are the one that should get the most time playing and also, how does it look in the locker rooms, is it mostly friendly atmosphere or can you feel the competition?
For us, it was very friendly and we all threw just about the same amount of innings. It was nice because if you started to struggle you knew the next guy would come in and get you out of anything. We all trained together in the off-season and were really close friends so it was never a competition on who would throw the most we all focused on helping the team being the best we can possibly be. I don’t think there was really any kind of pressure for me in high school. We just wanted to have fun and win games.
76
When I got to college it was a bit different and there was a lot more competition for innings. That was a big learning curve for me because I was used to throwing all the time and in as many games as I could. Once I got to college I realized that I had to work my way up and earn my innings and that I wasn’t the best on the team anymore. Everyone around me was just as good as I was for the most part and I had to compete to earn innings. There would be at times where another guy would pass you up and you could feel it in the locker room and you wanted to do everything you could to get back ahead. It was just a super competitive atmosphere and it wasn't something for everyone. We had a good amount of guys leave the team to go other places because they were getting passed up and not throwing a lot of innings.
What do you think makes the biggest impact in becoming a pro athlete and when is the real break-through time? When you know you can really make it into the highest league and do the sport for living? Is it still a lot about talent, or maybe about the school or family, or also just good amount of luck that you get on the way?
I think the biggest impact on becoming a professional athlete is starting at a really early age and working harder than everyone else around you. Also make sure you are seeing the right coaches who are telling you the right things to help you succeed. The earlier you can start throwing a baseball, hitting a baseball in life the better you will be at it than others who are waiting to do so. Also the more practice you can put in than other people you are going to be better than them. I see a lot of kids who aren't very good when they come in and train with us compared to their competition. They end up working harder than all the other kids and sooner or later they are just as good if not better than the other kids they are competing against. I think work ethic is the biggest thing to lead you to be successful and make it as far as possible. The biggest breakthrough I think starts in High school when you start realizing you are better than the people in your area then eventually move to the state and then the country. Once you can compete with the best in the country I think that's when you realize you have a chance to make it to the highest level. If you are having a ton of success in college that is another breakthrough proving you’re not only the best on your team but in your area or country.
With that being said, obviously talent and luck also have a decent part in the process. There are some kids who don’t have to work as hard as others because they are naturally talented and for them it's usually easier to make it as long as they have a good work ethic.
77
One thing you see with these guys though is they don’t work as hard because they have always been the best and once they get to college they end up not making it because they don’t have the same work ethic as the people around them. Luck is always going to have some play in it, you have to get luck here and there to make it. You have to have the right people watching you and execute at the right time sometimes to even get a shot.
My Biggest Sports accomplishments
1. Making Varsity baseball as a freshmen 2. Making all conference 2 of my 4 years playing baseball 3. Making the best all-star team in the state of Wisconsin 4. Signing to play Division 1 Baseball in High School 5. Ranked in the top 5 at Denmark High School for Wins, Strikeouts, Opponents’ batting average, as well as hitting average and at-bats. 6. Junior year at Central Michigan led the team in appearances and struck 8 guys in 3 innings one game. 7. Was in top 3 in the conference for ERA and Strikeouts for Relief Pitchers Junior year 8. Won a MAC championship my senior year and played in the NCAA baseball tournament.
Okay Jack, that will be all from me. Thank you so much for making this time to do the interview with me, I really appreciate it. I also think that this can help some people in my country to understand the circumstances in the United States to become a pro athlete and realize that it definitely is not easier. If you have anything else to add, feel free to do it. Thank you one more time and have a great day.
7.1.2 Jakub Jokl
Hello Jakub, in the first place, I would like to thank you for making time for doing this interview with me.
Could you please introduce yourself?
78
My name is Jakub Jokl, I am 23 year old, I come from Havlíčkův Brod in the Czech Republic and I play basketball. Thanks to basketball I have already travelled almost the whole world and I have always considered it as a journey through life.
When did you start playing?
I started playing when I was 6 year old. In the first grade I looked for a sport which I could spend more time with and thanks to my above average height basketball was an easy choice. At 14 I got an offer to play for one basketball center in Brno, that’s why my next 4 years of studies ended up in Brno.
How big role did your family and school play?
My parents always supported me in basketball, but they also cared about my education. That’s why my steps in basketball were always connected to education. I already knew at high school, that I will continue playing basketball even after I graduating, but connecting education and professional sports career is very difficult in the Czech Republic, that’s why I chose studying abroad. After graduating, my next steps lead me to basketball academy at the Canary Islands. This academy is focused on developing individual skills and helps players get sports scholarships at American universities.
At what age do you think that it is decided what sports the kid is going to do in the Czech Republic?
In my opinion children in the Czech Republic decide what sport they are going to do somewhere at the primary school, but it is way more complicated for them. Those few hours of physical education they get at the primary school won’t help them too much in choosing what sport they would like to invest more time in and what they would really find themselves in. That’s where I think the United States are way ahead of us. Because they can already try different sports in different time of the year at school.
In the Czech Republic, are there specialized schools with adapted teaching, or does the student or his parents need to arrange this individually?
In the United States, you don’t need to take care of this at all. Practices are part of your school timetable and you always have an assistant who helps you with this. But because you don’t play for a school, but for a club in the Czech Republic, which is not connected to school whatsoever, connecting sports with school is way more complicated. I studied normal “gymnasium” (grammar school that is considered to be the highest possible level
79 out of high schools) but I was very lucky that my basketball coach was also a teacher. If there was something I needed to help with at any time, he always took care of it. When we had a free class, we always had an open entrance to school’s gym or the fitness center, so our practices were adapted to our school. We also had very good relationship with the school principal, because we represented the school every year. Two times we were good enough to qualify through the Czech championship to the Worlds championship of high schools at Cyprus and a year after that to China, where we even won a medal. So, for me personally, it was not that hard putting sports and education together at high school, but not everyone has these options.
You said that connecting sports and education is quite complicated in the Czech Republic. You also tried studying in other countries. How do you think the system could be changed so the professional athletes could study and at the same time get a proper education?
It is all caused by studying and education being completely different things in the Czech Republic. In the United States, an athlete has a lot of advantages and assistants, which both helps him to combine both things together. Just a simple thing such as pre- registration of school subjects, where the athletes have an advantage of putting their timetable together before anyone else could help a lot of athletes here as well for sure.
You mentioned the United States a lot, you had an opportunity to try their system for the University of Utah, how was this experience for you?
It’s a thing that I will remember for the rest of my life. University of Utah plays in one of the best conferences in America and the conditions at the school correspond with that. Modern training center where you have access 24/7, 14,000 spectators at the home games or travelling to the matches by a private jet. Those are some things you will probably never experience in the Czech Republic.
You have probably met a lot of athletes who were raised in the American environment, would you say that there is a big difference in the mentality and the whole attitude towards sports between Czechs and Americans?
For them sport means something completely different than for athletes here. In America, the education is very expensive and thanks to sports, the kids are able to get the education for free, but on the other hand, they also need to sacrifice a lot of free time. Since the
80 childhood there is a huge competition between them and you can also see that in their mentality, where their self-confidence is sometimes way too high.
For you, as a boy who grew up in the Czech Republic, was it hard to adapt to their mentality and overall attitude? When we compare for example attendance at the home games in the Czech Republic and the United States, we get completely different numbers. How is a change like this for an athlete?
Compared to the Czech Republic, the difference is huge. But I was lucky that I already had some experiences from abroad. In the past I played in foreign countries with a lot of foreigners in the team, so the transition was not that hard for me. I actually think the opposite. For transitions like these, where the school offers such as conditions, it is very nice to get use to the new conditions and I felt much more support from people around me.
What about the atmosphere in the locker rooms? Would you say that at the American universities, you can feel the competition between the players? Where was the environment friendlier for you, in the Czech Republic or in the States?
Competitions yes, but it is that kind of competition that’s always pushing you forward and pushing you to work on yourself. I was the only international player in the locker room, so it was quite tough in the beginnings, because I had to work not only on my basketball skills but also on my English. But even with that, I still felt very comfortable in the locker rooms and I could always rely on my teammates.
In the States, although they have adapted teaching, the cost of studying at university is very high. Do you think that the education you get is worth the money and time invested in the specific sport?
Because of the expenses for education, sometimes sport can be the only way to get the education. Family from poorer classes cannot afford to pay very expensive tuition so the sports scholarships are one of the options, that can completely change their lives. These kids realize it and that’s why they spend a big amount of time doing sports that can help them in this way.
At the moment, you study Sports management at the faculty of Sports Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, but you also play in the highest basketball league in the Czech Republic. How was it for you to put these two things together?
81
In the beginnings, it was hard. But over time I managed to combine these two things without almost any compromises. The school does not allow me to have any individual plan, so it as all based on the agreement with the teachers, who most of the time try to help me.
Do you think that university sport would have a chance to be popular in the Czech Republic, or is it mostly in the States, where the number of athletes and people overall is many times higher?
I personally think that it is not possible in our conditions. In the Czech Republic, we do not have enough universities and athletes at the schools, so I cannot imagine how this model could work here.
Okay Jakub, thank you so much for your time and have a great day! Thank you.
7.1.3 Jan Dám
Hi Jan, thanks for making time for doing this interview with me.
At first, do you think that you could introduce yourself a little bit please? What you do for living, where you are from etc. Hi, it is a pleasure for me to do this with you. I was born and raised in Liberec, Czech Republic. I actively played ice hockey for HC Bili Tygri Liberec up until I was 19 years old. After that I decided to go and discover United States. I did not know much about the junior hockey in United States and after couple try outs for junior teams, I landed with El Paso Rhinos in El Paso, TX. I played one year and then I started my coaching career here in United States. I started taking classes at local Community College and after one semester I decided to start a club team at University of Texas at El Paso. It was historically the first hockey team at UTEP and I was its first president. After we had established UTEP Hockey Club Team I moved to Omaha, Nebraska where I reside now. I finished my Bachelors’ degree in Kinesiology at University of Nebraska at Omaha and I am going to start graduate school at Midland University. I am also going to be graduate assistant coach for Men´s Hockey Team. I am also assistant hockey director for Fremont Flyers Hockey Association that maintains over 200 youth players from 6U through High School. I am
82 also a founder of Surge Sports Advising company that helps European athletes in the age of 15-20 years old to connect sport and education at high school and college levels.
At what age did you start playing hockey back in the Czech Republic? I started when I was 8 years old.
Whose initiative was it that you would play hockey, was it your idea or was it something that your parents came up with? I grew up with a single mother. She did everything she could for me and my brother to find a passion at whatever that might be. Hockey practice was the first we tried and I never wanted anything else.
What made you quit playing hockey in Liberec and move on to the United States? It must not be easy to leave a place where you grew up and is a known environment. As you say, the challenge of discovering unknown and being successful at your journey was the number one motivator. I was 19 years old freshly graduating high school and wanted to see the world. Hockey was a tool for me at that time to open many doors. It taught me a lot of life lessons throughout my life it is a dream for me to work now in the environment where I can give it back through this wonderful sport.
Do you feel like most of the kids in the Czech Republic have an opportunity to find out a sport they like? Or overall an opportunity to do some sport? Because most of the schools do about two hours of physical education per week and sometimes instead of finding out that they like to do sport, these classes can start an negative attitude towards sports. At young age, there are differences between the students and what happens is that sometimes one is not as good as the other and gets for example laughed at. In my opinion, you have to go beyond the Czech educational system to find a kid´s passion for the sport, but I believe that it is mainly the environment that we create for kids to get better at - coaching, parents, organizations. I believe that in healthy environment every kid can develop the passion and develop themselves after that. I agree and can relate to PE classes I took growing up where harsh to some kids that like you say activate
83 aversion to any physical activity which is overall the worst that can happen. We need to be active.
So how was the transfer for you? Was the level similar to what you were used to here? Could you feel that you were foreigner in the locker rooms or did the others accept you as their own? I have to say that the transfer for me was very eye opening. I found abilities that I did not know I was capable of. I got into situations I never thought I would get but I was also very open minded about my trip. I did not have high expectations and as I said I had not had many information yet either such as connecting my hockey career with my college career. It was back in 2012 and I did not know much about college hockey. I liked the idea and all the opportunities that my one year brought to me so I figured there must be plenty of hockey players behind me that would like to go the same way.
I could definitely feel like a foreigner for a while and I still do after 8 years of being here but it is a good thing. I am proud of being Czech and getting myself here and mainly establishing myself here. People I met along the way are probably the biggest reason why I wanted to establish myself here.
What do you think is the biggest problem in the Czech educational/sports system? When we look at the United States, the children do sports from very young age and are able to do sports and study at the same time. Here, when you get to certain level, it is very complicated to connect both - education and a sports career. Sport and education can and always should go hand in hand. For any children these two things bring values into their professional life once their adults. That is how we look at it during board meetings with youth hockey association. In United States one thing is motivator for the other and excelling at both brings a lot of advantages as well.
Which brings me to question, back in the Czech Republic, did you feel like you had enough time to study when you played hockey? And as enough time to study I do not mean just going to school but actually getting proper education. No. One thing was taking a toll on the other. It was the exact opposite I was losing motivation for one thing or the other as the year went by and school got harder and
84 practices got harder. As a matter of fact, one of my professors at the grammar school (gymnasium – type of high school in the Czech Republic) in Liberec asked me to make a choice if it is a sport or education. I will never forget that.
What was your answer for the teacher? I said thank you for all of your work. I transferred the schools 2 weeks later.
If we were about to change that, where should we start? Should we start creating school competitions instead of so many private clubs? Or is just the government not putting enough money into sports as general? Absolutely. Creating sport teams and competing within cities or counties would create the healthy environment. The investment should be mainly in the right people to create that within school system. Look at the college sport system here in NCAA. I know we are talking about 100 years history of it but why not create that rivalry in soccer between gymnazium x and y. Everyone would want to get better to become that player - back to healthy environment.
I personally think that the problem are the people. And people with money are unfortunately people with power. Instead of using the money to create something better and investing in educating new people who could be put in their position in the future, they try to get as much money in their lifetime as they can. Not thinking about what will happen in the future, but thinking only of the present. And when we look at the Czech ice-hockey in the past few years, I think it speaks for itself. We still develop players, but on an international level, we are getting more and more behind. Our top league, instead of trying out new young players and giving them space such as they do in Finland, they place a foreigner in the team. I agree hundred percent. I will be honest with you, it was one of the big reasons why I wanted to see how things are done over here. The cynicism of the high up people that are responsible for where the money goes is absurd. We are unfortunately very dependent on those resources in the Czech republic as clubs and cities. Here, the rich people invest in junior team for example but because that is something they are interested in and they want that to be impact on young athletes´ development as well as the impact on the community. I know I repeat myself but that is again creating healthy environment. I believe that if more people have the right mindset and think about the right things and do the right things
85 it brings success and joy in the long run. We have not established our hockey vision in any long-term development. Just like you said we grow up to be decent hockey players all the way until we are 16-18 and then we have to go play Czech3 (3rd highest ice-hockey league in the Czech Republic) because in the top league the 35 years old still has 5 year contract. I totally agree with you that we are not looking forward and that is the issue.
A lot of young players like you leave Czech Republic at early age to another country, another league. What do you think it is caused by? Is it because they do not get enough space here or because the quality just is not that high? There is no care anymore once you reach certain age and are not on one of the national team. I believe every young player wants to try something different if nobody cares about him. We have to create situation where we care about the kids as people and give them the motivation to become better every day. I believe in doing things right and getting better brings the opportunities. In the Czech Republic, these opportunities were a lot of times hit by a political reasons as well. That should never happen. We have a great talent in the Czech Republic and a lot of hard workers but if they don´t get a chance why wouldn't they leave.
Do you feel like it is also the parents who create a lot of pressure on the environment? Absolutely, parents sometimes try to live their own dreams through their children. Honestly, here in the USA it is the biggest cornerstone of children unsuccess and quitting at later age. We talk about it on coaches’ seminars every year. What USA Hockey developed and what we run our organization under is ADM - American Development Model. This is a long-term development model for any registered coach out here. It is a great tool and it focuses on proper development. It helps organizations to focus on the right things throughout the development and it also gives players a chance to showcase their talent to colleges and junior teams. Did you know that you have to make it through 18 camps of 150 people to make the U17 national team? The Czech U17 national team has always been on coaches and agents’ recommendations. So, there it is, USA Hockey spent millions of dollars on this research and we have it all here. We just have to let the kids play and develop the passion. As parents we should watch them grow and get better and be proud of them.
86
How does the ADM exactly work? ADM is focused on age relevant development on and off the ice. It gives the organization tools to work with certain ages differently to focus on primary areas where children develop skills to become hockey players. ADM is endorsed by USA Hockey every year by holding seminars for coaches and directors as well as support individual organizations. Coaching in youth sports in USA is mostly on volunteer bases. ADM creates tools to do things right and spread the hockey onto little segments. For example, 6U and 8U teams practice in more station like practices where we can have more kids involved at the same time. Overall, these are tools for coaches and players to get themselves better.
Is the ADM only applied in ice-hockey or does it work across all sports? ADM is specifically developed for hockey by USA Hockey.
I don’t know how if you noticed, but the past year, a University hockey league started in the Czech Republic. There are 8 universities who compete each other from the biggest cities in the country. What is your opinion on that? I love it. I follow it since the beginning and am a big fan of it. Not only from the hockey perspective but as a founder of one of the hockey college teams I know it comes with a lot of responsibilities along before the puck is actually dropped. You have to have a social media person, finances, ticket sale all of that creates an opportunity for another college students to jump in and be part of it. Once again, it creates healthy environment that is competitive, it brings the community together. My only hope is for nobody to take an advantage of that. Unfortunately, I feel like Czech nature sometimes know how to slip into the shadows.
I think the problem here is that the government does not put enough money in the league, so it has to find sponsors, and sponsors are usually big companies, who see a business opportunity instead of creating a development. That is fine as long as the business owner does not take an advantage of it and is fair to everyone to create “the healthy environment for development”.
87
In one interview I did with a Czech professional basketball player, he said that the Czech Republic just is not big enough to create something similar to American sports system, do you think the same, or do you believe it is possible? I would disagree. I mean the University hockey in the Czech Republic is a perfect example of it. I think that as long as we make students to be involved in teams or just as fans this will continue and grow. High schools will take a lead soon and it gets rolling. Like I said the only thing I am afraid is once the rock starts rolling it would be hard to keep all the negative people away from the smell of revenue.
How big is the difference between Czech and American mentality? Solidarity. Respecting one and another. I found that very appealing and have not met anyone who would not be that way. I don't like saying it as a difference, but it is once you feel it. Everyone is more open minded and the values are still more in people. There are also a lot of negativities on US side as well but overall it is more friendly.
Do you believe that the motivation for kids in the United States is higher than for kids growing up here, in the Czech Republic? In America, kids can already become very successful and popular during their high school years. There is TV broadcast of the games and if they are good, they know they can get scholarship which means college education. This can also be a big factor, don’t you think so? I do believe so yes. As you said, the biggest motivation is college scholarship. Your parents invest in you your whole life up until high school graduation. If you can pay them back by being the star and getting a great deal on the school it definitely brings the motivation higher. Also, the high school pride is big in sports which can easily be created in the Czech school system as well.
You had the option to choose between these two environments. You made a decision to stay in the States and start developing players there. Would you do the same again? My plan was always to become a coach. I wanted to go to FTVS in Prague first but honestly, I am not sure if I would be able to and have the same opportunities back home as I have here. I would not mind but I am not sure if I would ever get to the state of having healthy environment. Here I have great coaches, parents and kids that feel joy to come to
88 the rink. In the Czech Republic, there is a pressure on you as a coach to get results. I don´t coach to win championships I coach to make people better at hockey and life. I have to say I would do it again here in the US.
How did you start your coaching career in the States? It is pretty impressive after just one year of playing there. I had a great year and worked hard that year to get a college offer. I did receive couple NCAA DIII offers where you do not get full scholarships and at that time I could not afford to play college hockey. Shortly after that, I got asked by the GM if I want to take over youth teams of El Paso and help with Defense of Junior A team.
As you mentioned, you work in the hockey field and help kids in developing. How big is the interested from the Czech side to go play to the United States and what are the results of these transfers? Do most of them work out well and help the players to grow their careers? My first year recruiting was 2013 and the interest in playing junior and college hockey just started to boom. Since then the interest raised by a lot. We have camps every year with more and more kids interested in playing. For me it is important the overall development which means not only how many goals he or she can score but how is the English and the grades. As I mentioned earlier, sport and education go hand in hand. I was an example of it in CZ and US.
The States are known for a lot of rules and curriculums, on the other hand, the Czech Republic is very much free. What difference does that make? In my thesis, I mention a high school student hand book, which has around 50 pages. In the Czech Republic, the usual handbook on high school has about 7. That is a great point. High school students in US are held much more accountable than teenagers in the Czech Republic. As we talked about there is a motivation of college education and sports that drives these students to follow those rules.
You have a chance to compare both systems. If you had to say, where do you think the probability of becoming a pro-athletes is overall higher? I would have to say that the honest chances are here under the proper development. I have seen so many talents that were killed by the buddy system that has worked in Czechia for
89 decades. Even though we are smaller “pond” and we still have great conditions for development and great former athletes that can help the honest chances are still more here. 18 camps with 150 players each time to make U17 National Hockey Team. Yes, there is a chance but that is only from hockey standpoint. I think that the overall system of high school - college - pro is set and it is up to individual of how much extra work they put in.
Do you feel like sports are becoming more and more commercial? More and more about the money and less about the passion? I mean for the people working in the field, not for the players. Because I feel like it didn’t use to be like this. It all had better atmosphere, at the stadiums, in the teams, between the fans. Unfortunately, yes. We can both probably relate to the ages of Nagano and EURO 2004 and all of those feelings that it brought to us. The true feelings of joy and happiness. Everybody was kind to each other and love was in the air for the sports and the nation. That is how powerful sports are and what community and environments they can create. It has definitely become a huge industry where people battle for jobs in this industry which chips those feelings away.
7.1.4 Jacob Russell
First of all, thank you Jacob, for making time to do this interview with me.
Do you think you could introduce yourself a little bit please? Yeah sure! My name is Jacob Russell. I am 21 years old and I live in Boise, Idaho. I have lived here my whole life and played sports since I was a kid. I started playing soccer, basketball, and football between first and third grade. Started playing lacrosse in 5th grade and stopped playing soccer. Tried my hand at swimming. Around 8th grade I got a little more serious about sports, knowing that I could get good enough to go to college to play. So I focused most of my time and energy on basketball. In high school I ran cross country and track to get in shape for basketball season - so 3 sports throughout high school. Then graduated and went to college in Los Angeles on a basketball scholarship. Transferred to the College of Idaho my sophomore year and am playing basketball and running track for them right now - about to enter my senior year and seasons in the fall.
90
How tough was it to get the college sports scholarship? Very! As a basketball player being 6’1” and white is seen by most as a pretty average player. So I had to market myself a lot to college coaches. Used a lot of film and phone calls to convince them that I was worth a shot. I got lucky because I am athletic enough to draw some attention and then my grades did the rest.
How many kids that apply for the scholarships really get them? I suppose the number is not very high and that the competition among students must be big. Was it stressful at some point for you? You don’t really “apply” for sports scholarships as you would academic ones with essays and such. Essentially, depending on how big the school is, a basketball team will get a certain number of scholarships or a certain dollar amount to give their student athletes. Sports as you go up in level (grade school → high school → college) gets more and more competitive and less and less people are able to continue playing. So there was a certain amount of stress not knowing if I would be seen as good enough to play at the schools I wanted to go to - but I always had confidence knowing I was good enough to play somewhere. You have played a lot of sports since you were a kid, was it school that allowed you to try all of these or was it your own or your parents’ initiative? As a kid me and my siblings never really had video games or were allowed to watch much tv. So we were outside playing all of the time. I think that this just naturally flowed into competitive sports as I got older. Also, all of my friends played sports - so I wanted to play as well. I am very competitive so athletics is a nice, natural outlet for that. And my parents encouraged me to use sports as a way to try new things, stay active, meet new people, push myself physically, etc. They have always been very supportive of me and my siblings in school, sports, life etc. So whatever I had chosen to focus on whether that was basketball and track/cross country (like I did) or competitive chess, they would have pushed me to be the best I could at that thing.
Do you feel like all the kids in the United States get enough opportunity to try and do some sports? Because sometimes sports can get pretty expensive, especially for a growing up kid, that needs new equipment every year or two.
91
I definitely got lucky. My family is not rich by any means, but we do have enough money to pay for some of the equipment and fees that go along with playing competitive sports. I grew up in a community where I never really saw anybody not able to compete because they didn’t have the opportunity financially or for other reasons. Looking back, there were some kids that didn’t quite have enough money, but the little leagues worked with them and their families to make it work. I think the bigger issue comes from parents who aren’t supportive of sports teams or don’t give their child the opportunities to try sports out.
If I am not mistaken, they are mostly school teams that kids play sports for at early young age, aren’t they? It depends. The majority of young kids get into sports in some sort of city wide youth league. In the first few years of playing sports (1st and second grade) kids just really aren’t good enough for a school to have a team. But moving through middle school yeah, school teams become more prevalent, and then in high school you play for your school and use club teams as a way to travel and get exposure to get recruited to go to college. You mentioned that your grades also played some role in getting a scholarship. In the United States, how much coaches and teams care about how good the student is in school, besides just being a good athlete? Basically, if you aren’t a five star recruit going to one of the top schools in the country like Duke, Kentucky, UCLA etc. with a strong likelihood of going pro, you have to have good grades. Some programs are more strict than others, some work more with student athletes depending on how good they are. I’d say that the better athlete you are, the more a bigger school would be willing to overlook your grades and help you with them, and the less desirable you are as a player, the more your academics help. In my case, I really boosted my resume with good grades, academic accolades, and high test scores which opened opportunities to me over guys who were probably better athletes.
How hard was it for you to keep up with school when you had to spend a lot of time practicing for sports? Did you have enough time to balance your school time and time you spend doing sports? My freshman year in college was a little tough. Just learning how to time manage. But overall I don’t think I have ever really had the struggles with not having enough time that some people have. That’s probably because I’m very organized and work hard to get stuff done so it doesn’t pile up. But I do think that there would be less stressed involved if I
92 wasn’t playing sports because I wouldn’t have 3-5 hours a day dedicated to something - and I could do homework or a different, less time consuming activity during those hours
So you would say that it is possible to get proper education and at the same time still do sports at a professional level at high schools/college? Oh absolutely! There’s a reason that schools put an emphasis on STUDENT-athlete. I think that if you aren’t a freak athlete headed straight to the NBA to make millions and millions of dollars, it’s not only recommended but really in your best interest to focus on school. The likelihood that I make a living playing professional sports is far lower than the likelihood that I make money using my academic degree.
When do you think you can really find out who has a chance of becoming a pro athlete? I mean, what is the point where the great ones separate from the ones that did it mostly for fun and are not probably going to make living out of sports? Nowadays, the future hall of famer athletes get discovered pretty early because of social media and scouts being literally everywhere. I think of it with a funnel analogy I alluded to earlier. In grade school everybody gets to play, but come high school that number dwindles quickly, and in college it gets smaller again so the number of people who can play pro is miniscule. To answer your question however, I think that the point when the future pro players separate themselves from the rest is in college. Whether that’s for a year or four years, college is the first time athletes have coaches completely focused on the sport, nutritionists and weights coaches getting their body tuned to a perfect level. So the pro players are able to physically separate themselves and show that physical separation on the field of play. This isn’t the Zion Williamson freaks who dominate everyone from the time they are 6, but the above average athlete who works hard and separates themselves from the rest, giving them a chance to play pro.
As you mentioned, only a few make living from sports. So would you say that sports is in the United States kind of a way to get good education and better life perspective? Yes. Especially for underprivileged kids who might not have the money, grades, etc. to get into college. They can use athletics to open a door of opportunity that would be shut otherwise. But in the end, it really comes down to having that opportunity in whatever way you can get it, and then working hard to capitalize on it.
93
As you may already know, I am from the Czech Republic. How it works here is, that we do not really have any school teams where kids could play. At the same time, our universities are for free. But if you want to become a professional athlete, it is very tough to synchronize it with your school. Would you say that your system is the right way to do it? You motivate kids to do sports, but not only to become professional athletes, but also to get a proper education and a lot of handful skills that one learns while doing team sports. I don’t know if it’s the “right way” to do it, but from my perspective it works out all right. The system and the process simultaneously separates and funnels the great athletes from the mediocre ones and teaches values of hard work, teamwork, and lessons in how to win and lose with grace etc.
Was there ever a time in your career when you thought about quitting sports? Briefly. The summer before I transferred I wrecked my mountain bike and completely separated my AC Joint in my dominant shoulder. I had surgery to completely replace it and haven’t been able to feel like I am fully back since then. There were times during the rehab and when I felt that I couldn’t get back to my physical shape I had been in when I thought about throwing in the towel. I am glad I did not do that though!
What is the mentality among the players at high school? Is there big competition? Because especially in basketball, there are only five players on the field and usually there are not that many changes in the game. How is the atmosphere in cabin? I think that there is a lot of competition mainly for school pride, playing with and against your friends and in front of your family and friends. Also, the majority of kids who play sports in high school are proud to be athletes and competitive about winning. Who wants to lose? Especially in high school when popularity can revolve around being a part of a winning team. The locker room atmosphere depends on the team. Close teams who are all friends have fun energetic locker rooms. I’d say it’s a little less down to business than college because winning in college will determine a lot in terms of fans and funding/money coming into the program, being in the national spotlight, winning a national championship etc.
94
Nowadays, you play at a college team, how many spectators do you usually get at home games? We get a lot of fans for a small school - about 2,700 at home games.
That’s crazy, what division do you play? 2,700, we don’t get that at our highest league in the Czech Republic. How many colleges like yours is there in your state? We play in the NAIA. We are one of two NAIA schools, the other being Lewis/Clark State College up north. Boise State University is NCAA Division I (the highest), Northwest Nazarene is NCAA Division II. And there a number of other small junior colleges around the state. This is the way the divisions work in descending order of size:
NCAA Division I Division II Division III NAIA Junior Colleges Community Colleges
Generally speaking, the higher the school division, the better athletes, the more scholarships, the more fans, and the more money in general they get.
Do you think that especially at high schools, sports also provide you some kind of “social credit”? Because from what I remember from my studies in the States, for example the football players were known by everyone at the school and even the teachers respected them. It must be also a big responsibility to play, because there is pressure of the whole school behind you. Not talking about college, where the numbers are x-times higher. Yeah for sure. Popularity is such a weird and slippery concept. It really makes no sense and doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but in High School that social status/credit is very important. Other than stereotypes, I think that athletes get that social credit because they are a very visible representation of the school and the rest of the
95 population of that school. We wear the school colors and the name on our chest, so the way we conduct ourselves on and off the court is seen as a representation of the school at large.
As you said, athletes are very visible representation of the school. How is it with rules and curricula, do you feel like it is quite strict in the United States? When you are a college athlete, you probably have to watch out what you do in summer in the off- season as well. The public eye is upon athletes more so than anyone else. Especially with social media I think you always have to be careful where you are and what you’re doing with whom. We don’t have any specific rules because our coaches trust us to make smart decisions, but every year you hear about a dumb athlete going to a party and getting in a fight, or posting something bad on social media. This can easily spell ruin for a career no matter how good the athlete.
I have one little more personal answer, feel free not to answer. How is it with alcohol and parties during high school and college? I never partied in high school, although I know most of my friends did - both athletes and non-athletes. In college, parties are obviously a lot more prevalent. I like to have a good time and have had some great nights that resulted in a few headaches the next day. But I think that being an athlete, I am a lot more in tune with my body and physical ability, so I am more careful about what I’m putting in and the choices I make while drinking or something. Like we talked about, one wrong decision could end a career and alcohol definitely opens up opportunity to makes mistakes - so I just make sure I’m being careful.
When we move to professional college level. The athletes do not get paid anything if I am right. But they spend all of their time doing the sport. Sometimes they do not even have enough time to study. Where do they get money for living? And what if they get some serious injury, what happens then? Colleges should not make money off of a players likeness of image by selling jerseys and stuff in my opinion. Yes, athletes at all levels but especially high level college risk ending their career to injury. If you have a prospect of going pro you are risking millions of dollars in future salary if you get hurt, so I feel there should be some compensation.
96
On the other hand, the coaches get big loads of money, do you feel like that is fair? Coaching is their career - I think they have earned making lots of money being the face of a program.
Professional student athletes are basically a walking commercial, when we look at events like March Madness, it brings enormous amount to NCAA. Is the system balanced? What I mean it, do you feel like the money they get is being brought back to the athletes, starting with the lower colleges, not only the highest competitions. If a team wins a championship/goes to March Madness, there is a lot of money that goes into the school and the program, but won’t go to their pockets. I think that they should be making money of the “walking commercial” like you said. But that’s hard to judge who gets the money and how much. It’s definitely an issue and I don’t think it’s fair - but then again, those big time college athletes aren’t paying a dime for school and in many cases are being paid a ton of money under the table.
What do you think makes the biggest impact in becoming a pro athlete? Preparation, physical ability, and opportunity
You said you are a senior athlete now. Do you already have plans for what you are going to do after graduating? Depending on my shoulder I want to play this year and then move overseas and maybe try to walk onto a low level pro team. If that doesn’t work out then I will either go to grad school here in the states or move to France and figure out what the heck I’m gonna do next. I really want to move overseas though because I never got the opportunity to study abroad.
Well if you plan to move overseas, definitely let me know! Will do!
7.1.5 Karel Vejmelka
Hello Karel, first of all, I would like to thank you for making time to do this interview with me, I really appreciate it.
97
Do you think you could introduce yourself a little bit please?
I am 23 years old, I come from the city Třebíč and I am a professional ice-hockey player currently playing for HC Kometa Brno.
When did you start doing sports?
I started ice-skating when I was about 3 years old and little by little I went through more and more categories. At the age of 8, after one year of presuming my parents, I started goaltending. I always wanted to try, but my father always played as a defenseman and wanted me to be like him. In the end, the presuming was successful and since then I basically haven’t left the goal.
How big role did school and your family play in that?
Of course, family played the biggest role. Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am now and probably I wouldn’t even be playing hockey anymore. They have supported me since I was a child, they watch almost every single game and we experience everything together. My parents sacrificed a lot for me even at the expense of my three younger siblings.
With school, it was always complicated. At the primary school, I was in a sports class, where most of my classmates were hockey players as well, so we had our own schedule, but of course, we always did everything how we wanted, so sometimes it wasn’t easy. In the fifth grade, I transferred to 8 year-grammar school (in Czech it is called gymnasium, high school on a highest possible level, noted by Martin Hroch) and my family pushed me into school more. They did not count on that I could ever make a living by playing ice-hockey, so they wanted me to have a back-door so I had to study. After 4 years at the grammar school, I got a chance to play Extraliga from Třebíč to Pardubice. After long discussions and considering some other options I decided to go there but with a condition that from Monday to Wednesday, I’ll be practicing in Třebíč with the A-Team and still study at the grammar school but with an individual plan and from Thursday to Friday, I’ll be in Pardubice. I had it worked out like this for 4 years, until I graduated. A lot of times I was thinking that it would be much easier to just transfer to school in Pardubice, but my grammar school in Třebíč always tried to find a way for me even in few tougher moments.
At what age, roughly, do you think it is being decided what sport a child will do?
98
I think that this is very individual. The decision is not made by the child, but mostly by his parents. They influence how a child looks at a specific sport, they have the power to bring some sport near the child, but they also have the power to make it look bad in the child’s eyes. Anyways, I think that the approximate age, when a given child can realize what they really like is around 6-7 year of age. I think that it is still very early for the kid to start this sport doing the sport properly and start liking it.
In the Czech Republic, are there schools specialized for sports with adapted teaching and schedules, or the student or his parents need to arrange this on their own?
I have personal experience with state high school where it was purely on individual agreement. But everything worked out without a problem. I know that there are sport orientated high schools but from what I remember, a lot of players that studied there sometimes had more problems to arrange something than I did.
Do you think that at Czech primary and secondary schools the children have enough physical education with the right attitude? Or can the attitude of the teachers sometimes discourage children from doing sports?
I think that this depends on individual attitude of the teacher. Personally, I never had a problem with sports but I think that’s also thanks to the good teachers and coaches that I met. So there never was anyone who could made me dislike the sport enough for me that I would stop doing it.
If there is a child, who does not have parents who would lead him/her towards sports, is there any chance that the child will find a way to sports through school?
Definitely, but it has to find the way on its own and that’s always harder. In these cases, a lot of times parents discourage the child from the sports and don’t support him/her in what he/she would like to do.
Do you think that it would help to start building more and more competitions between schools and school teams than just once a year like how it is now?
I think that more and more people start understanding this. I hope that it’s going to stay this way and if so, the situation could get better and there will be more opportunities.
99
You mentioned your transfer to Pardubice. How was it for you to spend two days a week there and then three days back in Třebíč? It definitely could not be easy to combine school and practices.
It was not easy, but I always told myself that if I really wanted to, I would make it. The worst thing is thinking about how difficult it is for you than for the others. I chose this way and now I am very happy for it. Because thanks to that I gain something more than the others. But I have to say that my parents gave me a big helping hand. They drove me every week there and back. My dad had to take a vacation a lot of times just so he could drive me and my mom was at the maternity leave, so sometimes I drove with her and my little sister, who was 2 years old at that time. So without the willingness of my parents I definitely wouldn’t make it.
How was it for you from the social aspect? Basically you spent all of your free time playing hockey and you were in a different city than most of your friends from your childhood.
I wanted to try. At that age a lot of my peers already left from the national team to for example Sweden or different Czech Extraliga clubs from their hometowns. So I knew I had to go the same way to make it further. But at the same time, I still could spend some time with my friends in Třebíč, it was not a lot, though.
Last year, you successfully graduated from your Bachelor studies at the Faculty of Sports Studies of Masaryk University in Brno, what made you go to the college?
It was my plan from the high school. When I transferred to Kometa, there was nothing to think about. I had it lined up and again, I told myself that I would try and if it was not possible, I could stop at any time.
Do you think that every professional athlete has a chance of college degree in the Czech system or it takes a lot of effort and motivation?
The situation around professional sports and university is a very complicated topic here. For example, in the contrary to the United States, their system is much better optimized and makes it easier to study for professional athletes. In this regard, our Ministry of Education should make some steps so we could get at least a little closer to a similar system.
100
If there was one thing that could be changed to help athletes get proper education, what it would be?
Definitely, closer cooperation with the faculties themselves and creating some personal educational plan based on the options of the athlete.
Did your team support you in getting a college degree and did they have understanding when you, for example, had to go to an exam, or it was the opposite and the school was in the second place and had to adapt?
When I went to college, school was at the second place in my mind. It is still like that but many times I had to talk to my club and tell them that I needed to go to an exam, but they were always willing to meet my needs. Without this tolerance I would probably never finish my Bachelor’s degree. But it is definitely not so common here in the Czech Republic. I really want to thank Kometa for this.
How does this work for younger guys who play, for example, the second highest league in the Czech Republic? The salaries are definitely not that high so one could save money after retired. But at the same time, it takes huge amount of time.
I tried the first league (Second highest in the Czech Republic) only in Třebíč, but it works similar in other clubs as well. It is quite harder for the guys from the financial perspective, but everyone has to adapt and be a little bit modest. It is not about what contract you have, but how much you can save. I know a lot of guys who built a house or bought a nice car with salary from the first league.
Let’s talk about the youth. Do you think that everybody has the same chance to make a mark in the youth categories in the Czech Republic? How big is the competition here?
It depends on the certain circumstances. In the youngest categories, the parents can play a big role from the financial aspect. But it’s not always like that. What matters the most is how much the individual really wants to play hockey and he/she doesn’t need to have the best equipment. Anyway, everybody starts from zero, but some children have the start easier.
How big role does money play in the Czech environment?
101
Especially in the Czech Republic, the financial differences are huge. I think that sometimes they can even play much bigger role than the sport itself.
You are a goalie, which is one of the most expensive positions maybe in all sports. How does with borrowing equipment work in the youth categories? What I am trying to ask is, does everyone have the opportunity to try being a goalie or can that become a problem for some parents that cannot afford this?
Unfortunately, this is a very common problem, why children are rather players in the field or they don’t play hockey at all. I was lucky because we were always given all the equipment in Třebíč. But I know good enough that even now this is not so common. This is one of the things that should change as well.
In 2015, you were drafted in the fifth round into the NHL team Nashville Predators, how it felt, did you expect anything like that?
That feeling was amazing. I always dreamt about it and Nashville was close to me because I could personally meet Tomáš Vokoun, whom once a year did a trip to his cabin, where my grandparents also had a place, so I always met him there and that was during the times when he played for Nashville.
Didn’t going overseas attract you? Why did you decide to stay here?
Of course, it attracted me, I had two contracts on my table. The first one last year and the second one this year. But neither of them was very beneficial and my agent discouraged me from that. But I still hope that a better one is going to come yet, maybe from another team and I am going to do everything that is in my power to get there one day.
How long has been the journey from Třebíč to become the first goalie in Brno?
The journey was long and rough but I don’t take it as that I achieved something yet. I have bigger ambitions and I want to keep moving forward. Further and further. But as a kid I didn’t think about becoming a full time athlete and I definitely didn’t think about becoming a goalie for such a club as Kometa. That is one more dream come true.
What was the motivation for you? It could not be easy to keep the positive attitude all the time, especially when talents like Lukáš Dostál, Marek Langhamer and other were right behind your back.
102
I have to say that this actually helped me. I had to keep working. I knew that if I stopped, it was going to come back at me. So when I look at it now, I am glad it was like that.
What are the goals for you in the future? I saw that you start your Masters’ degree soon but also thanks to your great performances last season, a lot of other doors is going to open.
At this moment my plan is to start the season in Kometa and continue with my school to do the Masters’. What’s going to come after, we will see. But I definitely want to achieve more. I hope this is just the beginning.
Thank you, Karel, have a great day!
Jack Collins
Source: Jack Collins’ Archive
103
Jack Collins
Source: Jack Collins’ Archive
104
Jan Dám
Source: Jan Dám’s Archive
Jakub Jokl
Source: Basket Brno
105
Jakub Jokl
Source: Jakub Jokl’s Archive
106
Jacob Russell
Source: Jacob Russell’s Archive
Karel Vejmelka
Source: Roman Kantor
107
Jack Collins’ declaration
108
Jan Dám’s Declaration
109
Jakub Jokl’s Declaration
110
Karel Vejmelka’s Declaration
111
Jacob Russell’s Declaration
112
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AC – acromioclavicular
ADM – American Development Model
CBS – Columbia Broadcasting System
CEO – Chief Executive Officer
CZ – Czechia
DI – Division 1
DII – Division 2
DIII – Division 3
DPI – Department of Public Instruction
ESPN – Entertainment and Sports Programming Network
EUHL – European University Hockey League
FCS – Football Championship Subdivision
FTVS – Faculty of Physical Education and Sport
GDP – Gross Domestic Product
GM – General Manager
GPA – Grade Point Average
HC – Hockey Club
ID - Identification
MLB – Major League Baseball
MLS – Major League Soccer
NAIA – National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
NBA – National Baseball Association
NCAA – National Collegiate Athletic Association
113
ND – North Dakota
NFL – National Football League
NHL – National Hockey League
NJCAA – National Junior College Athletic Association
TBS – Turner Broadcasting System
TV - Television
TX – Texas
UCLA – University of California, Los Angeles
US – United States
USA – United States of America
UTEP – University of Texas, El Paso
WI – Wisconsin
WIAA – Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association
LIST OF PICTURES
Picture n. 1: Eva Šindlerová
Picture n. 2: Comparison of well-being of student athletes and non-athletes
Picture n. 3: 2019 NHL Draft Lottery
LIST OF GRAPHS
Graph n. 1: Americans’ Favorite Sports, 1937-2017
Graph n. 2: Analysis of financing sports in the Czech Republic 1989-2008
Graph n. 3: Government expenditures on sports compared with other EU countries
Graph n. 4: The structure of financing sports based on a French study “Study of public and private financing of sports in Europe (2008)”
Graph n. 5: Government expenditures, red circle shows the Ministry of Education, youth and sports
114
LIST OF TABLES
Table n. 1: Table of contents
Table n. 2: Punishments at Denmark High School
Table n. 3: Americas favorite sports to watch
Table n. 4: Draft lottery 2019
Table n. 5: Draft lottery 2019
Table n. 6: NHL Draft Picks 2019
115