In the book Outliers, a Canadian psychologist named Roger Barnsley drew attention to the occurrence of relative age. He found many professional hockey players were born in January, more than any other month. The second most frequent birth month was February, and then March. Barnsley found that there were nearly five and a half times as many Ontario Junior Hockey League players born in January as were born in November.
The following link is an article that summarizes about playing in the NHL, but being born in the right month in order to do so. Want to play in the NHL? Better hope you were born in the right month. I found this article interesting considering if you were not born in the correct month and you love to play hockey, chance of you making it professional are unlikely.
Say someone starts playing hockey at seven years old compared to someone who started playing hockey at age twelve. Yes, the hockey players who make it into the NHL are more talented than anyone else, however, they also got a big head start, an opportunity that played a critical role in their success. If this seven year old were to play a game against this twelve year old, the seven year old will probably be better because the player was able to start out playing earlier. And that little difference of starting younger leads to an opportunity that makes that difference a bit bigger, which then leads to another opportunity, which then makes that certain individual and outlier or someone who stands out the most compared to their peers. An example from the book was from a father of one of the Medicine Hat Tigers. The fathers says, "When he was four and five years old his little brother was in a walker, and he would shove a hockey stick in his hand and they would play hockey on the floor in the kitchen, morning till night. He always had a passion for it. He had to work very hard for whatever he's got. I'm very proud of him." These are what makes someone successful. Passion, talent, and hard work. Of course, his son was born on January 4, the perfect birthday for an elite hockey player, Becoming pro in hockey is not easy it takes being born in the correct month, and the skill from past experiences to make it big.
An article I found on the Internet talks about how great the sports author (J.R Gamble) son is at baseball. He states he has a lot of video clips that he shows to different people of him doing amazing things on the field. Part of the reason his son is so good at baseball is because he started at a very, very early age. Gamble says, "when he was about 14 months, I put a golf ball in his hand to let him know how a baseball would feel when he got older. By age two, J.C (his son) was hitting and throwing the ball. By age three, he was playing organized T-ball." Many people believe J.C is good enough to become professional and his dad would quit whatever he was doing to attend every game. J.C indicates he will go to Standford, get a scholarship, and then he will go to the Yankees in the MLB draft. According to a poll from the NPR that is shown below, about 40 percent of respondents between the ages 18 to 25 have played a sport in the past year, compared to 26 percent of respondents ages 26 to 49. This shows how more athletes are starting and playing at a younger age rather than playing at an older age. It is extremely hard to make professional athletes, because each individual has to be fully committed to the sport. However, in recent years, a director of the Sports and Society Program of the Aspen Institute started to see a shift among the parents of kids playing sports at a young age. A lot of parents today will say, "I'd better get started early with my kid." Some parents follow their child's passion in a specific sport while others push their children into competitive sports believing their child could get athletic scholarships or become professional. There are still some children and parents who let their children play multiple sports at a young age just because they enjoy and have fun playing that certain sport. Yet, a child psychiatrist has noticed more and more parents are obsessing over their kids' athletic careers which can be concerning. In fact, there is a name for this type of obsession, called achievement by proxy distortion. It is important now a days, that future parents are careful with pressuring their children into becoming professional when it is more important for them to learn about being the right team player.
Links
Was this late? How come? It's really thorough.
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