So your child wants to be a pro?

From football to basketball to tennis, the lure of the pro tour is captivating the minds of millions of children around the world. In part one of a two-part series, Yasmine El-Rashidi explores what it really takes to reach the ranks

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Letting your children play for the fun of it is critical to their sporting success -- the line between encouragement and expectation being a critical one to maintain

I remember wanting to become a pro. Like most other so- called "wanna-be's" I had it all planned out. The theory, was that in the summer of 1993, I would be mingling with Steffi Graf and Pete Sampras and playing on the grass courts of Wimbledon. I trained hard, ran endlessly each morning and evening, and devoured book after video after video on tennis strategy and technique. Something, it is clear, went drastically wrong, and that experience of a shattered pro dream is one I share with millions of youngsters around the world.

It is 8am -- far too early for a Friday morning in Cairo. The air is uncomfortably cold, making itself felt with the occasional howl and gathering of force. The streets are empty, and the usually bustling alleyways abandoned.

Somewhere amidst the silence that envelopes the city, a flurry of activity and energy is erupting. On the grounds of the French school in Maadi, excitement is high. Over 70 children, 42 matches, parents, friends and coaches. It is the seasonal football tournament, and children of all ages and nationalities are gathered to compete. Some of them are in it because it's cool, others because it's fun, and a few because they "want to be pros".

They are not alone. At various clubs and school pitches around the city, the same state of affairs is transpiring. These hundreds of children will not wake up early for anything. Except football, that is -- and in some other cases, another chosen sport. That passion is multiplied in similar scenarios around the world -- hundreds of cities and thousands of children.

"Every child dreams of fame of some kind," says sports psychologist Karim Fawzy. "Much more now than ever before, because athletes and celebrities are much more in-your-face."

As the restrictions of borders and distance diminish in implication, technology brings increasingly together disparate corners of the globe. The Beckhams of England, J-Los and Michael Jordans of the USA have become the public friends of the world -- the details of their lives and trivialities of daily existence becoming the hydrants of a media-created public thirst.

This cult-type following transcends the brackets of age -- each generation buying into coverage of a carefully tailored form.

"Athletes are portrayed as strong, courageous. They can do everything -- superman-like," Fawzy explains. "This appeals to the psychology of children, their imaginations and dreams."

Athletes, in child-lingo, are a special species of super-cool human beings, incomparable in form to mom and dad and their boring friends.

"No way!" says nine-year-old footballer Mahmoud Fahmy. His dad could never have been like Ronaldo, and "Yes!" of course all of his football clan want to be like him.

I get a seemingly scornful sneer at the absurdity of the question, and the gathering of young boys sprint off rowdily onto the pitch.

As the kick-off whistle of their first round match blows, their expressions transform. The playful mischief fades, the frown of stern concentration dawns on their faces, and the world's boundaries fizzle to comprise just the outline of the pitch.

"Young boys dream of being soccer stars," Fawzy laughs. "It's just one of those things that's a given around the world."

Equally so, however, it is a given that of those hundreds and thousands that do dream of creating superstar names for themselves, only a fraction will succeed. And while the odds of becoming the CEO of a given global corporation are equally slim, the quest to make it on the pro tour remains a more baffling feat in the minds of most.

"It takes a special equation," explains Maged Samy, secretary-general of the Wadi Degla Sporting Club (WDSC), home of the Arsenal Soccer School. "It's not easy!" he laughs. The Wadi Degla-Arsenal alliance aim to tackle just that -- providing the framework necessary for the grooming of international champions.

"That's the goal," Samy tells Al-Ahram Weekly. "But to do that one needs to work within the framework of a professional sports industry, with enough tournaments and professional competitions. To excel you have to have role models, you have to be challenged -- constantly."

But that is only part of the problem.

"There is also the problem of awareness. Most parents don't fully understand what it takes to groom a child into a champion. If you look at the Egyptian athletes that have excelled on an international level -- like world squash champion Amr Shabana -- they were backed fully by their parents. Generally one of the parents left everything to devote themselves to their child's sports career. Had it not been for Shabana's father, for example, he would have never reached where he has."

But of course, that sphere of parental guidance and involvement is known to house a fine line. About a decade ago, the media aptly coined the term "parents from hell"; starting with "Tennis Parents from Hell" and the case of the aggressively overbearing fathers of sensations Steffi Graf and Jennifer Capriatti. Both gentlemen were eventually banned from their daughter's courtsides, and the manifestation of the family turmoil haunted the young women affront the public eye. The phenomenon, unfortunately, has become pervasive, and now there are known cases of "Football Parents from Hell", "Swimming Parents from Hell" and "Gymnastics Parents from Hell".

"That too is very hard to attain," says psychologist Fawzy of the ideal "parent-coach". "To retain that necessary emotional detachment takes a certain kind of character and a lot of personal work," he explains. "Most parents aren't able, or willing, to keep the parent and coach roles separate."

In her book Coaching Your Superstar, Linda Bunker, professor at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, writes: "Before rushing into coaching your child, you should examine your motives. Are you trying to live vicariously through your child? ... Blurring of the line between parent and coach can create problems off the playing field, as well. Don't let the youngster's sports be the center of attention all the time," she advises. "If you and your daughter dominate the dinner-table conversation with sports talk, other family members may feel left out and resentful. Also, your daughter may begin to feel that sports is the center of your relationship with her. When you come home, remember you're a parent again. If your child is constantly getting coached, she won't like sports anymore."

Even, however, for those who do not assume the role of full- time coach, the problems are blaring.

"That parent from hell comes in different forms," Samy laughs. "It is not uncommon to find parents trying to coach their children from the sidelines and stands," he says. "It's problematic on several levels. To start with, part of the programme is training children how to focus fully on the ball and the pitch. In their minds the stands should not exist."

Then of course there is the issue of motive.

"A child shouldn't feel that there is pressure on them from the parents. There should be encouragement and support, but never the feeling that if they lose a match or miss a ball their parents will be frustrated or upset. So long as they've tried their best," Fawzy offers. "They should be playing 100 percent for themselves, and the parents should be encouraging that too. Once it becomes obligation or expectation, that's when things begin to go wrong; for the child, the family, the parent-child relationship. Psychologically, the black-lash on the child can be great."

It is a line and boundary hard to maintain, with parents requiring as much psychological grooming as their young athletes.

"Of course we have to work with the parents as well," WDSC's Samy says. "You have to talk to the parents, listen to them, try to understand how they're thinking. They are a huge part of that equation."

The equation is completed with the units of dedication, talent, perseverance and an unwavering desire. While the allure of the pro tour comes from the images of fans, mega-money sponsorship deals, and the joys of victory and world fame, the reality beneath that outer shell is harsh.

"Some of the young athletes I train drag themselves around the track after five or six laps," says multi-sport fitness coach Nasser Abdullah. "They claim that they want to be professionals, but they aren't even willing to push themselves for one full hour. Professionals train for six, seven, eight hours a day. And for those eight hours a day they push themselves to the max. You can't just make it on talent and luck."

The eight hours of training are coupled with rigid nutrition regimens and disciplined sleep routines.

"When you're exerting your body to such an extreme, you need to give it the time to recover," Abdullah explains. "That comes through nutrition and sleep -- both are critical to the recovery and rebuilding of muscles."

The obstacle for most youngsters is looking at the full pro picture and the path which leads there. To the majority, it is the outer image that consumes the better part of their energy.

"Their clothes, their shoes, the sunglasses that Mido has and the hairstyle that Beckham has. Of course it's normal for young children and even teenagers, but it's important that once they step on the pitch they forget all that. And it's important that they can focus 100 per cent on the game for the four or five hours that they're on the pitch," Abdullah says. "The parents play a big role in that. Too often you see parents treating their seven-year-olds as if they're already champions!"

And more-often-than-not the children fall fast into the spoilt- brat role, smashing their rackets down, kicking footballs angrily into the air, and spewing out offensive lingo far-beyond their years.

"What we hope to bring to the Egyptian sports arena is a new level of professionalism," Samy tells the Weekly, adding that the concept of "scouting" for players in lesser-privileged communities will also be a WDSC priority. "A big part of that professionalism is educating both children and their families on the culture of sports professionalism; what it's all about and what it really takes to make it on the international circuit."

And for those who never make it out of the local club league, school's such as the Arsenal Soccer School and the Mido Football Academy (created by Egyptian football star Ahmed Hossam), deal with the psychological element of loss.

"Parents and coaches generally don't pay enough attention to that," Fawzy says. "When a teenager realises that the pro dream is not materialising, it's hard to deal with. Their parents have treated them like they are stars, in the country they are top of their sport, but internationally, they are nothing so-to- speak. It's critical that the psychological impact of not attaining that dream is looked at. Parents don't realise how crippling such loss can be, and too often the disappointment of the parents themselves is clear. Your child wanted to be a football star, you wanted them to be a football star, the focus on the family became this child's training and tournaments; they didn't make it. They failed. How do you think they feel?"

[On next week's Twenty-Ten page, part two of the series looks at the technical aspects of football fitness and nutrition, and what exactly your child's training programme should entail to beat the odds and reach the ranks.]

E-ngage yourself

From the official bid logo and screensavers, to clips of your favourite players, cyberspace is a haven for E-gyptian football fans: Official bid downloads http://www.egypt-2010.com/ If you are keen to show your support for the Egypt 2010 Bid campaign, this is the site to surf. Here you can download the official bid logo, the official 2010 screensavers and choose from a selection of desktop wallpaper. There is also a vast collection of bid-related photos to download. FIFA-Egypt http://www.fifa-egypt.tk/ The unofficial site, Amir El-Meligi has created a football e-zine. The downloads section allows you to download team patches, flags and banners (Ahli and Zamalek of course), pictures of your favourite soccer stars, and endless clips, stills and logos from numerous Egypt and African championships over the past few years. Football fun and games http://www.fifa-mra.com Not Egypt-specific, this FIFA site is a big hit for soccer games, software and football-related music -- such as the sound of the crowd screaming "goal", and victory songs such as Queen's "We are the Champions". This site is considered the hot spot for accessing the football gaming experience.