Phoenix Invitational 2008
Coach Rashad Ahmad
What are the benefits in doing so? Both parents and younger athletes, are concerned about this particular area. From both point of views, one of the concerns is “What will this do for their confidence if they don’t have the same type of results they are use to”?
Well let’s look at what type of results, you may be talking about. Let’s consider track & field and in particular the 100m. If you know there are going to be prelims to get you to the finals, and at times, those are based on the fastest times, your time is obviously very important to get you thru to the finals.
So one of your objectives, is to run fast, so that you can make it to the finals. Also being a youth athlete and one that is developing, one of your goals is to improve, what happens often times, because you are competing against kids in your age group and you are so far ahead, you let up or aren’t pushed to finish strong. So one of the things running against older, more experienced runners will do, is force you to have to compete the entire race. This will help you be more competitive, help you learn how to finish, which is very important part of the race and also improve your times. What this also does is help with your confidence, and experience, let me give a recent example on the elite level, Jeffrey Demps, now a freshman at Florida.
While competing in the Olympic trials this past June, as a high school athlete, Jeff set the national high school record in the 100m, his time was 10.01.
That is a great time, Jeff was competing against the best sprinters in America, some of the best sprinters in the world, most, if not all of them were older and more experienced than Jeff. Jeff had a chance to make it to the Olympics, had he chosen not to compete against older, more experienced runners, he never would have given himself this opportunity and he would not have set the national high school record.
So competing against older, more experienced athletes/runners, really has tremendous benefits, it’s something I would encourage youth atheletes to. Simply look at the Jeffrey Demps example and there are many, many just like his. Much success to everyone, on your journey to the top!!!
Coach Rashad
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