6. Roger Barnsley: The Relative Age Effect & How We Make Youth Sports More Equitable

My guest this week is Roger Barnsley. Roger is a psychologist, educator and retired President and Vice-Chancellor of Thompson Rivers University. 

In the early 1980’s, while attending a Junior hockey game, his wife Paula, also a psychologist, noticed an unusual trend in the game's program - the majority of players were born in the first three months of the year.

This finding led Roger deeper into the age demographics of competitive hockey and became the underpinning for his work on the “Relative Age Effect”, a circumstance where athletes born immediately after a selection cutoff date are overrepresented in elite sports due to being older, larger and more mature than peers born later in the same year. Roger’s work on the RAE now spans decades and has been featured in multiple publications, including Malcolm Gladwell’s 2008 book Outliers.

In our conversation, Roger and I go deep on the impact of the Relative Age Effect, and the privilege gap it creates in both sports and academics. We discuss a variety of ways to adapt the structure of youth sports to remove the privilege awarded those with an advantageous birth date, while also creating environments that slow player attrition. Ultimately, addressing RAE at an early age can maximize the opportunity for success for everyone, while keeping kids playing longer and fostering a lifelong love of sport and movement. 

Episode Sponsor:

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To learn more the Relative Age Effect:

• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Revisionist History: Outliers, Revised
• Frontiers in Sports and Active Living: 40 Years of Relevant Age Effects: Life is Not Fair

To connect with Jason:

• Website: jasonmagennis.com
• LinkedIn: Jason Magennis
• Instagram: @youthsportsunitedpod or @jasmagenni

The best way to support Youth Sport United is to subscribe or follow, leave a rating or review and share your favourite episodes with friends and parents dedicated to creating healthy sporting cultures for our kids. If you’d like to learn more about my coaching practice, head over to jasonmagennis.com/coaching.