Around The World

Halfway in the wait for the next Olympics is the Football (Soccer) World Cup, how many people watched the South African World Cup in 2010? Apparently almost half the world! (Almost half the world tuned in at home to watch 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™, source: fifa.com) Sports is definitely one of the few things that actively engages the population of the world community across all walks of life. For the most part, basic participation in sports is not defined by who you know, where you live or how much money you have. You just have to try, oh and play by the rules .

Benefits? Yes!

• There is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence on the positive effects of sport and physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle.
  Source: sportanddev.org
• What are the Benefits of Sports for Children?
  Source: livestrong.com

Social Interaction

Organised sporting competitions and events are some of the most highly participated in social and atruistisic activities in society. Sports events are an attractive medium of promotion for social events and commercial advertising. Many children growing aspire to be Sports stars their idols are athletes from their favorite competitions.

Athlete Opportunities

Its no understatement to say that the world is hungry for a constant stream of sports all the time, the level of ubiquity is always increases, thus the opportunities for potential elite athletes to matriculate to the professional arena increases. Athlete Profiles are a mechanism for athletes to build a professional online presence for their sporting endeavors. Verlete provides the tools needed to actively promote themselves at an elite level at no cost.

Learn More

• Mindset - Semi-Pro To Pro
• You Must Make Everyday Count
• Balance: Career Planning
• Free Athlete Profiles

Training Solo

Depending on the sport of course, individual sports its probably not too uncommon. Team sports on the other hand, solo training can achieve results when focussing on certain individual aspects; technique, fitness and physical endurance etc… If you have a higher drive/work ethic  than your team mates, you may benefit psychologically doing extra training solo so not to be overly exposed to a bare minimum way of doing things all the time, it will eventually rub off on you.

Managing Your Career - Find The Right Help

All athletes need help from specialised services at sometime. Agent, manager, banking, insurance, legal services, physiotherapists, doctors… you get the idea. Selecting the right help for your situation is critical to your long term health, career and financial prosperity.

• An Agents Guide To Athletes
  Source: lewishowes.com
• How To Choose A Sports Agent
  Source: ehow.com

Mentality & Motivators

Going it alone can be a mentally exhaustive method if you don’t have clear goals defined and some form of support in areas that aren’t necessarily your expertise. You are made from a finite amount of energy, don’t dilute your efforts with too much, work smart and hard. Your goals are your motivators and guides to mastery.

International Opportunities

Its no understatement to say that the world is hungry for a constant stream of sports all the time, the level of ubiquity is always increases, thus the opportunities for potential elite athletes to matriculate to the professional arena increases. Athlete Profiles are a mechanism for athletes to build a professional online presence for their sporting endeavors. Verlete provides the tools needed to actively promote themselves at an elite level at no cost.

Even if you don’t have access to an elite training program, you can do it on your own and reap the benefits. Set your goals on what you want to achieve, eg. Increase physical power and strength > Weight training & calisthenics.

Record Progress

Set some parameters like how long the training program will last in, what are individual tasks involved, and record your data progressively. You can use free online text document & spreadsheeting tools available at docs.google.com to record your data.

Assess Results

Once you’ve got some initial data you will get a baseline to compare all future results to, look for some external results to compare your personal data with if you can.

Past Performance

What’s your clubs track record of developing and matriculating high quality talent? If your clubs organisational structure doesn’t have anything contacts and/or does not expose their talent to the next level of competition, it will not help to achieve those types of promotional goals, its function would be training and conditioning only.

Opportunities For Progression

A lot of semi professional clubs act as feeder clubs to the professional institutions, they nurture underdeveloped athletes and exposure them to a high standard of competition in seasonal competitions, along with trial matches with professional clubs. That way the professional clubs get quality practice opportunities, and the semi-pro players have a chance to impress the professional hierarchy for further trials and training.

Is the grass greener on the other side?

What are the other clubs like? The quality of coaching and development programs definitely vary from club to club, not necessarily better or worse in general, but different. Everyone responds to different cues in different ways. So compare your goals of what you want to achieve to what your available options are, make the most of all the opportunities you receive.

Present Yourself Professionally

It’s no understatement to say that the world is hungry for a constant stream of sports all the time, the level of ubiquity is always increasing, thus the opportunities for potential elite athletes to matriculate to the professional arena increases. Athlete Profiles are mechanisms for athletes to build a professional online presence for their sporting endeavors, Verlete provides the tools athletes need to actively promote themselves at an elite level at no cost.

The Semi-Pro Athlete

Usually does their sport part time whilst working another job, studying, parenting etc… Semi-pro athletes are paid considerably less than their professional counterparts, not enough to live off solely, forcing the need for other income sources.

Professional Athletes

Usually work from limited term contractual agreements with sports clubs and associations. Their financial remuneration from their sporting performance is enough for them to live off.

Childhood

In many occasions the big names in sports are observed with an innate sporting ability early. Anyone that has viewed a few clips of athletes on YouTube have probably seen footage similar to some of these examples.

Lionel Messi as a kid.

Here’s an example of a present day talented kid, Jordan McCabe.

From these videos it’s quite obvious to tell that these young kids are special talents and with the right nurturing could turn into highly successful professional athletes. Video footage is a modern day supplementary to the physical scouting process. It doesn’t remove that function altogether but it’s definately an highly effective way to get noticed if exposed to the right people.

Most athletes start at a very young age, not necessarily in the sport they are to compete in later, but they are active and engaged in the development of their physicality and technical motor skills. Many athletes go through youth development programs in their particular sports, these programs attempt to identify talented youngsters as early as possible and get them into a dedicated athlete development structure. Here’s a good article on some top tier Football academies around the world (source: http://bleacherreport.com).

So the earlier the better essentially, that being said there are plenty of examples of late bloomers who make their way to the professional level without going through formal academies and representative juniors. The semi-pro level is a fairly standard stepping stone for a lot of athletes that don’t necessarily take the academy or college matriculation path.

Athlete Exposure & Promotion

Athlete Profiles are mechanisms for athletes to build a professional online presence for their sporting endeavors. Verlete provides the tools athletes need to actively promote themselves at an elite level at no cost.

An athletes prime is a relatively small portion of the average human lifespan. For most physically exhaustive sports, youthfulness is a desired trait, many professional sports clubs are eager to attract high potential talent as young as possible to groom and develop within their own structured way of operating.

From an athletes perspective, it is optimal to develop the elite level techniques and skills unique to their sports as early as possible, as well as progressively building physical strength and maintaining a high level of physical fitness.

Set Some Goals

Be conscious of what you physically want to achieve with your efforts. The saying fail to plan, plan to fail is quite pertinent in a goals setting scenario, you need to know what it is you want to achieve before you can do. Write them down.

Learn Your Trade

A professional athlete is a job first and foremost. Like in any job, your aptitude and proficiency to complete tasks assigned to you define whether you remain employed, progress in hierarchy and the level of your remuneration (how much you are paid).

Quantify Your Progress

The essence of sport is quantification, keeping track of the score, lap times, speeds, seasonal competition tallies etc… With the rapid rise of sports science specialization’s over the last few decades, we have more data and analytical methods of tracking and expanding physical thresholds. All elite level training programs incorporate some form of data tracking/analysis system, so if you can take advantage of these.

Open Yourself To Unexpected Opportunities

Its a big world and sport is played everywhere. The list of sports and professional competitions that are played internationally is always increasing, with it comes more opportunities for potential elite athletes. Verlete was created as a medium for athletes to get exposure to a worldwide audience, users from all over the world view our athlete profiles everyday.

Professional Contacts & Networking

Most professional athletes have some form of representation in a formal setting, sports agents, managers, lawyers, mediators etc… These services are high quality word of mouth operators, they are paid for their contacts and negotiations. The strength of referrals from your closest warm contact shouldn’t be underestimate, your coaches, support staff and team mates know you best, if you project authority and finesse in your trade (your sport), it will be spoken about and define you to other people that don’t know you personally.

It’s A Job, Take It Seriously

Impressions count, people will make a summation of your character with whatever you show them. Being a professional requires athletes to be capable in front of crowds, cameras and media representatives. Most major sporting competitions provide guidance and training to athletes in how to handle media related situations.

With the rise of social mediums like Facebook and Twitter, there has been a few unfortunate situations for athletes around the world who have said something they later regret. It shows how much reach these mediums have, if used correctly social media is a potential gold mine for athletes to promote and exposure themselves.

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Below is an example of a highlight video produced by this service, it cost $540 (USD), and the turnaround time was less than a week.

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