In a sports culture obsessed with early success, Canada may be missing out on some of the best athletes, sleepers, those who develop later, defying the traditional timelines of talent. Dr. Joe Baker, a leading expert on talent development and professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, says it’s time to change the narrative around how we identify and nurture athletic potential.
“Early performance isn’t always a reliable predictor of long-term success,” Baker asserts. His research at the University of Toronto challenges the prevailing wisdom that athletes must show promise early to make it big. The current sport systems tend to overlook those who don’t excel at a young age, but Baker says that development is far more complex.
He points to the rigid selection processes in youth sports as part of the problem. These processes, he argues, often push out late bloomers, those athletes who, despite showing modest abilities early on, might have equal or greater potential to excel later with the right support.
Talent development is not a straight line, and many athletes are prematurely sidelined because they don’t meet the early benchmarks.
“For us, that’s the root of the problem. The idea that we think we can see future talent in early development, and we choose athletes based on those expectations that we have,” he explains. “But if you look at the field of research as a whole, we know so little about the athlete’s early engagement in the development pathway. And most of what we do know has been looking at success stories and tracking them backwards instead of athletes who are currently in the system and tracking them forwards.”
READ MORE: Issues in Athlete Identification and Selection: Are We Compromising Talent?
Forecasting which athletes will thrive at higher levels of competition is a daunting task, says Baker, and the complexity of this challenge often goes underestimated.
“Our research has shown just how monstrously complicated it is,” he explains. Despite this, the system continually forces coaches, scouts, and administrators to make these high-stakes decisions, often without the necessary resources or support.
“We’re asking people to make incredibly tough calls with limited tools, whether it’s facility resources or comprehensive coach education, there simply aren’t enough high performance or knowledgeable coaches to go around.”
Baker points out that these decisions are frequently flawed, not necessarily due to incompetence, but because the task itself is riddled with biases and uncertainties. “It could be because the biases they have are interfering with the accuracy of those decisions, or it could be the thing that we’re trying to predict is so complicated that we shouldn’t do it in the first place,” he says.
The takeaway? “It doesn’t matter which one of those is the root cause of the challenge. The reality is we should try to avoid this as much as possible.”
A broader look at development
Baker’s insights are backed by years of research into how athletes grow and thrive. He’s studied the long-term pathways of talent and found that psychological resilience, adaptability, and the ability to learn independently are often more telling than early success.
“In order to flourish, in order to thrive, we would design a system for that person to thrive… instead of thinking about, how do we make their practice as intense as possible. It probably has nothing to do with practice intensity and more to do with development of coping skills or the opportunities to demonstrate resilience. Those are the types of things that change a nine-year-old into a capable adult.”
READ MORE: For or Against? The Pros and Cons of Early Talent Identification in Sport
More attention needs to be on these factors since they can be the hidden drivers behind late-blooming athletes, Baker says.
His research on self-regulated learning in sports is particularly revealing. Athletes who master the ability to self-assess, set goals, and adapt their training independently tend to outlast their peers. These are the skills that keep athletes improving, even when they face setbacks or don’t shine right away.
Some studies have shown that distinct eye movements were a factor in identifying sleepers. Known as gaze behaviour, often overlooked in talent identification, Baker points to research by Dan Fortin-Guichard, a postdoc in his lab, which reinforced a few factors.
“Most of the time, when we think about what athletes need, we focus on the demonstration of technical skill or physical capacities,” Baker explains. “But if you think about sports like ice hockey, soccer, or basketball, a lot of the differences at the high-performance level are cognitive, not physical.”
READ MORE: Identification of “sleeping” talent in elite ice-hockey using psychological characteristics
Fortin-Guichard’s study showed that stable gaze, or the “quiet eye,” which is the stability of your gaze, correlates with better performance, offering insights into decision-making and anticipation. This cognitive edge, Baker argues, may be where true potential lies, yet traditional talent ID systems rarely consider it. Coaches, even without formal training in gaze behaviour, instinctively understand its importance with basic instructions like ‘keep your eye on the ball,’ reinforcing how crucial these subtle cues are in developing elite athletes, he adds.
Masters of sport
The experiences of Masters athletes, who are those in their forties, fifties, and beyond, offer valuable insights into how we think about talent and performance throughout the lifespan. Baker highlights that today’s active seniors grew up in a vastly different sports system, one that prioritized enjoyment, social interaction, and personal fulfillment over high-stakes competition and early talent identification.
The current generation of seniors didn’t come from a sport development system overly focused on talent ID, Baker notes. Sport was something you did because it was fun and social. He raises concerns that the intense focus on high performance and early specialization in today’s youth sports may undermine lifelong engagement in physical activity.
“We might be making sport less enjoyable and too stressful, which could negatively impact future participation as these individuals age,” he says. This perspective challenges the current dichotomy between high-performance and participation, suggesting that a more integrated approach could foster both elite talent and lifelong athletic involvement.
Lessons from abroad and changing the game
Baker contrasts Canada’s approach with that of countries like Australia, where talent development programs are designed to be more inclusive and patient. In Australia, they’ve figured out that talent emerges in different ways and at different times, he says. Overall, their systems are more flexible, giving athletes more room to grow into their potential.
He suggests Canada could benefit from adopting similar strategies. We need to ask ourselves: Are we giving all our athletes a fair shot, or are we too quick to judge based on early performance?
Looking ahead
For Baker, the path forward is clear. Canada must create environments that are more supportive of diverse development timelines. This means rethinking how we scout, coach, and develop athletes.
The shift would also require a cultural change in how success is measured. It’s not just about winning early, Baker argues, it’s about sustainable development and ensuring that all athletes have the opportunity to reach their full potential, no matter when they peak.
“It’s recognizing that it’s not an equation to be solved. It’s a process to be nourished and to be facilitated,” Baker says. “So, if we break the process and the challenge down, we would create a completely different system for athlete development because that system would require us to keep as many people as possible involved until absolutely as late as possible. If we do that, we would take better care of the athletes and the way that we give them feedback in a lot of sports, especially in the early development level.”
For more about Dr. Joe Baker’s work and research:
- Publications: https://www.bakerlab.kpe.utoronto.ca/ and https://www.bakerlab.kpe.utoronto.ca/publications
- Book: The Tyranny of Talent: How it compels and limits athletic achievement… and why you should ignore it