Win the Inside Game: How to Move from Surviving to Thriving, and Free Yourself Up to Perform

by Steve Magness

By any metric, Norway’s elite athletes are achieving on a global stage. Yet, if we turn to their youth sports, their programs are the opposite of what I described early in this chapter. Norway doesn’t allow for official scorekeeping until the age of thirteen. They dissuade early national travel teams in favor of local leagues. You can’t even post the results of youth games online without being fined. And almost sacrilegious in certain American circles, Norway doesn’t allow trophies unless everyone gets one. As Tore Øvrebø, Norway’s director of elite sport, told USA Today writer Dan Wolken, “We think the biggest motivation for the kids to do sports is that they do it with their friends and they have fun while they’re doing it and we want to keep that feeling throughout their whole career.” Their youth sporting model can be summed up with their chosen slogan, “Joy of Sport for All.”