No doubt they are doing a good job through the schools
I know a heap of kids who played Ozkick at primary school, much like kids that play soccer when they are young, but the novelty seems to wear off when they grow up and go to High school where they represent their school playing League.
I dont think alot of mums want young Johnny playing league when they are young as they consider it too rough for their kids.
The sport you play as a kid has nothing to do with the sport you play later on. I've heard of excellent baseball players as kids abandon the game, i've heard the same of soccer players....you hit your teens and you feel different.
The brain undegoes radical changes as you grow up....the frontal lobes which are under-developed in childhood (hence uncontrolled tantrums in toddlers, etc) are growing well by the teenage years, in some cases dramatically changing a persons character. This happens further into adulthood. The frontal lobes act as the conductor for the rest of the brain, essentially meaning that as you grow you are able to "pull yourself together", and your complete personality emerges. Children throwing tantrums is just a consequence of the frontal lobes not really being there - they just can't help it....
so it would stand to reason that wanting to play a sport when you are young is not always the choice that the adult person would make if they had that choice as a child.
_____
Someone asked me about behaviour and culture and how people were creatures of habbit...they asked if 2 tribes lived on either side of a big hill and never met each, how would they develop and share some things in common while being completely different in other respects (you can apply this to any situation where people are separated by geography and interests). It comes back to human nature, habbits, and culture. And how people are
followers rather than leaders usually or
trendsetters
Culture exerts its influence AFTER you are born. Human nature and habit (via evolution) exerts its influence BEFORE you are born. In our example, the people on either side of the hill could wear different clothes and like different music but still have the need to hunt and gather food, or go to the shops, whatever. The culture is a direct influence of their behaviour. They are two different things making up one set of actions (what you do while you are alive).
There are two diverging paths to altering a culture. Both are hard and require considerable resources. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. To do so, you should first ALTER A BEHAVIOUR and change HABBITS. You can do this through influence
(find out what influences people: such as grandeur, majority doing it, being lead by another) . Or you can do it through force
(in this case of sport it cannot really be done that way)
It may never reach the next step. But when you get enough people doing these things that form this new culture and they continue to do it through habit, you have enough 'power' to influence the opposing culture and get them to change.
You see when you are presented with a strong enough argument to the contrary of what you are doing, your brain must question it. You wonder why the other thing is different and what it means for the current thing you do. And during this time you re-define what you are currently doing in your brain and you make a judgement about it, and based on how you redefined it determines how you will judge it and perceive it into the future. Its true that a lot of the time the new culture/activity never gets a look in.
People dont often question hard enough what they do as they are never really ever presented with a compelling enough reason to change. (ANTI SMOKING ADS FOR INSTANCE WOULD BE A COMPELLING REASON - AVOID PREMATURE DEATH)
Ok....so the diverging paths thing? Whats the other path....well its transplantation. You can get a pre-defined culture and just transplant your people to different lands. Like the Jews being deposed of their lands and subsequently living in nearly every other land on earth....so it was easy for their religion to spread and was big enough to get the attention of Rome via Constantine and be used for his own purposes of conquest. Or Victorians moving to qld and nsw.
A lot of the time its just not enough to get you over the line. Without help, such as with Christianity being helped by Constantines selfish goals.
Anyway, you see, culture is a very difficult thing to change. People are creatures of habbit, and rarely question what they are doing, because often they cannot be presented with a compelling enough reason to change what they are doing. (fashion is the one notable exception and music because these things make us feel so good) Sport is so much harder, mainly perhaps due to the amount of time and effort it requires one to commit to. Fashion and music is easy as going to a shop or turning on the radio)
AFL will probably never change our sporting culture.....but if it is somehow, somewhere making the slightest of inroads against rugby leagues culture, its going to be a LONG time before we notice. Subsequent generations may be different, but this one is not buying.
