As I went running yesterday in balmy 50 degree weather (for Washington DC, at least), I started to consider a topic that arose again over the weekend briefly in Austin at the South Texas Youth Soccer Assn. meetings--the weather.
It occurred to me what some of us believe subconsciously -- warm weather parts of the country have a distinct advantage in the development of youth athletes as opposed to cold weather climates. For the purposes of our mini-sample, we'll stick to soccer players.
While players in cold weather climates like Boston, Detroit, and Chicago must spend many months indoors, players in San Diego, Houston, and Miami can play outdoors nearly year round.
That leaves the cold players at the mercy of indoor facilities. Location, additional fee(s), and time restrictions all play a part in determining their access to such facilities for training. Please note that many more pieces go into developing athletes like level of coaching, private training, athletic pedigree, dedication, etc.
As you can see, this would make a great research project. However, looking specifically at weather, I took a look at the rosters of the US National Team Player Pools to gauge the hometowns of the players on the list.
Out of 26 players on the Men's side, 17 (65%) came from warm weather climates. Only 5 (19%) came from cold areas, with the remainder coming from weather neutral area.
On the Women's side, only 9 out of 26 (35%) came from warm climates while 8 (31%) came from cold areas.
Based on this small sample, can we prove weather is a deciding factor in the development of athletes? Not necessarily, but if given the choice, being in a warm weather climate can only be beneficial.
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