The CSI (Italian Sports Center) celebrates today with the passage of the door eighty years of work in education for sport: a long adventure training and races, which begins in the speakers And that the harmonious growth of the person is mainly proposed. Sports success, if it comes, comes later, based on the talents received, but it is not the main purpose. Although it is true that many not underlying the top have blossomed starting from there: Franco Nones, the first non -Scandinavian who arrived at the Olympic gold in cross -country skiing; Francesco Moser, from the CSI to the time record; Nadia Battocletti, the present of the Italian middle distance, just to mention some examples.
We asked the president of CSI Vittorio Bosio to guide us in the educational challenges of this.
President of Bosio, in light of his long experience in CSI, first as a more recent coach as national president, what is today the greatest educational challenge of sport for everyone, at a time when parents often make the curve fans first?
“I would say, as 80 years ago, listening to needs taking into account that they change over time: today we live in a very individualistic world, where to look at the other is always difficult, complicated, perhaps it does not even care, therefore everyone often tends to look only at their own personal interest or that of their child, which brings parents to exceed in cheering. But we must also tell us that in a huge white sheet happens that it should note some black dot, which however remains in the midst of many beautiful things that sport does in terms of aggregation, joy, closeness, in a sporting activity that is not only competitiveness “.
These days there is a tendency to push to early resort, still manage as CSI to propose a different model?
«We are above all a place of welcome, even for those who do not find other parts because they cannot boast particular skills. We take them for what they are not for what they could become in sport. We are not a school of sport, we are a school of life, and we can do it because the boys understand who really cares about them, those who welcome them without seconds to end then the educational defeats are part of the game ».
Is it true that, as some say, the most difficult to educate are the parents of the grass sportsmen?
“Given that I consider the” work “of parent the most difficult in the world, I am convinced that educating means, as I always say to my sports clubs and my committees, to put themselves in dialogue, even with parents to make people understand what the objectives of the sports club are compared to the children who are welcomed. I am convinced that there are no great mischievous, however it happens that in an exasperated world of exasperated competitism, the light of reason on nothing is lost, also because the tensions of the world of outside are brought around the field that have nothing to do with sport. Putting yourself in dialogue means explaining exactly what are the objectives of the sports club, of the championship, of the races that are made, which for us is above all participation, then there is certainly also the result that in sport is part of the game and is an educational component: you have to learn to win, but you must also learn to lose. But with the parents we must always speak. Sometimes we have neglected them, I horrify when I hear someone say that we should train the orphans, because we do not welcome anyone’s children but the children of a family who grow their children and who many times with many sacrifices investing on them. We must respect the parents ».
You too, in your less competitive perspective than other sporting dimensions, suffered the exasperated competitiveness that comes from social media and their dynamics?
«As happens to other educational realities, social networks do not help us. We live a complicated time, certainly more than I experienced when I trained in the oratory. The boys have other needs, come from different social fabrics, often have difficult family contexts, we confront each other with delicate balances. The boys live external tensions and in the meantime the world convinces them that it is good and only those who earn a lot is worth. He gave me to think of an episode lived in a TV broadcast in which I accompanied the boys of one of our oratory teams to dialogue with two professional players from Serie A, guests. The boys were asked what they would have liked to do as adults and it is quite obvious that in such a context someone says the footballer. What scared me is that “why?” Everyone replied: “Because you earn a lot”. I wonder: but a child at the age of ten, instead of raising the world cup must think about earning? What dream is it? It is the message that we adults are given, when life then reserves much more: they are very few to succeed in sport, all the others live a normality that we must teach to accept ».
Is educating in sport also teaching to accept your limit and the higher talent of others?
«I believe that sport should teach that in life it must be made sacrifice to obtain results that are not always the excellent ones, to get to the summit. We are happy if some of our young athlete as a big one becomes champion, we have also had many, but our first goal is not the summit, we must think of forming good citizens, good engineers, good workers, people who have the opportunity to live with sport in moments of serenity that helps them to live better “.
She had a long experience in this field, she started having the football coach at the oratory. How has the sport of the speakers changed over the years?
«In recent years we have insisted a lot on the training of coaches, technicians, perhaps neglecting the managers who are different figures a little, because the coaches are educators close to the boys and, if once it was enough to tell them what they had to do, today we must explain why they have to do it. You have to be up to it: the boys follow you and understand that you are prepared in what you do. The prepared people are needed, even if the dimension of the volunteering in which the passion, the soul and the heart is very important, for the good of the boys, without thinking and dreaming of creating champions “.
What is the meeting on Saturday 4 October for you in the Vatican for you for the 80th anniversary?
«The importance of the event I believe is not so much in celebrating, in telling us that we have been good for 80 years and that we have done a lot, even if a little healthy pride is there, but in giving the right recognition to many people who worked with us. Thousands and thousands of volunteers in 80 years have given a part of themselves and their time for the good of sport and children, I believe that we must celebrate above all them, those who still work with us, and also those who are no longer there, but who have helped our association to contribute to the well -being of the country through sport “.
