The effect of bio-banding on the anthropometric, physical fitness and functional movement characteristics of academy soccer players

The study examined if maturity status bio-banding reduces within-group variance in anthropometric, physical fitness and functional movement characteristics of 319, under-14 and under-15 players from 19 UK professional soccer academies. Bio-banding reduced the within-bio-banded group variance for anthropometric values, when compared to an aggregated chronological banded group (chronological: 5.1–16.7%CV; bio-banded: 3.0–17.3%CV). Differences between these bio-banded groups ranged from moderate to very large (ES = 0.97 to 2.88). Physical performance variance (chronological: 4.8–24.9%CV; bio-banded: 3.8–26.5%CV) was also reduced with bio-banding compared to chronological aged grouping. However, not to the same extent as anthropometric values with only 68.3% of values reduced across banding methods compared to 92.6% for anthropometric data. Differences between the bio-banded groups physical qualities ranged from trivial to very large (ES = 0.00 to 3.00). The number of functional movement metrics and %CV reduced by bio-banding was lowest within the ‘circa-PHV’ groups (11.1–44.4%). The proportion of players achieving the threshold value score of ≥ 14 for the FMS™ was highest within the ‘post-PHV’ group (50.0–53.7%). The use of maturity status bio-banding can create more homogenous groups which may encourage greater competitive equity. However, findings here support a bio-banding maturity effect hypothesis, whereby maturity status bio-banding has a heightened effect on controlling for characteristics which have a stronger association to biological growth.

Defending the Kingdom

This chapter examines the NCAA’s response to its liberal arts reformist critics, its small state school competitive equity critics, and racial activists allied with HBCs. Beginning in 1955 as a result of the Crowley Committee findings, the NCAA expanded its governance structure to include the small liberal arts committee in both its leadership positions and its service committees but without attempting to restrain commercialized college athletics. It also voted to create a separate basketball tournament for its smaller-enrollment members, giving them championship access in a separate event rather than expanding their existing tournament. Creating a separate College Division also had two other benefits in that shunting the HBCs into the College Division placated the big-time segregationist Southern state schools because it precluded their ever having to play neighboring HBCs. It also created a parallel event to the NAIA’s tournament and helped stanch the membership loss of NCAA schools simply wanting access to the NAIA event. The creation of the College Division Tournament was the first step in the NCAA’s campaign to confront and marginalize the NAIA once and for all, isolating it from other athletic-related associations, intimidating schools and other organizations from working with the NAIA, and undermining NAIA events by flooding NAIA media markets with NCAA televised offerings.

Barbarians at the Gate

The difficulties that smaller schools faced in gaining competitive equity in the AAU Tournament and entrance to the NCAA Tournament led Emil Liston to found the NAIA Tournament as a haven for championship-caliber smaller college basketball. But the postwar scandals and the growing disenchantment with big-time commercialized athletics, which prompted some to consider staging a coup to seize control of the NCAA, inspired Liston to expand his organization beyond just basketball into an umbrella agency for all of small college athletics. The expansion of the NAIA, however, revealed a fissure within the small college opposition to the NCAA. The liberal arts schools largely opposed expanded championship opportunities and simply creating a commercialized model on a smaller scale. Many of the NCAA’s smaller schools that now flocked to the NAIA for their tournament were regional and state schools unable to compete with the big-time NCAA schools who simply wanted competitive equity, not simon-pure reform. As a result, while the creation of the NAIA created a competitor to the NCAA, it also managed to divide some of its small college critics along lines of ideology. This division became readily apparent in the 1954 findings of the NCAA’s Crowley Committee, which showed that most smaller NCAA members resented being excluded from the basketball tournament and defined themselves as small but did not align with most vocal liberal arts reformers.