Kicking Goals On & Off the Field - How Being Involved in Team Sport Helps Build Successful Careers

This leadership expert has never laced up the boots, but here's why she thinks involvement in youth team sport is one of the most powerful gifts we can give our kids.

I have never played rugby, or any sport really, because I’m not that coordinated. If someone were to call me clumsy, that would be fair. In fact, if you see me running, you should probably run too, because something bad is about to go down.

I'm Serena Varendorff, Managing Director of Molto Bene, a leadership development consultancy working with some of Australia's leading organisations on what actually builds great leaders. I love my day job. And alongside it, I sit on the board of Brothers Rugby Club, the oldest football club of any code in Queensland, an institution that has been building great people since 1905. It’s work I’m incredibly passionate about.

Why? Because team sport isn't just about kicking the ball. Anyone who is wondering whether putting their kid in sport is worth the early mornings, weekend drives, years of commitment before you can see what it's producing - I feel comfortable saying it definitely is.

The real rewards of a sporting life are available to everyone. Whether you're lacing up the boots or cheering from the sidelines.

Part of Something Special

I grew up on the sidelines at Brothers. Not as a player, but I was the kid hanging upside down in the trees, part of the magical world of weekend freedom that exists at the edge of every sporting ground. Even upside down, I could see I was part of something big. A world where the whole was so much greater than the sum of its parts, where belonging mattered as much as scoring, and where the connections you made lasted well beyond the final whistle.

These days, I'm a rugby mum. My son came through the juniors at this same Club and now he’s done with school, he plays in the Rugby Colts competition for them. Some of these Colts are genuinely stars in the making, but I know them as lads who have been raiding my fridge since before they could read. The Brothers community is woven through my life in a way that makes it impossible to be dispassionate about its future.

So when I talk about Brothers, I'm not speaking as an administrator at a polite distance. I'm speaking from the carpool, the kitchen table, and the sidelines. I have watched, up close over the years, what consistent investment in young people actually does.

It doesn't just produce better rugby players. It produces better people.

The Data Is Striking. But It's Not the Point.

Here is some data worth sitting with. A major study of over 800 US Fortune 500 leaders found that more than 75% of male participants and 58% of women interviewed had played competitive sport, with a significant proportion of both continuing to play into their college years. Research consistently shows that the longer someone plays team sport, the more likely they are to hold leadership and team effectiveness skills that will support a successful career.

Those findings are compelling. But this isn't about raising children who are either Wallabies, Wallaroos or members of the C-Suite Club.

Sport delivers something genuinely unique to young people, in a fun way, at exactly the age when it matters most. It teaches them how to be part of something bigger than themselves. How to lose with dignity and win without arrogance. They learn the value of trusting a teammate, what it feels like to get knocked down, sometimes literally, and the importance of getting straight back up. They develop a healthy familiarity with discomfort, an understanding that failure is a part of life, not a life sentence, and the discipline of committing to a process before the outcome is clear.

For boys, there is something particularly powerful about channelling the hormonal energy and big emotions of adolescence into something physical and purposeful. It gives aggression and anxiety somewhere constructive to go, in an environment with clear rules, real consequences, and genuine camaraderie. For girls, competitive team sport delivers physical strength and builds a breadth of friendships outside existing social circles.  It allows players to channel energy and intensity onto the field rather than into the social dynamics that can otherwise become the main event. For both genders, sport is a remarkably effective pressure valve.

There’s something else, too. These kids watch the adults around them. They see volunteer coaches, officials and leaders giving their time freely and showing up week after week for something they believe in. That is its own education that teaches the value of service. Plus they gain role models outside their family and classroom, who demonstrate them what showing up looks like and offer support when parental figures may feel too close to connect with. These kinds of relationships are genuinely formative and worth their weight in gold.

I see the results play out in my own work every day. I work with senior leaders across some of Australia's largest organisations and those best able to take feedback, guide a team through pressure, and can navigate uncertainty have so often learned these skills on a sporting field long before they ever set foot in a boardroom.

That's what sport builds. Not just athletes. Humans who know how to handle hard things.

The Bigger Picture

A great sporting club is more than what happens on the field. It’s the environment it creates around the field, one where players, families, volunteers and community are equally included, valued and engaged. At Brothers, that belief shapes everything, including a simple philosophy: that the best decisions in rugby, business, and life don't pay off immediately.

It's about backing a sixteen-year-old because of who they might be at twenty-six. Patient investment in people, before the results are guaranteed. What matters is ensuring that future generations have access to environments that shape resilient, emotionally intelligent adults who actively contribute to their communities. Brothers has been providing that environment for well over 100 years and long may it continue.

There is something important in having a thing to get behind. Something to believe in, to show up for, to take pride in, regardless of whether you are on the field, or off it. That is what a great sporting club offers its community. It takes you out of yourself, gives you perspective and reminds you that you are part of something that was here before you and will be here long after.

That is worth investing in. For the players, for their families, and for the community that gathers at the edges of the field, upside down in the trees.