I got an 80% in soccer in grade 9 phys. ed. The next year I turned pro. So I'd say, no, teachers don't generally have an eye for that.
Again, you have to go back to lack of training for coaches at those key development stages. My daughter is 10. She plays house league soccer at the Oakville Soccer Club. I go and watch her every Saturday when I'm not broadcasting, and virtually every week I'm there watching the house league program I send Dino an e-mail saying, “You need to look at the number four kid on the orange under-nine team, because he's got something.”
There was an article printed in the New York Times recently about Ajax, the development academy in Holland. Ajax is famed as a developer of talent. They play obviously in Holland, and their academy system is arguably the best in the world. Barcelona certainly is making a push to be up there as well. The interesting quote from the coach was this: “I don't look at who scores the goals. I don't care about that. I look at how the players move. I look at the way they move at the ages of 8, 9, 10 to be able to tell if they have what it takes to go to a higher level.”
That comes from training and knowledge. Are you going to get that in a small town? Absolutely not. But what we need to put in place I think in every sport is a pathway. When you are living in Appin, Ontario, which is where I grew up, and playing coed house league soccer in Glencoe until the age of 10.... I had a father who recognized that I needed to move to a more competitive environment for my development as a soccer player, and I did that. I've seen countless players over the years get pigeonholed and not recognized, not identified.
Hockey certainly has a much more developed pathway than any other sport. Look at the list of players who are Canadian in the NHL and at how many of them come from some hick town in Saskatchewan that you've never heard of.