I'm not sure what happened in the shift. As I said, in the 1990s, many things were accessible. Costs were down, so coaching courses were affordable for people to take. It was also all mandatory.
When it came down to competition, everybody wanted that gold. Everybody wanted to be number one in the world. What we would hear from the grassroots level was, “Being a first world country, why aren't we in the top five? Why aren't we in the top three? How come other countries that don't have as many resources as us are beating us?”
We just started seeing the shift of a lot of funding going towards high performance. Less and less was happening on the amateur sports side. When people look at the sporting funnel system, you have to get your athletes from somewhere. That somewhere is amateur sports. That funnel is now getting smaller and smaller. Many people can't afford sports.
To get these high-profile coaches, or to help pay athletes, some of these sporting organizations put that cost in the coach certification programs. To take one class, it's $300. Many people can't afford that.