At a time when football and cricket are at an all time low here in Bermuda, the big question around the Island is where do we go from here?

For far too long the emphasis has been on the senior teams, but the time has come where we must build from the bottom up. The grassroots level is where we as a country must focus all of our energies.

In St. George's a mini sports academy is running this summer with the target age between seven to 14 to see if we can instill the basics of both football and cricket to ensure technically sound all round students of the two games.

What is a sports academy? A sports academy is an institution that focuses on improving the individual game.

Obviously this camp is not a major sports academy, but it is run with the same concepts and ideas. The children learn about the importance of nutrition, how to use their agility and speed, how important it is to focus on technical skills and the rules in both football and cricket, and how education has to be a part of their sporting life.

As a team Richard Todd (St. George's' football coach), Neil Paynter (St. George's Cricket Club President), and myself sat down to try and figure out what part we could play in improving our national sports.

A sports academy is what we came up with. Not a babysitting service or just a place for children to come, but a place where interested keen young sports enthusiasts could come to learn all that they could about football and cricket.

So what would a typical day be like at the sports academy? When the children arrive in the morning they are briefed on what they will be doing for the day. A normal start to the day begins with some agility and speed work before breaking off into two different groups.

One group focuses on football with coach Todd and the other group focuses on cricket with myself. The groups are normally sorted by either age or ability. Once the children are split in two groups they then work solely on various techniques and skills through drills and/or theory before breaking for lunch.

After lunch the children write in their sports journal, which reflects their thoughts and what they have learned for that particular day. After working on their sports journal the children are engaged in schoolwork with a focus on Maths, English, and Reading. After this the children return to the playing field for the rest of the afternoon and they flip flop sports, from what they had done in the morning.

Before I go on I must say we had a surprise visit from Clyde Best who just happened to be in the area, and he was more than happy to say a few words to our children.

His speech was powerful, as he told the children to dream and dream big, but remember it will take a lot of hard work along the way. He also talked to them about the importance of education. The children were very attentive and because of this talk from Mr. Best one of our journal writings for the week was titled "My Dream".

I will share with you a journal piece from ten-year-old Nzari Paynter titled, "My Dream". "My dream is to become a professional football player alongside my cousin Osagi Bascome. I want to lead Bermuda into a World Cup victory. I will do that by working hard and listening to my coaches, but most importantly I have to believe in myself."

This is just a sample of what the children write about. Each day the children are required to write down important facts that they have learned for the day from both sports, which is guided by the coaches. The books are than taken home for the children to review for homework as they are quizzed in the morning on the previous day's skill and technical information.

In St. George's we felt this sports academy was important because for far too long in Bermuda all the monies are generated and focused towards the senior programmes.

Yes, some monies are filtered down to the junior programmes, but not with the same commitment. Often money is sent to the junior programmes just to say it was given. For instance in football, one may send the club balls or goals, and feel they have invested in football.

On the other foot in cricket the clubs may receive training gear, or plastic cricket sets for the children and one feels they have invested in youth cricket, but folks the reality is that is not enough. So what is enough one may ask?

The major issue and reason why we are where we are is because of the lack of quality coaching at youth level.

This is very personal for me because I coach one of the national youth teams, so I take this to heart. Bermuda, understand clearly what I am saying here. You cannot expect just the 15-20 children that come to our national programmes to raise the level in Bermuda.

When children come to the national programmes they are receiving quality training and gaining quality experience. However, that is just a small percentage of children who are playing football and cricket at the club level, and who have the potential to excel in both sports.

In order to increase our pool of quality players we need to have better coaching for the youth at the club level. Our children are looking for more than just a game in the backyard. Many of them have dreams to play at the next level. We cannot reach that level if the only coaches that we have are volunteer parents.

Don't get me wrong, parent involvement is very important and I respect that, but if we are investing millions into both of our national sports we must have good coaching from the bottom all the way up.

Bermuda, we must invest in quality youth coaches for our clubs. At a young age children are like sponges and can easily adapt to learning about proper techniques. The older you get the more difficult it is to change and adapt. This stunts the growth of the individual player at the senior level.

Poor techniques are exposed when we are on the international stage in both cricket and football. People want to know why our cricketers can make runs locally and during county and Cup Match, but when it comes to international games they fail, and ditto for our football. The higher the standard the more we will get exposed.

Having said all of this I urge other clubs to get on board and implement your own academies. We can learn from each other and together we can produce better athletes for the senior level.

As a coach I have already been encouraged by the growth of the children in just two weeks. However, it can't stop at the end of the summer, we have to continue building all year round. No, it is not the answer to all of our problems, but I strongly urge other clubs to consider this route in going forward.

It is time for us to work together for the betterment of our national sports to help get them back to where they belong.