A partnership that changed how Canada and the world thinks about sport development.

Sport for Life exists to build healthier, more active communities. That starts with physical literacy: giving every person the chance to build foundational movement skills in quality environments, so they are active for life.

In the 1990s, Istvan Balyi, a Hungarian sport scientist, partnered with Richard Way, A chartered professional coach and manager of coach education for the B.C. government. Their work led to the Long-Term Athlete Development framework, built out into sport-specific versions for every federally funded national sport organization in Canada, and to the founding of Sport for Life itself.

"It was a two-way street where he was the brilliant physiologist who looked at planning and periodization, and I was the pragmatic systems guy who was looking at the athlete and what you really needed to effectively implement their planning. We complemented each other's skills, with his intellect and academic perspective juxtaposed against my practical 'how can I create a system around my athletes to utilize this knowledge' focus."

- Richard Way, Founder of Sport for Life

Over time, they built a leadership team to grow and refine the work. What began as a focus on national and international sport systems expanded into two more priorities: raising the value of physical education and physical activity in schools, and treating physical literacy as a shared community responsibility, not just an individual one.

That shift took shape when Sport for Life received funding to work directly with nine Canadian communities, bringing local sectors together around a shared, customized approach to physical literacy. That work grew into the RBC Learn to Play project, then into the Physical Literacy for Communities initiative.

Where we are today

Sport Canada continues to fund our work building the Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity framework and training the leaders and organizations who deliver it. From the beginning, we've worked with national sport federations and Olympic committees in more than 65 countries.

We're also funded by provincial governments, hospital and healthcare foundations, community grants and foundations, and international bodies. That funding supports training across the education, recreation, health, Indigenous, and community sectors, helping people of every age and ability build the confidence, skill, and motivation to stay active for life.

Sport for Life's vision is simple: quality sport and physical literacy for everyone, for life.

Over the past 20 years, we've changed how Canada thinks about athlete development. We led the shift from a system built around performance and results (the triangle) to one built around the whole person (the rectangle).

• A system that prioritizes results over people isn't healthy, safe, or sustainable.
• A system built on good programs, good people, and good places keeps more people engaged and lets them pursue their potential for longer.
• Performance at the highest level should be the result of a quality system, not its purpose.

We want quality sport, not just traditional sport, to become the standard across Canada, with individuals, organizations, and communities taking ownership of that shift in their own context. Quality sport is welcoming, inclusive, safe, and fun. It's developmentally appropriate and progressively challenging. It builds high-performing humans through sport and physical activity, not just high-performing athletes.

We work to connect sport, recreation, education, and health, and to align national, provincial, territorial, and local efforts, so the people inside the system are better served by it.

We plan to make this happen by:

• Investing more at the grassroots and provincial/territorial level
• Aligning sport and physical activity through national projects and partnerships
• Helping reshape the Canadian Sport System to be more inclusive and effective, from the playground to the podium