You can't build anything without a firm foundation, everyone knows that, and traditionally the first rung of the sporting ladder has been playing for a club.
Yet somehow, in this era of professional sport, club competitions seem to be all but forgotten.
This is, I believe, a very important long weekend for two of the games that South Africa has become best known for - rugby and cricket.
The national club championships of both are taking place at the moment, both in Pretoria. In both, the winners of the various provincial leagues around the country are participating and, for most of the players, this will be the pinnacle of their playing careers.
In the past the route to top honours was clear. In rugby it was Craven Week, university, Currie Cup, South Africa - which, they used to say, most commonly meant Grey College, Stellenbosch, Western Province, South Africa.
If you were not good or lucky enough to get selected for your province at school, and receive the bursary that inevitably went with that, there was a vibrant, competitive club rugby scene you could join and the provincial squads were selected from there, so you still had a chance.
Now, of course, the provincial scouts are out in force at the Craven Week, and the Khaya Majola Cricket Week, and the most promising players are signed up on provincial contracts, there and then.
That usually means becoming part of what have become called provincial academies, which may or may not be associated with universities and have some educational component to them.
The point is that the best young players are missing the club stage completely.
That weakens the leagues and they, of course, miss out on the important socialisation into the game, but worse, some players who don't get contracted at an early age become disillusioned and choose one of the many other recreational options available in our big cities these days.
South Africa is currently on the top of the world in both rugby and cricket and most will agree that our school system has played a major part in that success.
The coaching and facilities at our top schools are as good as you will find anywhere (and, the need to transform society notwithstanding, excellence is an elitist activity) and the two interprovincial schools weeks are the envy of the other cricket and rugby-playing nations.
Our schools fulfil the roles played by academies and clubs in other countries and there are so many more of them, and they are all over the country. That's the beginning of our edge and it shows in the performance of South African junior teams in international competitions.
Sporting excellence has always been a numbers game, the bigger the pool of players, the better the chances of consistent success. The problem with the demise of the club system is that those numbers tail off after school.
And, unfortunately, the schools themselves are not all that they used to be.
Teaching as a profession is not as popular among young men as it used to be and the demands of the new curriculum has seen a reduction in the number of good old-fashioned teacher-coaches.
Some of the forward-thinking provincial unions have seen this and are pushing the concept of club rugby at under-age levels, starting at under-9.
That's great, and the clubs involved are, hopefully, using this as a recruitment exercise, giving the players involved a home in club rugby where they will remain once they leave school.
And cricket's not all that different. Playing in a club league is an all-weekend affair, which does not fit in with the social lives of young people, so it's even more difficult to keep the bulk of the talented players emerging from our schools involved in the game. And our provincial cricket sides seem to be getting younger and younger as so many of the older players go overseas to earn foreign pay packages and, again, players are being contracted directly to the provinces, out of school.
Don't ask me what the solution is.
I guess, though, that the continued existence of the national club championships on the go today are an important part of it.
It's sad that the plethora of professional sporting events jamming the calendar hog the precious space in our newspapers. The public's interest lies in sport at the top levels, so they have to receive the lion's share of publicity, but we need to encourage the game at club level is it is to remain at the top.
That's why I'm off the Pretoria now, first to the cricket, and then to the rugby final.
I've talked the editor into giving me a little corner to write about it.