If you’ve read this column over the last couple years, you know that I am lamenting some of the changes in high school sports and athletes in the last decade or so.
One of the most glaring changes is that more and more kids are specializing in one sport during high school.
The thinking is that “if I focus on one sport, I can get really good at it and get a college scholarship to play it.” It’s a mindset often planted into the minds of kids by their parents, who are understandably looking for some help paying that college bill.
And, if you think about it, it does follow a line of logic.
But in the practical, it almost never works out that way. Here is why:
• Parents are generally not good talent evaluators. It seems like every team at every school has at least one mom or dad that think they know more that the coach does when it comes to who should start, who should play, who should be featured and who should never get playing time.
They might think this because they used to play and/or they used to coach. Doesn’t matter why they think it, they think it and they too often think it out loud in front of their kids. The really bold ones think it out loud at the games. When this happens, it projects an athlete’s potential to a level they aren’t likely to reach. This is then followed by “the coach ruined their chance for a college scholarship.”
• One-sport athletes are not preferred at ‘the next level.’ College coaches are now quite open about the fact that they are searching for players who competed in multiple sports during high school. As a matter of fact, 30 of the 32 players taken in this year’s NFL Draft played more than one sport during their prep days.
College coaches are looking for well-rounded athletes and well-rounded people. Different sports demand different skill sets, and coaches like versatility. College coaches also know that if a kid plays sports in two of three seasons, there is a better chance they are staying in shape and have less time with nothing to do – which is proven to be when kids get in trouble most.
• Multiple-sport athletes don’t get injured as often. One of the big reasons why parents steer their kids away from playing in a sport that isn’t their best sport is to prevent them from suffering a serious injury that would affect their participation in their best sport, which could cause a chain reaction ultimately leading to the end of the scholarship quest (see the first point).
Truth is, it’s just as likely that an athlete who plays one sport all year round will get injured while playing that sport as they will playing in another. Repetitive-motion injuries, which are caused by doing the same thing over and over again, are becoming a major problem.
And three-sport athletes are even rarer than two. In the more than 500 senior students at Warsaw this school year, only Page Desenberg played in three sports. One athlete. At smaller schools it’s more possible, and even more necessary, to play more than one sport. Imagine what Triton sports would be like if kids only played one sport?
