The Multi-Sport Athlete: A Dying Breed? - Written 1/28/07
Craig Conlin, Luke Harris, John Barr, Colleen Magarity, Alex Holcombe, LeBron James, Allen Iverson. What do they have in common? They are examples of the many success stories of the multi-sport high school athlete. Yet, the rate of specialization in high school sports is growing exponentially. Kids are quitting sports they love in order to focus on the one at which they think they can be most successful. Why are they quitting, and who is influencing them to do so?
The issue seems to begin with parents. Something has changed. It’s no longer simply the classic “loving,” overbearing parent who wants their child to get a full ride to a 1-A school, and live vicariously through their experience. Now, it seems every parent with an athletic kid faces the temptation. They believe in order to “make it,” their kid needs to play on the school team, the travel team, the AAU team, the summer team, and train all off-season. Ted Silary, the Philadelphia Daily News high school sports writer, who’s covered the area for over 20 years, sees it this way: “The competition for scholarships and grants-in-aid is fierce. A kid is medium to good in two or three sports. The parents think, 'Hmm, if we can get him to play just one, maybe he'll become very good to great and get a ride to college.' The AAU programs and personal coaches LOVE these kinds of parents. As they suck them dry. And Possible Stud still winds up going to Medium State, hoping to make the team as a walk-on.”
After parents, coaches inhabit the next circle of responsibility. In the recent survey Ms. Hofmann passed out to the upper school students, 35% of the junior boys said they felt pressured to specialize. The leading source of the pressure for those juniors was the coaches. Granted, “coaches” doesn’t necessarily mean GA coaches, but also AAU coaches. Still, what is, or isn’t, the athletic department and administration doing on this issue? While Coach Harris made it clear to me that in no way, shape, or form do the coaches support specialization, I think there is more the coaches could be doing. Why isn’t there a guideline stating the school wants its student athletes playing multiple sports, similar to PC’s policy? Why don’t all coaches (Harris has already done this with his football players) hold meetings telling their kids the benefits of multiple sports?
Jack Turner, probably the single most successful GA graduate in all aspects of athletics (as an athlete, coach, athletic director, and father of 3 GA Hall of Fame athletes), thinks something is lost at GA because of specialization. “If you don’t have many athletes participating in more than one sport, while you may have some success for individual teams, you won’t have it across the board,” and “The ability to increase your athleticism by playing another sport has incredible carryover.” This “carryover” became glaringly obvious to anyone watching the GA-Malvern basketball game on Jan. 19th, as Malvern’s cross-sport star Joe Hoban dominated the game with his quickness, toughness, and tenacity.
Playing multiple sports can also effect, or help, one socially. “All my teams had different personalities,” said Sean Grieve, an Inter-Ac/GA baseball and football MVP (and a self-proclaimed all-star JV basketball player on Coach Conlin's last undefeated team), “I had such an enjoyable experience because I didn't hang out with the same people all the time. I feel it forced me not to be socially one dimensional.”
Lastly, how much does not playing multiple sports impact your ability to deliver in clutch situations? “I want my quarterback to have been at the front end of a 1 and 1 down by two, with seconds left, having to make both to tie,” explained Harris. “I want him to have been on the mound with a full count with the bases loaded. There’s nothing better than that to prepare him.”
The issue seems to begin with parents. Something has changed. It’s no longer simply the classic “loving,” overbearing parent who wants their child to get a full ride to a 1-A school, and live vicariously through their experience. Now, it seems every parent with an athletic kid faces the temptation. They believe in order to “make it,” their kid needs to play on the school team, the travel team, the AAU team, the summer team, and train all off-season. Ted Silary, the Philadelphia Daily News high school sports writer, who’s covered the area for over 20 years, sees it this way: “The competition for scholarships and grants-in-aid is fierce. A kid is medium to good in two or three sports. The parents think, 'Hmm, if we can get him to play just one, maybe he'll become very good to great and get a ride to college.' The AAU programs and personal coaches LOVE these kinds of parents. As they suck them dry. And Possible Stud still winds up going to Medium State, hoping to make the team as a walk-on.”
After parents, coaches inhabit the next circle of responsibility. In the recent survey Ms. Hofmann passed out to the upper school students, 35% of the junior boys said they felt pressured to specialize. The leading source of the pressure for those juniors was the coaches. Granted, “coaches” doesn’t necessarily mean GA coaches, but also AAU coaches. Still, what is, or isn’t, the athletic department and administration doing on this issue? While Coach Harris made it clear to me that in no way, shape, or form do the coaches support specialization, I think there is more the coaches could be doing. Why isn’t there a guideline stating the school wants its student athletes playing multiple sports, similar to PC’s policy? Why don’t all coaches (Harris has already done this with his football players) hold meetings telling their kids the benefits of multiple sports?
Jack Turner, probably the single most successful GA graduate in all aspects of athletics (as an athlete, coach, athletic director, and father of 3 GA Hall of Fame athletes), thinks something is lost at GA because of specialization. “If you don’t have many athletes participating in more than one sport, while you may have some success for individual teams, you won’t have it across the board,” and “The ability to increase your athleticism by playing another sport has incredible carryover.” This “carryover” became glaringly obvious to anyone watching the GA-Malvern basketball game on Jan. 19th, as Malvern’s cross-sport star Joe Hoban dominated the game with his quickness, toughness, and tenacity.
Playing multiple sports can also effect, or help, one socially. “All my teams had different personalities,” said Sean Grieve, an Inter-Ac/GA baseball and football MVP (and a self-proclaimed all-star JV basketball player on Coach Conlin's last undefeated team), “I had such an enjoyable experience because I didn't hang out with the same people all the time. I feel it forced me not to be socially one dimensional.”
Lastly, how much does not playing multiple sports impact your ability to deliver in clutch situations? “I want my quarterback to have been at the front end of a 1 and 1 down by two, with seconds left, having to make both to tie,” explained Harris. “I want him to have been on the mound with a full count with the bases loaded. There’s nothing better than that to prepare him.”
posted by Tim | 9:56 PM
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