Play one sport or many?

Lacrosse coaches are different from other coaches.  You will probably never hear a youth soccer coach say, ‘I want him to play lacrosse in the spring’, but all the time you’ll hear lacrosse coaches say something like, ‘You can see his toughness from playing hockey’ or ‘he should try and play basketball this winter and run cross country in the fall’.  Lacrosse coaches actually encourage youth athletes to play both baseball and lacrosse in the spring if they can fit it in while keeping grades.  It is a fact that student athletes have higher GPAs than those not participating in sports.   We feel that it is important to be a student athlete and that many life lessons can be learned by doing so.  By playing multiple sports each child will have a better chance to find one that he will be passionate about and will continue playing.

Too many parents encourage or even force their children to play just one sport.  There is no evidence to support that behavior.  Randy Hill, a research assistant for the United States Olympic Committee, says that the one common denominator shared by most elite athletes is multi-sport participation during the developmental years.  Cathy Sellers, a USA Track and Field official, encourages athletes not to specialize in a sport until around the age 14.  Jim Sheridan, a well-known youth swimming coach in Indiana, requires his elite swimmers to participate in a second sport.  John Battaglino, assistant lacrosse coach at Syracuse says, “I like kids to play other sports, I think the kids get burned out playing so much of one thing.  In the quest for excellence, some players forsake all other sports.   That’s unacceptable to college coaches who value the skills and conditioning students attain from multiple sports.”   

Lacrosse or baseball in the spring - football, cross country, or soccer in the fall - basketball, wrestling or hockey in the winter.   That is the way it used to be.  However, it seems more than ever, young athletes are picking one sport and sticking to it exclusively.  Is that such a good idea?  George Williams, Ph.D., Psychologist - “Sometimes the parents wants are what gets intermingled in there.   So parents will want their kid to be a star in a given area versus - just let them play everything.

But being a star can be short lived – only 1% of high school athletes get a college scholarship and only a tiny fraction of them play after college.  Experts worry that if children specialize in a single sport when they are young that sport can become their identity and lead to the exclusion of other things.  Experts say parents should help their kids see the value of being well – rounded.  Experts also agree that only after a child has sampled several sports and they’re older (freshman year in High School) should they be allowed to narrow down to one sport only.  And then it should be their decision only and not their parents.

A recent article in The New York Times outlined in chilling detail how kids in their early or even pre-teens are being pushed beyond their physical limits by shortsighted parents who bask in the artificial glory of a corrupt youth sports system.

The article tells of a 13-year-old who played so much soccer that she shredded the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee; the doctor who operated on her said that the joint looked like that of a 40-year-old.  Then there's the kid who started competitive swimming at age 7, reached a point where she was swimming 8,000 meters a day, and the only way to ease the pain in her shoulder was to intentionally dislocate it during practice and then pop it back into place when she got out of the pool. 

One doctor is quoted in the article as saying that 70 percent of the athletic-injury cases he sees are caused by simple overuse and repetitive motion.  He says that kids used to play football, basketball and baseball--sometimes all in the same day.   That allowed for muscles to develop in balance.  Nowadays, kids play one sport year round and are actually not very good all-around athletes.  The 13-year-old's injury mentioned above was caused by the fact that playing soccer doesn't develop the hamstrings like other sports do, so it put increased pressure on her knees.

Youth sports are great for kids.  Take steps to make sure they do not get burned out.  Well-balanced sports participation can be an important part of a child's social, emotional, and physical well-being.