My son has always played sports year round. While baseball is his first choice, he has also played football and basketball. While he still plays basketball with a pick up rec team every now and then, he plays baseball and football in HS (for a decent 2A level school – better in baseball than football). He is a 2013 grad and started varsity in both as a freshman.
The baseball team he is on for 2011 plays a pretty heavy fall season. The coach also takes a large # of players in the fall and will break the group into 2 teams for the summer season. While both will be good teams and get plenty of exposure, one is a much more prestigious team and gets all of the prime game slots and scout / recruiter attention.
The question is how hard does he push himself to do both sports? He is a big kid and plays TE/DE in football and feels pretty sore on Saturday's and Sundays when he plays baseball. After every baseball practice / game, he gets in the car and says 'Football is killing my baseball'. His overall feeling is that most of the other baseball players on the fall team fighting for a spot work all week on baseball and he isn't.
He did OK on his summer team last year (which was the younger age version of the prestigious team he wants to play on next year) and he hopefully will make the higher level team, but the competition is fierce and he will have to work at it to continue on. How do you tell a 15 year old to relax, enjoy his High School football experience, work out different muscles, get bigger, ... and that baseball will take care of itself?
The coaches have been real upfront, at least verbally, with the football players. They say that playing football will not hurt their chances in the least and missing baseball games / practices is not an issue. I have no reason not to believe them and they have been doing this for a long time.
My son enjoys Friday Night Football and everything that comes with it, but really has no aspirations of playing football in college (especially not at the level he hopes to play baseball at). We (baseball coaches included) judge the success of a football game, not in tackles or touchdown catches, but in not getting hurt. When would it make sense to stop playing football - or maybe taking his junior year off to go to some of the big fall baseball showcases / camps - and just focusing on baseball?
Oh, and I have not even mentioned schoolwork during this time. He struggled with grades his first year, but has since recommitted himself and with the help of his teachers and coaches (not to mention my big right foot), is doing much better this year.
Just looking for some insight as to what others in similar situations have done.
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