Multiple Sports or Specialization?

Growing up a kid should play as many sports as possible. By high school, if the school is sizable it may be difficult to play three. Coaches want some off season dedication to their sport. The only reason to specialize in one sport is if other sports are getting in the way of getting to the next level in the preferred sport.

My son played three through freshman year. He's lettering in two varsity sports now (junior year). He'll play two to the end unless he needs fall of his senior year to finish up college baseball business.

Other than multiple track seasons I don't think any male is lettering in three sports at our high school. Only five baseball players letter in another sport (three football, s****r and hockey). Three of them are in the top four baseball players and should play college ball.

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should an athlete concentrate on baseball or play multiple sports

Tough question and really depends a lot on the individual and his goals.

It's a trade off of sorts. Play only one sport and the player tends to become more proficient at that one sport and increases his odds of playing that sport at the next level. Play two or more sports and most will agree that his overall athleticism may increase but the "tools" of a the "off season sport" remain the same or could decline. High school sports can be the most rewarding time for many players and multiple sport athletes tend to be more popular and have an opportunity to create great memories. However if the goal is to play high level college baseball (or another sport) it might behoove the player to forgo the "secondary" sports and focus on his primary sport. While my son appeared destined to play college baseball while in high school and was going to focus only on baseball, the football coach asked him to play his junior and senior year of high school. After much discussions with the baseball and football coach and with the understanding that baseball was his primary sport, he agreed to play football. The outcome was great even though that was not the plan going in. Bottom line I tend to think if a player is serious about his primary sport, one sport in HS is enough to keep him busy and will improve his odds of reaching a higher level after high school.
Fungo

I think if you want to play at the next level, college, you have to work more at the sport you intend to play in college. My son has made the choice to stop playing football. His 9th and 10th grade years he played three sports, football, ice hockey, and baseball. Baseball being his best sport. He stopped playing football for two reason, put more time in baseball, he played fall ball this year, he didn't to risk injury. One of our very good baseball players broke his none throwing arm early in the football season and last week broke his leg. But the choice is up to the athlete and what their goals are, where they want to be in college. Just a side note, Jeff Locke only played baseball in high school, although he is a talented athlete, his father didn't want him to get hurt. He was drafted by the Braves in the 2nd round.

Son is a freshman this year. He is playing freshman football this season and is considering going out for basketball as well (6' 1"). He will obviously go out for baseball in the spring. I think football helped him this fall. He certainly thinned out more and put on on muscle mass that should translate to the diamond (core strength). As a pitcher it has let him rest his arm for a while but kept him active. If he plays hoops it will keep him in shape and work on his running and agility. We will start winter workouts on the weekends to get ready for the upcoming baseball season.

Here in the Northeast I think it is more common to have multi sport athletes, especially in the first couple of years of High School. Now come junior and senior season it may be time to drop football and concentrate on fall ball and playing in showcases etc...

Great question and this subject has been debated before on this website. At the end of the day it comes down to a personal choice.

My family and I were having the same discussion regarding my son. He plays Baseball, Basketball and Football. He starts in all three sports. However he made the decision to give up basketball so he could use those months to get ready for baseball.

Many of our baseball frineds have tried to talk him out of the Football thing. They site injury as main reason. They are correct. However he had the chance to sart for his Varsity football team as the QB and he did not want to miss that experience. Also I can tell you the conditioning and weight training has helped with his baseball. So for him it has been a good decision. In fact he is starting to attract some college interest ( he is Junior) from football coaches. Not at the level that he is getting from baseball but still it is some interest. You never know where the road will take you.

So you are going to hear many difernt POV's here....and thing is none of them are wrong...becasue it really gets down to a personal decision.

I can tell you I attend a baseball game on the West coast last year and got there real early. They were flashing up the players high school and college experiences and I was suprised by the number of MLB players that played football in high school.

First the parameters are my son attends a large classification high school. At smaller schools kids often play three sports.

My son was cut from basketball (the third sport) soph year after being the starting point guard on the freshman team. We were stunned. The coach said it was because he didn't play summer basketball or attend any fall workouts. Not one basketball player plays another sport. He was playing s0ccer and fall ball. Not playing basketball last winter was the best thing that ever happened to his baseball. Instead of running his weight down, he worked out and put on twenty-five pounds in four months. While part was growing two inches there's no way he would have put on the bulk playing basketball.

It is possible to play two sports. My son works out year round in baseball whether it's baseball or physical training. His fall is busy with high school s0ccer, travel baseball and academics. He does three baseball workouts a week in the early evening, lifts weights three mornings a week before school and plays on the weekends (when it isn't raining).

It is "possible" to play four sports in High school. I know of kids that play s****r and aslo kick for the football team.

The decision comes in is how competetive do you want to be in each sport. Since more and more kids are down to one/maybe two sports they are able to focus and get better in the sports where they specialize.

as always there are the rare kids that have the god given talent that may not need to reduce the number to focus and still be a stud in mutiple sports.

Like I said earlier....it all comes down to ones own POV and what is best for them.

RJM,

Your post hit a memory for me that I can relate too. My first head coaching job was a freshman team up in Maine after a good spring I would be offered the position of the senior babe ruth head coach position for the town's team.

2 of the better players on the freshman team did not come out for Senior Babe Ruth, I asked them why and they said they had to play summer basketball. I tried to tell them that Summer is baseball season and basketball was still two seasons away but they told me it was "mandatory". I checked on this and it obviously was not mandatory but the varsity basketball coach had told them basically in not so many words, if they don't play don't bother coming out in the winter. So they played summer basketball, football, and eventually quit baseball.

I remember having the phone up to my ear talking to one of them thinking "you're a 5' 11" stalky white boy from Maine and you're giving up baseball to play hoops?"

Son is only a Freshman at one of the larger high schools in the state. Pretty much everyone makes the freshman football team. As far as hoops will go he has never played anything above park & Rec but he is fairly tall within his class and athletic. So maybe he plays one or two years. I figure if he can play multiple sports his first tow years in school it will be good for him and then going into his junior and senior years he can start focusing totally on baseball. The different workouts for the different sports should help shape his body and get him ready to become baseball specific in two years.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by dad43:
It is "possible" to play four sports in High school. I know of kids that play s****r and aslo kick for the football team.

QUOTE]

So this would make that kid a two sport athlete right?

Come on my Class I pitching joke is no good if you take you post down.

while baseball is my passion, i think baseball players that play football have that bulldog mentality. maybe it's just a coincidence......or maybe it comes from taking a pounding all week for the friday game.

i also think any time you can represent your school, you should. you only get 4 years high school.

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Originally posted by shipbuilder2:
I remember having the phone up to my ear talking to one of them thinking "you're a 5' 11" stalky white boy from Maine and you're giving up baseball to play hoops?"

When my son was little he said he wanted to play basketball at North Carolina or Duke. I warned him he was going to grow up to be a 6'2" white kid. I did expect him to play high school basketball. He was just as good at basketball as baseball relative to his level of play (freshman ball) until not playing last year. But this years basketball team has six college prospects all taller than he (6'1"). Now if he had been 6'6" it might have been a different story. He could have been a back up forward. The starting front line is 6'8", 6'6" and 6'4" (jumps better than the other two).

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So this would make that kid a two sport athlete right?

ShipBuilder very good...glad to see your math skills are good....I should have been clearer....I assumed that people would know that I meant the kid also played Baseball and Basketball.

By playing Football and s****r at the same time a student could play 4 sports in one year without to many conflicts.

Thanks for the help

43-

I did include basketball and baseball in my math... combine that with kicking field goals and playing s****r that sounds like... 2 sports.

We're finding out this is a tough question. My son is a high school freshman who plans to play football all four years in h.s., for a small, but decent program. But baseball is his first love.

He's a 6-3 lefthanded-hitting catcher that had very positive experiences at two Div. I showcases this summer. He wants to play college baseball in the South, and I'm afraid that playing football (particularly his junior and senior years) will limit his ability to play fall ball or go to camps, etc.

That said, the coaches we talked to this summer (unless they were blowing smoke), seemed to prefer that he play more than one sport - makes 'em a better all-around athlete, they said.

So he's going to play football in high school and cross his fingers that he doesn't get hurt!

I have always been a strong believer that playing multiple sports only makes you a better athlete. Growing up we played s****r (town didn’t have football) in the fall basketball in the winter and baseball during the spring. Don’t get me wrong I was still working out for baseball most of the winter but still played hoop to stay in shape and to be part of your school team. I see to many one sport athletes getting burnt out or having sever injuries when they are 17-18 years old. Your body is not ment to throw a ball 12 months out of the year.

I personally believe that at younger ages kids should participate in different activities. However I have had kids who were literally involved in 3 and 4 sports/activities per season. I no lie had a player one time tell me they could only play in one of the games of a double header because he had a scuba lesson later in the day. He was also missing games and practices for golf and basketball, add in baseball and thats four different activites. To me this is a parent pushing their child into too many activities, how many 12 year olds are actively persuing scuba careers while playing hoops and golf and baseball. What was too bad was the kid was decent at baseball and lacked actual innings on the diamond. I believe that the player themselves should be making this decision not parents, thats when I believe you get players who get burned out.

Was it Scuba Steve Campo?

Here's advice/info we received re our son and focusing on baseball.

His first AAU baseball team at 14, coach tells us they want him to contentrate on baseball all year. I go to my college coach to get his opinion. He said he would rip my head off if I did that to my son. He said he needs to play all sports, he would get bored and burnt out on the baseball if that's all he did. This comes from a guy who played and managed in Red Sox minors for almost 10 years.

Maryland coach, play football,we love football players, helps them with mental and physical toughness. Told my kid if he didn't play his last year he would regret it the rest of his life.

Had 20 minute convesation with Tim Corbin, HC of Vanderbilt in August (he is from Wolfeboro). Said he loves multiple sport athletes, especially football players, they bring a mental toughness to diamond (could be other sports than football). Plenty of time to focus on baseball in college, when it almost becomes a job.

This month my kid recieved mutiple emails from scouts to see if he was going to Jupiter and if so what team he was playing for. He wrote back to all that he was playing football. All got back to him and said great, good luck with football, see you in the spring - no issues with not playing baseball all the time.

I guess if a kid really loves one sport and that's his passion and what he is good at then go for it but burn out is a possibility. Also someone made a great point about being at very big school where the its much harder to play multiple sports (like basketball)- kind of forces you to focus on one sport. My son is lucky in that he's an ok athlete at a smaller school so he has the opportunity to play football, basketball (that may be in question this year) and baseball. I know he has enjoyed playing three sports in HS and someday when he's older he will sit down with all these memories and be glad he played more then just baseball.

No it was your friend "Manny"

Another season (basketball) and another decision. My kid wasn't sure if he should bypass B-ball and workout for baseball. I know his confusion has come from a few contacts from MLB teams and maybe he is dreaming that he could be drafted. This is a long-shot and my wife and I encouraged him to play basketball.

Still waivering, I told him to email some of the scouts that have contacted him and see what they say. He finally listened to me. Below are a few of the responses. For those of you with son's wrestling with the same decision, have them read these comments. I was bit surprised - answers may have been different if my kids name was Bryce Harper.

"AL Area Scout: It just depends on what you want to do. I am actually a big fan of guys playing more than one sport. It seems as though no one does that anymore! I am glad you played football and I am sure you had fun doing it. I just think that you use different muscles in different sports and it is good for your body. Plus it gives you something to look forward to"

"NL Area Scout: I’m just giving you my opinion, but if you have fun playing basketball, play. Don’t give it up just to workout for baseball. Give it up if you don’t want to play. You’re in your senior year, so have fun. You don’t want to look back regretting you didn’t do this or that"

"AL Area Scout: In fact, you may laugh at me but I would tell you that you should play basketball instead of working out for baseball. It may sound crazy but I am old school. I think kids that are multi sport athletes, meaning kids that play football, cross country, s****r, basketball, winter track, etc. and baseball become better well rounded athletes. In my opinion, you will have many years ahead of you to workout and get stronger for baseball but you can only be a senior high school basketball player once in a lifetime"

NHMonty,

Thanks for sharing these tidbits from the scouts! Now my son is not at the same level as your Mike athletically speaking but for his class he is one of the top overall athletes. He played freshman football and liked it but didn't love it. He did appreciate that it helped get him into good shape though. I think had the team been better he'd have enjoyed it more but playing the line gets rather boring when you stink..lol. He is now playing on the freshman basketball team and should play significant minutes. He is loving hoops so far as it is the first time he has played at a level above perk & rec and has actual coaching in practices. All this running will help him when baseball rolls around. We will try to get baseball workouts in around his schedule once the games start. There is 3-4 weeks from the end of basketball to baseball tryouts to really get ramped up. I think it is one of the advantages of playing in the north...you get the opportunity to play multiple sports because you can't really play baseball from mid Oct - End of March anyways. If your athletic enough and your coaches will have you then why not play multiple sports. It keeps your body in shape and keeps your routine in place,school then practice then home and homework off to bed and get up and repeat. Doesn't let you get lazy and develop poor habits. Now my son goes to a large school so eventually he may not get to play all three sports for varsity and that will be the time to specialize in baseball. As a pitcher the time off is good for his arm too.

We've discussed it and he wants to play one more year of football and then probably switch back to fall ball to prepare for showcases, tournaments etc..It is nice to know that the coaches and scouts seem to like multi-sport athletes.

This is an interesting topic. I didn't really know there was any downside to playing multiple sports.

My son will be a freshman next year. He will likely play basketball, volleyball and baseball. He may even shoot archery. Although our High School has no football program, his travel basketball coach is trying to recruit him for a regional football team (he's 6'/180) this summer as a linebacker - my son has never played football but, plays aggressive basketball for a team that is in the top ten in the province.

Academically, he's doing a little better than 80% now. From a young age, he has recognized that staying sharp at school makes it easier to do a lot of sports. I think he could do another 10% at school but, I'd rather see him in sports any day of the week. It's a balance and maintenance act.

I believe that baseball will eventually be his primary but, he sure has a lot of fun with everything else.

He just started indoor workouts.... Yippeee!!