Today’s athletes have been blessed with more opportunities than past generations. These opportunities include more exposure, more control over their career, and the chance to make money before becoming a professional. These opportunities come at a cost, though. With higher stakes involved, a parent, coach, or even athlete would believe the best route to get to these opportunities would be by specializing in their main sport and ignoring everything else. I’d argue that the best way for young athletes to develop physically and emotionally is through sports diversity instead of specialization.
Now let’s not be hyperbolic, I’m not saying you should play a football game Friday night, then play at a tournament for your club basketball team on Saturday, but what I am saying is that there are benefits to playing multiple sports throughout the year. When you look at some of the best players to ever play in the NFL or NBA, they grew up playing multiple sports. Patrick Mahomes, Michael Jordan, and Deion Sanders all played baseball in addition to their main sport, and even LeBron played football.
According to PubMed Central specializing in a sport too early can also increase the likelihood of burnout and overuse injuries. Serious overuse injuries are defined by PubMed Central as “Those that result in the loss of one month, or more of playing time, or participation.” These injuries include strains and stress fractures. To be fair, these injuries could happen to any athlete, but it does make sense that if you repeatedly perform the same movements over and over again, that you have a higher chance of injury to the muscles, ligaments, and bones associated with that movement. Sports specialization at a young age also can affect an athlete psychologically as well. As an athlete you chase perfection, in every aspect of the sport. So, when you focus on the same sport for an extended period of time, then it makes sense that burnout, or stress could be experienced. There aren’t just consequences to sports specialization, but there are benefits to being a multisport athlete.
Conventional thinking would say that the best way to improve your skill level with your main sport would be by constantly practicing it. This isn’t completely wrong, but it is a little misguided. Take a football player for example. Being light on your feet is an important part of the game, so a football player would benefit from ballet. Jumping high is an important part of basketball, so a basketball player doing high jump on their track and field team would make him better on the court. Jordan Watt is an Assistant Strength and Conditioning coach for the men’s basketball team at Arizona State, and he believes a good way for athletes to reduce injury risk is by playing multiple sports. He said that when you play different sports you expose your body to multiple plains, this means that your body is being trained for multiple abilities which can better protect you from injury, as well as raise your athletic ceiling.
I wonder how much influence a coach has on an athlete choosing to specialize. Hypothetically, a coach could tell a parent, “Little Johnny should play all year so he doesn’t fall behind,” and to be honest from the parent perspective that may be enough to keep the child in the sport. In that situation the parent may be thinking the coach knows more about that world then me and the parent could assume that the coach is thinking about the well-being of the child, so with that being the case why wouldn’t they keep the child in that sport.
A question for parents that are so steadfast on their child being in one sport is, why? For what? Ashley Campbell is a Program Director at the Sundevil Fitness Complex in Tempe, and she has a similar question. Campbell has experience in training young athletes from sports like basketball, wrestling, and soccer. She said that a lot of the time a parent’s reason for this mindset is in the right place. Reasons include the potentiality of getting a college scholarship, or maybe even the chance that they can play professionally. These aren’t necessarily bad things, but when they overshadow the wants and needs of the child than they become an issue.
On a youth level sports are supposed to be something that’s fun, and something to encourage leadership, teamwork, and dedication. At 8-years-old a kid isn’t supposed to be glued to one sport or another, that’s why instead of sports specialization families should be looking for sports diversity.
