What Came First, the Single Sport Athlete or the Three Season Sport?

This has been a topic on my mind quite a bit lately, mostly because my daughter is a 10 year old girl who currently only plays soccer. My son predominantly played soccer and spent a couple seasons playing Lacrosse, but he was essentially a single sport athlete. I remember having him play tee-ball when he was 5 or 6 but that was a disaster. Mostly because tee-ball is the stupidest thing ever invented. Nobody likes tee-ball. Kids, parents, coaches, dogs, nobody.. Maybe mosquitos like tee-ball because it's the perfect opportunity to get a lot of people standing still for hours at a time. The only part of tee-ball that is even remotely interesting to anybody involved is when you're the kid hitting a ball off a tee, which is actually the most unrealistic part of the whole game. I'd like somebody to explain to me why it's useful to teach a 5 year old to hit a stationary ball off a stick when that will never, ever happen in a real game. It's unrealistic, and it's unnecessary. Take your 5 year old out in the back yard and play Wiffle Ball with him. It's fun, it's more like baseball, and it's exciting. Back to the main topic....

So, if you're older than 30 and somebody asks you what sports did you play as a kid what do you answer? Football in the Fall, basketball or hockey in the Winter, and baseball in the Spring/Summer, right? Some played soccer in the Fall if it was available to them. Most places didn't even have soccer as a youth sport 25 years ago. Ask a kid today that's under 20 what sports they play and they typically have a single response.. Soccer.... Basketball.... Baseball.. (or maybe you get a blank look and something like "Uhhhhh... skateboard").. The reason for this is because all of these youth sports have become multi-season sports. Kids can play 100 hockey games in a season that spans 10 months a year. Soccer is played outdoors in the Fall and Spring and indoors in the Winter.. Basketball has town travel seasons and AAU seasons. Baseball and Lacrosse have gone to Fall and Spring seasons. All of these sports used to be single season sports. But capitalism destroyed that. People started seeing dollar signs in locking kids into sports for 3/4 of a year with club teams, tournament teams, indoor teams for foul weather seasons.. But I'm not going to rant on about capitalist pigs. Maybe another day I'll take that on. 

Here's the underlying problem. Now that every sport is offered for multiple seasons during the year, kids are practically forced into specialization at very young ages. The fear of skipping Fall soccer to play football is there because now the parents are afraid not to have their child play soccer three seasons a year for fear that they'll lose their spot on the team. And God forbid they don't join their team for a once a week session at the SportsDome over the Winter (at a cost of about $100 per kid per 8 sessions). The coaches make sure the parents understand that if their kid doesn't join in then their spot on the team is in jeopardy. So Johnny dedicates all his time to soccer and never learns to shoot baskets or throw a baseball.. I love soccer, but I love variety more. And variety breeds functionality and diversity. Because I played multiple sports as a kid, I can play pretty much anything as an adult. I can pick up all kinds of new activities quickly because, by playing multiple sports when I was younger, my body developed the coordination to do many things. Year round soccer has spawned a whole generation of men who can kick a ball 50 yards but throw like a girl and have no hand to eye coordination. Now before all of the women get all mad at me about my crack about "throwing like a girl" remember that you now can picture exactly what I'm talking about because in general girls throw like....well... girls. :)  Of course I'm not talking about the elite softball players that come to my gym (please don't bring your bats to the gym today)..

So how do we fix this? First, there is a place for specialization.. If your child is so incredibly talented to fall into that very, very small pool of athletes that has potential to play professional or D1 college sports, then by all means, foster that talent and get them as much competition and at as a high a level as possible. If your child does not fall into that 0.0001% of the population, then it's unnecessary to have them specialize until they're at least high school age and can decide for themselves that they only want to continue with one sport. Specialization at young levels leads to burnout. Almost 85% of youth sports players stop playing by the time they're 14. This is because they get sick and tired of playing the same sport all year long and they get sick of the pressure to perform at a high level.

Tough problem to deal with when many coaches and clubs intimidate parents into forcing their kids to pick one sport when they're 10. But do your kid a favor and resist. Expose them to as many sports as possible.. In this day and age when kids rarely play pickup games anymore it's on the parents to get the kids exposed to other sports through organized leagues.. And they're all out there, unfortunately, year round.. If you look at the top athletes at the college and professional levels they were all multi-sport athletes growing up. Engaging in multiple activities is awesome for the body and it's something you benefit from your entire life.

All the best,

kevin