Should YOU Play Multiple Sports? A more personalized approach.

Should You Play Multiple Sports?

Every year I get some version of the same question:

“I love baseball and want to play in college. Should I keep playing football?”

Or basketball. Or soccer. For our female athletes, it’s often volleyball and basketball.

There isn’t one answer that applies to every athlete. But I think there’s a fairly simple way to make the decision.

First: What Are Your Goals?

Let’s get something out of the way.

If you aren’t good enough to play for a particular college, that coach does not care whether you played ten sports in high school or one.

College coaches are trying to win games. Ultimately, you have to be good enough to help them do that.

So let’s say an athlete has a particular goal—a certain school, Division I, the SEC, professional baseball, whatever it may be.

By 10th or 11th grade, if that athlete is getting nothing but crickets from programs at that level, something probably has to change.

There are really two choices:

A) Increase the amount of time and effort being devoted to getting better.

or

B) Adjust the expectation.

Neither choice is inherently wrong.

But there is a reality that needs to be acknowledged: playing a second sport takes time.

Practices, games, travel and recovery all consume hours that could otherwise be spent developing for your primary sport.

That doesn’t mean playing multiple sports is bad.

It means there is a tradeoff.

Which One Sounds Like More Fun?

Here’s the next question I would ask:

Would you rather spend your offseason playing your second sport?

Or would you rather spend that time training specifically for your primary sport?

For a young athlete, I think the answer to that question should carry a tremendous amount of weight.

You’re only a kid once.

If you love playing football, go play football.

If you love basketball, go play basketball.

If your gut is telling you that you aren’t ready to give up that second sport, I generally wouldn’t advise you to quit.

But understand the decision you’re making.

You can’t choose to spend hundreds of hours doing something else and simultaneously claim that you are willing to do absolutely anything necessary to reach your goal in another sport.

That’s not criticism.

It’s simply opportunity cost.

There are only so many hours available.

Multi-Sport Isn’t Automatically Better—or Worse

This is where I think the conversation often gets unnecessarily polarized.

Playing multiple sports can provide tremendous benefits. Different movements, different competitive environments, different teammates and coaches—and sometimes simply a mental break from doing the same thing year-round.

Specializing can also provide benefits, particularly for an older athlete who has a specific goal and needs significant development to reach it.

The question shouldn’t be:

“Is playing multiple sports good or bad?”

The better question is:

“Given this athlete’s age, goals, current ability and what they actually enjoy doing, what is the best use of their time?”

That answer can be completely different for two athletes of the same age.

And it can change as an athlete gets older.

One More Thing for Parents

We are awful about putting sports above everything else.

So this needs to be said:

It is perfectly OK for your kid to not dream about playing college sports.

Their goals do not have to be your goals.

If your son or daughter doesn’t want to devote the time necessary to chase some enormous athletic goal, that doesn’t make them lazy or less of a person.

And trying to force that desire into them usually makes things worse.

One of the hardest parts of working with teenagers is seeing them standing on a metaphorical train track.

You can see the train coming.

You’re screaming, “THERE’S A TRAIN COMING!”

And they’re looking at you like you’re an idiot.

Sometimes you have to let them get hit by the metaphorical train.

Because if you constantly tackle them off the tracks, they don’t learn anything. Half the time they’ll resent you for tackling them—and they’ll still insist there was never a train coming in the first place.

Fortunately, we’re talking about sports.

The train isn’t fatal.

Let them make some decisions. Let them make some mistakes. Let them learn what those decisions cost.

Your job is to give them good information.

Their job is eventually to decide what they want badly enough to pursue.