Multi-Sport kids (athletes)

[DonnieS]

A great discussion was just held on Mike and Mike about how important it is for the kids to play multiple sports as they are coming up. As we know, there have been many discussions about that here. As a parent of a couple of decent athletes, who loved all sports , I did a lot of things right, accidentally. My kids, the younger more than the older, played 122 games as a 9 year old, 151 as a 10 year old , 140 as an 11 year old , 142 as a 12 year old, and tapered off as they got to middle school sports and so on. We were religious about icing the pitching daughter all the way through, advice I got from Lisa Fernandez at a coaching clinic when she was 8 or 9. But during those times, the girls were on competitive swim teams, they also ran track, summer track before they got to middle school, played basketball, flag football, and volleyball - that's in addition to those horrendous number of games. I joke about the fact that I definitely didnt push them to do this, I spent most of this time coaching and just hanging on to their shirt tails and trying to keep up with them. The only reason that neither attempted high school football is that their high school introduced volleyball just in time to prevent them from doing that.

The older just finished her last year of college ball and had a few minor injury issues, in her three full years of D1 ball, she missed one game - bruised knee as I recall - mostly strains - bruises , she was bad about diving head first, whether or not it made sense - she just did it. The younger was a pitcher until she got to college, the college she started at, had "plenty" of pitchers - they said their big need was her bat and her fielding which they were very weak on - so she switched to fielding - which she also loves and focused on hitting. She has just transferred to a larger school and who knows how that will go, but she had much less strains that her sister though she played - over played - much more than her sister.

Maybe its genetics, though the first time I set foot on a college field - was during college visits for my daughters , and my wife never played anything other than some slow pitch and was a cheer leader - or maybe it was all that swimming - from age 5 - until around 14 - or all of the multiple sport discipline that they both did.

But if I were a young parent , I would find a balance between the sports , and sign their kid up for every rec sport there is in those early years (from 5-12) and then as we learned , there isnt time for everything and you have to taper off. I would also keep them in track as long as you possibly can in high school.

[slapperdad]

Sage advice, DD had two D1 Softball coaches go watch her play Basketball, one did it multiple times. The recurring theme we heard was "I need athletes and competitors, I can teach Softball".

And don't sell swimming short, great cardio and upper body work.

[hit4power]

The older I get, the more I believe the gospels of Sam and Donnie on the value of taking a break several times a year and playing multiple sports for as long as possible. Every chance I get I preach the value of playing multiple sports and the necessity of taking breaks from time to time to parents of younger kids. Constantly surprises me on how much push back I hear from parents about how little Susy won't have time for her hitting/fielding/pitching lessons (plural) if she takes time to play something else and how she will "fall behind" if she takes 2 months off. Growing up mine played every sport that involved a ball of some kind plus dance and gymnastics. We both credit dance and gymnastics with building core strength and I credit the multiple sports with preventing a lot of overuse injuries and keeping her relatively healthy so far.

[slapperdad]

Last four years....(high school), DD always took off from Softball after nationals until the first of September. She did play VB one season. We would hit it pretty hard in September and October, doing the showcase circuit. After a month off she was usually pretty sharp hitting wise by the end of September. She played Basketball all four years, she did no softball practice of any kind in November and December, focused on Basketball. She would start hitting a couple nights a week in January, we could work this around her BB schedule. Basketball season ended in mid-Feb, and she would take a couple of weeks off and then start hitting Softball hard until nationals, usually with a week or so break after high school season.

I think it's imperative that you have scheduled down time for your kid. I have always been a firm believer that you gain skills in one sport that will help you in other sports. Athletes play whatever is in season. I think you will find that single sport athletes will dominate at younger levels. By the time they get to be freshmen and sophs, the field starts leveling a bit and by the time they leave high school multi-sport athletes are usually better.

My DD has been very fortunate as well injury wise, the only real injury she ever had was torn hip flexor her junior year in BB. She was out of BB for about two months and it probably took her 6-8 months to regain her speed. She caught most of her Softball career and I, usually by force, had her ice both knees for about twenty minutes after catching. I tried my best to make sure that she took care of her body. At the end of long seasons we usually tried to limit as much throwing as possible as well to. Example, while doing fielding drills, she would just drop the balls into a bucket, rather than throwing them back. It's all pretty common sense stuff as I see it.