Is the female multi-sport HS athlete a thing of the past?

[_MIA_]

It's the parents, right?

Parents want their kid to be the best. Parents want to get a full ride.

I would say sometimes this is true, especially at the younger ages. However at the HS age some kids may just decide they want to be the best they can be at 1 sport and/or would rather have more free time. I quit
basketball after my freshmen year (mainly) for this reason (the other reason was that I couldn't stand the varsity basketball coach..) I saw that I had the opportunity to be a really good baseball player or just a decent 6' point guard in basketball, so I chose baseball even though I still
loved basketball (still played pickup ball in the park all summer until graduated). Of course that said, I tore my ACL as soon as I made that decision which pretty much ended the "really good at baseball" thing...LOL!!

 

[cvsoftball]

Many years ago, when my first born turned 6, I decided to start a TBall program because there wasn't one. It soon took off and at its peak (in a fairly rural area), we had 100+ 6-8 y/o having fun. What with 6 kids, I had a long and fun-filled time with it. Towards the end, though, long after my kids had moved up, TBall became all about winning. And now there is no TBall.
The other factor is simply population curves. Back in the day, each of our small towns had several Minor and Major BB and SB teams, as well as 14and 16U teams. Not anymore. A lot of our Elementary schools closed because of declining student population and now we are all consolidated into one ES, MS and HS. Fewer students and more sport choices nowadays. Which makes program building critical.

 

[corlay]

DD is a 2-sport athlete. softball/volleyball. plays HS & travel for BOTH. Both travel teams compete at a reasonably high level, the volleyball team perhaps a bit stronger, comparatively.
I could see her playing one or both of these sports in college - if she ends up in a DIII conference.
DI she is probably only a softball candidate - at 5'11" she is likely too short to play a front line hitter position in D1.
Although we all realize that athletic scholarships are a potential, this sophomore is a LOT more focused upon academics.
She is a stellar student, but does realize that sport can help "ease" admissions to top academic colleges.

As far as the OP goes: Multi-sport athletes do and can still exist. It does take a lot of commitment and also travel time with virtually no breaks. (one travel sport bleeds right into another).
In our region of NY, HS softball numbers are pretty strong. We do lose a lot of kids after they age-out of REC, and then again after Modified/JV level; but I think this is pretty normal for most sports.
For the most part, the girls still playing softball at the Varsity level, all can pretty much play.

 

[Rick M]

It's hard for me to read through this thread and not feel like I'm part of the problem.

DD is only 12, and she's played a bunch of sports at the rec/introductory level. I very much take it to heart that playing multiple sports builds a better athlete. But the simple fact is that she doesn't like any other sports. So she practices and plays softball year-round and still loves it, she can't wait for the season to start.

So now she's about to start with middle school tryouts, she's also in her last year of playing Rec. As a Rec coach, I see firsthand the division between the girls who play TB year-round and those who only play in the spring. When we run our weekly winter clinics for the whole Rec league, we have to separate the travel girls because the casual players are terrified of them. And that's the conundrum: we want the higher level girls to keep playing with the casual ones, they're a good example and take the time to peer mentor. But if you give an 11-year-old the idea that 'I'll never be as good as Suzie,' you're setting up to kill your school program.

DD is a good athlete and played rec basketball for the last few years, but not this year. She was just an okay player and never picked up a basketball to shoot hoops in the driveway. But more important to me, we've lost one player a year for the last three years to basketball injuries. I told her back in November that I would sign her up for basketball if she really wanted to play, but preferred that she not risk injury to do something that she's not that into. Might she have grown into a varsity basketball player? Maybe, but we'll probably never find out.

It's sort of like an arms race -- even if you're not that crazy parent who thinks their kid is on a one-way street to a D1 full ride, your own kid has to compete for a spot with that other kid, so you wind up with elementary school-aged kids specializing in one sport.

 

[Tatonka]

Everyone should take up breakdancing...... pffffftttt

 

[marriard]

DD is a 2-sport athlete. softball/volleyball. plays travel for BOTH. Both travel teams compete at a reasonably high level, the volleyball team perhaps a bit stronger, comparatively.
I could see her playing one or both of these sports in college - if she ends up in a DIII conference.
DI she is probably only a softball candidate - at 5'11" she is likely too short to play a front line hitter position in D1.
Although we all realize that athletic scholarships are a potential, this sophomore is a LOT more focused upon academics.
She is a stellar student, but does realize that sport can help "ease" admissions to top academic colleges.

One thing to add to [MENTION=8915]corlay[/MENTION] 's post. If you live up north you CAN'T get outside to play so winter limits softball opportunities. So there is a cold-weather season where you can't play softball intensely and opens a natural opportunity to play another sport.

Here in Florida you can be outside 12 months a year so there is nothing forcing travel to stop. Our last travel tournament scheduled in 2018 was a week before Christmas. Our first tournament of 2019 was the weekend after new year.

 

[BobInMadison]

One thing to add to [MENTION=8915]corlay[/MENTION] 's post. If you live up north you CAN'T get outside to play so winter limits softball opportunities. So there is a cold-weather season where you can't play softball intensely and opens a natural opportunity to play another sport.

Here in Florida you can be outside 12 months a year so there is nothing forcing travel to stop. Our last travel tournament scheduled in 2018 was a week before Christmas. Our first tournament of 2019 was the weekend after new year.

Interesting.

I do see a lot more 2 or 3 sport girls up here in Wisconsin. I even knew some young ladies who got D-1 scholarships who were multi-sport athletes.

Even so, there is a LOT of pressure on these girls to concentrate on one sport.

A few years back there was a girl, about 5'11" or maybe 6'0", who was one of the best HS softball players in the county, and also one of the best HS rowers in the US. She got a rowing scholarship at Wisconsin.
My DS was in a HS rowing club with her. Most of the kids rowed all year round. She was only one of a small handful who rowed part of the year and played another sport (softball) the other half of the year. Which meant she was not eligible to participate in some really big events, such as the HS club championships for rowing.

 

[FP26]

DD started her athletic career by playing 3 sports; soccer, softball, and basketball. This worked out fairly well until she was approximately 11 years old. At that point she was offered an opportunity to play in a fall softball league. We realized at that point that she would need to make a decision. This would conflict with her soccer schedule, and the travel would not allow us to do both. She chose softball. She continued with the other two sports until she finished her freshman year in high school when she lettered in both softball and basketball. The challenge was that basketball literally ended one day, and she was expected to be at softball practice the next day. The seasons run into each other. As a pitcher, she felt as though she didn't have enough time to work on pitching during basketball season which created some challenges when softball started in the spring. She decided at that point in time to give up basketball. It was a tough decision for all of us, but one we understood, and was necessary. If she was not a pitcher, she probably would have stuck with both sports. Or if basketball was a fall sport instead of a winter sport...

So just based on our experience, I do think playing multiple sports is possible, but is difficult. Especially if you want to spend additional time working at both. In fact, we have several female athletes that play soccer (fall), basketball (winter), and track (spring). But there is very little year round training for track.

In our region the biggest problem I see is rec league. When DD was younger, our school district had rec softball teams in two different communities. At the 12u level, we had a total of 4 teams. Unfortunately, they did not go beyond 12u, and the school did not have a junior high softball program at that point in time. Many of those players transitioned to year round soccer or field hockey. By the time high school started, few had interest in returning to softball. Had there been more opportunity for them to play in middle school, who knows how many would have stuck with it. Now the rec league is almost extinct. Instead of having 4 teams across the two communities, we now only have 1 team that is shared by both communities. Softball is getting crushed by soccer and field hockey. Last year DD was the only travel ball player on her high school team. The entire roster included 16 players, so several played V and JV. She is now playing in college so I don't have many ties with the school any more. But my understanding is that the team only has 12 players this year, so they are not even planning to do JV. Varsity only. Based on the current rec league situation, I would be surprised if the high school even has a softball team 5 years from now.

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

It's the parents, right?

Parents want their kid to be the best. Parents want to get a full ride.

Now we all know the girls who simply love softball and only want to do softball. Girls who tried other sports and didn't like them or do so well. I have one of those. But I also see a lot of girls who play only softball but don't seem to love it.

I say that it's the parents partly tongue-in-cheek, but if we encouraged our girls to play multiple sports they would, right? My kids take my recommendations all the time. I can sway them in many ways. I wonder if the parents were out of the equation what our kids would do. I could easily see them wanting to play multiple sports more than they do now.

That was good! I love how mine take my advice on nothing, err, everything as well.

 

[Golfclubgreg]

DD (second yr 14u this year) is running with three sports at the moment, well 2 1/2 by my count lol. Very serious about soft ball and travel ball. Plays on both a 14u travel team and an 18u travel team as well as being a 2 year starter in high school varsity going into her freshman year. (#1 pitcher and third base) She also plays high school VB and travel VB at a fairly high level. Her third sport is now track and field, well only the field part. Shot and disc to be exact. Came home from her first shot practice and I asked her how it went, i got back "I got this easy". LOL big strong girl. She will practice shot and disc before school and have softball practice after school, both are spring sports and both coaches will bend over backwards to keep her involved. Whatever makes her happy is what we do!