I usually chuckle when I hear about the benefits of the multi-sport athlete. I truly understand and fully appreciate the point of view that kids should engage in as many sports as possible for various reasons. However when the time comes to specialize I don't think that the specialization turns off the valve of training and has such negative consequences like others feel. When my softball player trains she runs, maybe more than some track athlete's. She lifts heavy and for reps. She trains kickboxing at the local UFC gym and spars with others often. She jumps during anaerobic workouts and puts up numbers that are top of the charts. Her team workouts include burners, suicides' and just about every other exercise that basketball players engage in. Maybe her program is unique but I doubt it and think that many on here have their DD's in programs that are similar and I'm sure some are more intense.
Fast forward to this week, I am having a conversation with a parent who has a DD the same age as my kid. This is a parent who was adamant that my DD should not specialize in softball so early and even questioned our parenting back in the day for allowing her to do so. Our DDs both played basketball until 12's and LAX, Softball etc and they both wanted to play D1, they even picked out schools at 12 years old and hung banners on their walls. They were like sisters and the other DD was a much better pure athlete in my opinion, in fact she was a better softball player than DD in REC. DD decided to take the softball path and her friend went with the multi-sport approach because her parents refused to allow her to focus on only one sport even though she wanted to play softball year round. So her glove would get put away in fall and picked back up in spring.
Here we are 3 months from HS graduation and I bumped into DD's friends mother last night. Hadn't seen her in years. She congratulated me on DDs commitment and said "Yea I wish we could have kept "Danni" in just one sport, she is looking at a few colleges but no matter the sport will be a walk on, no schools have offered her as of yet".
I have no doubt that she will walk on and be a contributor to any program. Still a great overall athlete but in my opinion but never made the commitment to become great at one sport. I know that this is not a popular point of view and I remember being judged by parents from REC back in the day for moving DD from our local travel team to a regional team. There is no one size fits all approach and guess what, the multi-sport athlete doesn't have a clear advantage when it comes to playing in college, I'd argue it's a disadvantage to those who want to do so. Just my point of view.
Fast forward to this week, I am having a conversation with a parent who has a DD the same age as my kid. This is a parent who was adamant that my DD should not specialize in softball so early and even questioned our parenting back in the day for allowing her to do so. Our DDs both played basketball until 12's and LAX, Softball etc and they both wanted to play D1, they even picked out schools at 12 years old and hung banners on their walls. They were like sisters and the other DD was a much better pure athlete in my opinion, in fact she was a better softball player than DD in REC. DD decided to take the softball path and her friend went with the multi-sport approach because her parents refused to allow her to focus on only one sport even though she wanted to play softball year round. So her glove would get put away in fall and picked back up in spring.
Here we are 3 months from HS graduation and I bumped into DD's friends mother last night. Hadn't seen her in years. She congratulated me on DDs commitment and said "Yea I wish we could have kept "Danni" in just one sport, she is looking at a few colleges but no matter the sport will be a walk on, no schools have offered her as of yet".
I have no doubt that she will walk on and be a contributor to any program. Still a great overall athlete but in my opinion but never made the commitment to become great at one sport. I know that this is not a popular point of view and I remember being judged by parents from REC back in the day for moving DD from our local travel team to a regional team. There is no one size fits all approach and guess what, the multi-sport athlete doesn't have a clear advantage when it comes to playing in college, I'd argue it's a disadvantage to those who want to do so. Just my point of view.
