Jim Belden

We tweeted out this article yesterday, but I wanted to make a post on here so it will show up on the blog and Facebook as well. I had the good fortune of meeting and learning from Jim Belden when he volunteered his time helping out at Westfield during his son's tenure as head coach. From personal experience, I can say that the sentiments expressed in the article are absolutely true. He was a great man and a Hall of Fame coach who dedicated his life to making Hamilton County a better place.

It has been said that a coach will impact more young people in a year than the average person does in a lifetime. Jim's impact, then, cannot be measured in years, but in lifetimes. His leadership and vision will most certainly be missed.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Belden family, along with a deep sense of gratitude for all of their contributions to our football family.

Play Them All

I wanted to pass along an article shared to our staff by AD Bill Davis. It is a good article, and expresses something that we, as a staff, strive to promote. I do not believe that we've ever advised a student-athlete to quit a sport in order to "focus" on football. In fact, we try to go out of our way to encourage the opposite. And we are not alone in this. More and more, it seems that advice for specialization at the highest levels of sport tends to be in the minority. It may sound surprising that prolific coaches like Urban Meyer and Pete Carroll support a diverse athlete, but it is absolutely true, as the article points out. Do a quick search for "sport specialization in youth." Notice anything? Looks to me like an overwhelming majority of studies and literature out there are against specialization. At the end of the day, as a parent or student-athlete, the decision is totally up to you. But if you want our advice: Play them all!