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!