By Kaity Sample Posted June 4, 2015
The pressure a coach puts on a high school athlete to focus purely on one sport is ridiculous. The football coach wants you in the weight room during the summer, but your baseball coach signed you up for a summer ball team while the basketball coach is looking to put together an AAU team. Most coaches want you to excel in just one sport, and work at it year-round. That’s okay if that is what you really want and go to a big high school in the city, but at schools in smaller schools such as Lowry, we need three sport athletes to thrive.
Some coaches would agree that playing more than one sport would help them in other sports as well.
“I think playing multiple sports is a good thing. The practice every day helps keep them conditioned when they aren’t playing for me. It also keeps them eligible because they are required to keep their grades up,” said varsity baseball coach Ron Espinola.
At a training facility in Hudson, Massachusetts 18 players who trained with Eric Cressey were signed in major league baseball. Most spectators might believe that they trained their whole life on the baseball field, but it’s actually the opposite.
“You rarely see someone who only played baseball all the way through go on to have a successful career in the big leagues, you have to be a good athlete before you can be a good baseball player,” said Cressey in an interview with Lou Schuler, a writer for Men’s Health.
For example, Dwight Freeney, an outside linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, was a four-sport athlete in high school lettering in soccer, baseball, basketball, and football.
Beau Billingsley, who recently was accepted into the Air Force Academy on a wrestling scholarship, he also focused on football all four years of his high school career which helped him perform on the mat.
Although parents see sports as a distraction with school, it actually helps them succeed and if an athlete is looking to go on to play sports at a greater level, it is highly encouraged to play more than one sport.