HS sports

[Cy4Lifer]

Long run his decision to not play college will be the best decision he has made to this point, just sad that trying to be a positive leader instead of tearing teammates down gets you insulted by the coaches.

Ugh! Guess I was lucky to have supportive coaches in the small schools I attended.

 

[BCClone]

Ugh! Guess I was lucky to have supportive coaches in the small schools I attended.

I had both. One who would hit or kick you if you messed up in practice, he still coaches; and one who would just say that practice is for mistakes. I really improved that one year of his coaching.

 

[Cy4Lifer]

I had both. One who would hit or kick you if you messed up in practice, he still coaches; and one who would just say that practice is for mistakes. I really improved that one year of his coaching.

That second one sounds like my kind of coach!

 

[VeloClone]

I am a former coach and it is too bad to hear how some HS athletes are being “punished” for being in multiple sports. My fellow coaches and I always tried to work together to allow kids to compete in multiple activities when possible.

I guess our mindset was that sports in HS were there for kids to enjoy, not primarily to be college prep.

My daughter's school has been embarrassingly successful in multiple sports, but every interaction I have seen thus far includes encouragement of students to participate in a sport each season if they want to. It probably helps that some of the coaches might be a varsity coach in one sport and a freshman or JV coach in another. It is high time for some coaches to recognize that while there might be a small slowing of skill development in some areas, multi sport athletes are better rounded athletes who often are avoiding some of the specific over use injuries and specific muscle group weaknesses that a specialized young athlete might experience. Oh yeah, and it's fun.

Does this match your experience @jcyclonee?

EDIT: By the way, this isn't small school - this is a 6A football school.

 

[jcyclonee]

My daughter's school has been embarrassingly successful in multiple sports, but every interaction I have seen thus far includes encouragement of students to participate in a sport each season if they want to. It probably helps that some of the coaches might be a varsity coach in one sport and a freshman or JV coach in another. It is high time for some coaches to recognize that while there might be a small slowing of skill development in some areas, multi sport athletes are better rounded athletes who often are avoiding some of the specific over use injuries and specific muscle group weaknesses that a specialized young athlete might experience. Oh yeah, and it's fun.

Does this match your experience @jcyclonee?

EDIT: By the way, this isn't small school - this is a 6A football school.

Just to be clear, none of my kids have participated in multiple school sponsored sports. However, many of their friends have.

I don't think there are any coaches that would encourage a kid to not participate in other sports and to focus on only one sport. I do think that the coaches expect their athletes to participate in the coach's/school sponsored offseason camp which may last about a month or so. They will also expect that the athletes attend the preseason captain's practices.

I do feel that the coaches actually encourage kids to participate in other sports. Especially the ones that can really build speed, strength and endurance such as track, cross county, and Nordic skiing. Realistically, at this size of a school, there's only one or two kids a year that are able to compete in multiple of the "ultra-competitive" sports (e.g. football, basketball, hockey, and volleyball).

It seems to me that if kids are staying out of multiple sports, the pressure to do this comes from the kids themselves or their parents. In fact, we've recently had two coaches in pretty high profile sports quit because they were tired of dealing with the pressure and politics from parents.

 

[cycloner29]

Our youngest was contemplating playing football after high school. We always told him that the decision would be his to make as he would be the one facing all the aches and injuries that could result and if that was worth it and since he is 18 he is considered an adult. He's already had three documented head injuries so he knows the risks involved. He missed 4 games this season due to knee, foot and ankle issues. I think missing those last games maybe changed his mind with having a knee brace and boot on these last 6 weeks. He finally is starting PT this week.

FWIW - He made his decision on Sunday and was accepted to Iowa State yesterday!! Mom and Dad are happy for him as we are both ISU grads!!