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Originally Posted by Anonymous
Urban Meyer’s football recruits at Ohio State shift the paradigm in youth sports. A majority of his recruits are multi-sport kids, is not new information, but it has caused quite a stir. Here is what it says in a nutshell:
To be an elite level player at a college or professional sport, you need a degree of exceptional athleticism. And the best medically, scientifically and psychologically recommended way to develop such all around athleticism is ample free play and multiple sport participation as a child.
Why? Well let’s see what the experts say:
Coaches and Elite Athletes:
Pete Carroll, former USC and now Seattle Seahawks Football coach, says here “The first questions I’ll ask about a kid are, ‘What other sports does he play? What does he do? What are his positions? Is he a big hitter in baseball? Is he a pitcher? Does he play hoops?’ All of those things are important to me. I hate that kids don’t play three sports in high school. I think that they should play year-round and get every bit of it that they can through that experience. I really, really don’t favor kids having to specialize in one sport. Even [at USC], I want to be the biggest proponent for two-sport athletes on the college level. I want guys that are so special athletically, and so competitive, that they can compete in more than one sport.”
Dom Starsia, University of Virginia men’s lacrosse: “My trick question to young campers is always, ‘How do you learn the concepts of team offense in lacrosse or team defense in lacrosse in the off-season, when you’re not playing with your team?’ The answer is by playing basketball, by playing hockey and by playing soccer and those other team games, because many of those principles are exactly the same. Probably 95 percent [of our players] are multi-sport athletes. It’s always a bit strange to me if somebody is not playing other sports in high school.”


Yeah but the kids being talked about by these coaches are probably the top 5% athletes, or better. They're not the majority of the kids playing HS sports. It's getting tougher and tougher to play multiple sports, due to all the travel clubs for all sports. All the best soccer players play club. If your main sport is lax, you can't play travel soccer, so it can be very hard to make the team, depending on your HS. Unless of course you're the extremely rare kid that Pete Carrol or Dom Starsia are talking to!