Many of today’s athletes play only one sport and devote their time to specializing in it. This is not the best thing an athlete can do to reach their full potential. Playing multiple sports helps create a more well-rounded athlete. Unless an athlete has professional potential, playing more than one sport gives the athlete an advantage by participating on different teams.
Not only does playing multiple sports benefit the athlete, it benefits the teams. Many coaches want students to come try out. The majority of coaches do not care whether or not that sport is a player’s favorite. They simply like seeing a good number of student athletes participate. In most sports, the number of athletes who go out help the team win championships, even with individual sports. In order for a team to win a district or state championship in an individual sport, the players need to be able to score points.
Athletes who play one sport usually do so for one of three reasons: either they do not think they will be good at another sport, they want to specialize in a sport or they do not want to get injured in another sport. Two of these three reasons are ridiculous because the most beneficial skill to learn in any sport is the ability to compete. The only one that makes any sense whatsoever is that an athlete would not want to risk getting injured. But even then, the more sports an athlete plays the stronger he or she gets.
Parents may also play a role in a student only playing one sport in high school. They should not force their kid into playing just one sport because it almost guarantees that their child will be sick of the sport by the time college scouts start looking at them, and odds are they will no longer enjoy the sport anymore. Parents should be hyping up a sport to make it sound fun, and most importantly, they should support their athlete. Playing a sport is hard and athletes need support from their parents in all sports they play.
Every student who thinks they are an athlete should play multiple sports. How is an athlete supposed to know what sport they are the best at or which sport is their favorite if they only play one? Experiencing different sports is enjoyable if the athlete has an open mind going in to the sport. It is also better to start when an athlete is younger, because the older the athlete is, the less time they will get to improve if they happen to enjoy the sport.
There are some things in life one will never get to experience again, and high school sports is one of those. Students should not be scared and wait to try something new. Being a one sport athlete does not help an athlete as much as he or she thinks it will.
