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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Take a look at your high school football, basketball and baseball games. The OVERWHELMING majority of these kids play varsity in multiple sports. [/quote]

This must be a small and remote private school. [b]The unfortunate reality in most communities is that single-sport specialization occurs by middle school. [/b]Which is awful. Even professional NBA and MLB coaches are lamenting the early specialization of today's athletes. People who play multiple sports tend to be better overall athletes and more resilient to repetitive-use injuries. I think the best approach is to simply pretend it's still 1984 and change sports with the seasons and ignore the pressure to specialize early.  [/quote]

And yet the talented multi sport athletes will continue to make the high school teams over the less talented kids who were forced to “specialize” at the age of 7.

I agree with your final point.  Just because everybody else is doing something one way doesn’t mean it’s the best way.

That being said, OP is going the other way.  Her 7 year old isn’t an athlete by any stretch of the definition- he’s a little kid.  Maybe she should consider cutting back to let him play with toys or take a nap or something.[/quote]

Sort of... Our high school has about 400 people per class in a wealthy suburb, and I know of only one boy who is a 3-sport varsity athlete and will play one of those sports in college.  Of those sports, lacrosse is the most competitive in our school and all but the 1 kid I mentioned specialized pretty early and played a lot of club lax. I know of several kids who do two sports, but their second sport is a no-cut sport like cross country, track, or football.   I know of a few girls who play a combination of lax, soccer, basketball, and volleyball.[/quote]

Why is the bar now three sports?  Most of the best athletes at our large high school play two sports at a high level; very few specialize in just one.[/quote]

My point is that playing more than one varsity sport is getting tough unless one of your second or third sports is a no-cut sport like football, track, or cross-country.  We have one boy that could do it at our high school, and he's 6'4, very fast and strong, and both of his parents were D1 athletes.  He's the exception, not the rule.  95% of our kids need to pick a main sport and prioritize it if they want to make the high school team.  It's fine to play other sports for fun, but by a certain age, you pick one main sport and resolve conflicts in its favor.  [/quote]

It sounds like there just aren’t many gifted athletes at your wealthy suburban school, which honestly isn’t shocking.[/quote]

DP.  Our high school also doesn't have kids who make multiple selective teams.  For example, there is no crossover at our high school that I am aware of in boys' varsity basketball, baseball, lacrosse, or soccer.  [/quote]

NP: similar here. At our school some sports are basically year round (baseball and basketball are for sure). And for girls, volleyball and softball. They all play travel most of the year, along with offseason workouts. Not as familiar with soccer and lacrosse but I think it is the same.

Now there are multi sport athletes in some varsity sports for sure- for example football & track, or football & wrestling, track & cross country etc. Those sports compliment each other a bit more and have large rosters or are even no-cut.

But something like baseball & basketball? Very very rare at our school. Kids will sometimes try to balance 2 very selective sports as underclassmen but almost all end up focusing on only one sport after the first year of HS or so.

Our school has extremely strong golf, tennis, and swim teams, and most of those kids also play only one sport (their main sport) and compete, practice, and take lessons in that sport year round. It is extremely difficult to make the golf and tennis teams at our school, while swim team takes most but many will not be invited to most meets. [/quote]

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