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[quote=Anonymous] [/size][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The point about multisport athletes is more applicable to the high school level.  Yes, kids can play multiple sports on travel/club/rec teams.  They will always take your money.

High school teams are a different beast.

At our local athletic powerhouse private high school (not DC) which produces around 30 college athletes per year, has sons of professional athletes enrolled, has produced multiple Gatorade national players of the year in their sport and top ten picks in recent drafts, the multisport athlete is extremely rare and, to the extent it happens, is a fall/spring combo.  Very rarely will it include a winter sport.

Yes, athletes that can naturally make multiple varsity teams at extremely competitive schools  continue to exist.  But there are two filter mechanisms happening.  First, the coaches want their players dedicated to one sport year round.   Second, those kids are destined to play college sports and they aren’t going to risk injury in their secondary sport.  And, so, you the observed phenomenon of the death of multisport athlete continues.

Two final things:  These issues have been identified for nearly a decade and the death of the multisport athlete is well documented.  Second, this has filtered to the NCAA level where multisport talented athletes are rarer than ever, and even if they exist, they drop one of their sports as underclassmen.

The notable exception is track where football players still routinely run for the track team in spring.[/quote]

Every coach who has any real knowledge of athletic development and performance of kids (including high school age kids) will tell you that it is BETTER to play multiple sports (although not during the same season) and they ENCOURAGE multi-sport athletes through high school.[/quote]

Coaches know this. They pay lip service to it but they don’t accommodate it.  And the peripherals prevent it from happening.

You’re a football player playing baseball?  Well, you just missed spring practice. And in summer you’ll have to choose between the summer showcase baseball tournaments and 7on7 because they conflict.

Oh, you want to play basketball?  Well, you’ll miss up to the first month of the season if football makes a deep playoff run and you just missed winter ball with the baseball team. Good luck catching up. And then you have to choose between summer baseball and basketball. And on and on.

I don’t know what world you’re living in, but this problem has been identified for over a decade. Hell, it has become harder and harder to find multi sport athletes that Jim Harbaugh was intentionally trying to find them as a differentiator in recruiting to Michigan. If the multisport athlete still existed in robust numbers, it would be a meaningless  filter for college coaches. But the opposite is true.

You used to reliably have football/basketball stars pop up in the NCAA, but the last one was of note was Jimmy Graham in 2010 and he was not as impactful on the hardwood as prior dual sport stars.  There hasn’t been a Tony Gonzales/Julius Peppers in NCAA Basketball in nearly 20 years.[/quote]

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