My kid is still playing 4 sports competitively in 7th grade. 2 club sports (only 1 requires travel), 1 individual sport that is niche and we do it as we can, and tackle football. Jack of all, master of none. But he's busy and happy and likes moving through seasons and sports.

My kid ( also an only) does soccer and basketball and she is 12.
Basketball is only a winter sport though so not a huge conflict expect for a few weeks.
Next school year ( 8th grade) she starts travel soccer year round plus school basketball in winter and school soccer in spring. We’ll make it work.

We have a HSer who plays high level soccer and another sport. Soccer always takes priority but there are rarely conflicts

OP here. Thanks for the replies. It is good to know that it can be done. I like the idea of him being able to play both sports for a bit longer. There seems so much pressure to specialize early that seems like a recipe for burnout.

Thanks for the suggestion of basketball but that one won’t work for us. We spend most weekends in the winter skiing at Timberline in WV. My DS is going to be on the ski team this upcoming winter.

I guess we will carry on until we can’t.

OP. We have friends who have been successful at having their kids play travel soccer with a secondary rec sport for their entire youth time.

Somewhere about U14, they start to get rides to practice a lot more with friends. Ride shares will help immensely down the road.

Basketball and baseball are good ones to play together because the seasons are slightly different. My kid is U 14 and we still have kids on our travel baseball team that also play travel basketball.

My freshman still plays both of his sports. School team and travel teams for both.

He can play multiple sports as long as he likes. At some point, he will decide to drop back a level in something because he will realize he can’t be everywhere at once. Don’t worry about this now.

For my kids that was mid to late elementary school because the commitment was 3-4+ times per week for each sport when they got more serious. A sport went to rec (soccer or basketball) or got dropped completely (lax) if it didn’t become their top priority anymore.

But they changed their minds and their sports preferences changed over the years. They aren’t playing the same sports now as teens as they were in elementary.

Ours plays
football
lax
water polo
basketball

we cut swim team, soccer and baseball because it didn’t work with lax at about 7.. he still does plenty though

Ours played soccer and basketball through MS. If practices for one are M/W and the other are Tu/Th, it works. For him, over all those years there were only 3 game conflicts (lucky?).

Until age 10 or so- or through most of elementary school or so- from what I have seen.

Teams will usually be pretty tolerant of juggling/multi sport athletes up until then, with the exception of the “top tier travel teams” (their definition not mine….).

Right now he plays soccer (rec) and baseball. He is in 2nd grade. We are in DC. Games are on Saturdays with an occasional overlap or coin flip as to which game he will play that day. Thus far, his practice days have worked out as well. He played both last spring, this past fall and right now.

He will be in pre-travel next year for soccer and he will be in the same league for baseball. How long before he must choose one or the other? He also loves being part of a team. He is a decent athlete and contributes to both soccer and baseball. He has friends on the teams and is very happy to practice and play.

He is our only so we don't mind the kid-shlepping aspect of practices and games. I'm just wondering if any of you have experience in this area and how long your kid was able to continue to play both sports.