BY LIAM KEITH

In high school, you can play a multitude of sports year round. Students can also participate in multiple sports that aren’t in the same season. This precedent is seen by generational players such as Deion Sanders, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, all players who played both baseball and football in high school. Multi-sports athlete is a term that only really came into existence recently. It used to just be athletes. There was a time the starting quarterback at Truman also was the starting pitcher on the baseball team or the point guard of the basketball team. There seems to be a myth that you can only hone your craft by practicing just your sport, yet there are many skills that transfer from sport to sport. 

There is a shared thought that athletes who play multiple sports are more likely to injure themselves compared to single sport athletes. There isn’t validity in this data and according to USA Today High School Sports, “Playing multiple sports gives athletes time to heal and develop different muscle groups, tendons and ligaments.” I caught up with senior Siavalua Ulberg and asked him about the advantages and disadvantages of being a multi-sport athlete. He said, “ It keeps me in shape year round.“ Ulberg plays four total sports, rugby, track and field, football, and basketball. When asked if there were certain abilities that transferred over from sport to sport Ulberg said, “I didn’t really learn how to tackle until I played rugby.” Football and rugby are extremely similar in aspects that football was created with influence of rugby. What about sports that only have minute similarities such as football and basketball. 

Taller athletes tend to be gifted in football, look at Lebron James. Many forget that when the NBA had a major lockout and James attempted to get in football shape for the NFL. A 6 ‘8, twice all-state nominated football player in high school chose the easier route of going straight to the NBA than going to college and wasting years away there. It wasn’t that Lebron lacked the talent to be a major football star, in high school he posted 29 career touchdown receptions and 99 receptions in just two full seasons of playing. He played wide receiver but had the frame of the modern day tight end, but instead he chose where the money was significantly better. This provides a clear example of star power in different sports giving their shot in different sports. All this says that trying multiple sports can’t hurt in highschool. 

The narrative that injuries already overlap from sport to sport has been proven incorrect. Instead of finding excuses to not play multiple sports, knowing you can’t prevent injuries from happening you can only make the likelihood lessen. Athletes who play multiple sports get to be in shape year round, find ways to decrease their likelihood of injury and get to apply different methods from different sports.