If Shakespeare were alive today, I have a feeling that his famous “to be or not to be” line would have been transformed into “to specialize or not to specialize”. Assuming he was into athletics.

That seems to be the big question facing today’s athletes and parents.

On the surface, it might make sense. If you specialize in a sport, then you don’t get distracted by playing other sports. You can focus your development on that one sport. Honing your skills and getting as good as you can possibly be.

The competition to make a team today is greater than ever. The thought is that by specializing it will give your athlete a better chance of making said team and possibly advancing to a pretty high level.

Before I continue, I am on the record saying that I think an athlete should play as many sports as they can for as long as they can. Now, I am a little old school where I would limit it to one sport per season. I’m not a huge fan of doubling up during one season (i.e. playing basketball and soccer in the spring).

But, this is the one time in your life where you can play sports like this. Play as many sports as you can before you ultimately have to make a decision that narrows that down to 2 or 1 sports.

Here are things that I would consider if indeed I was facing the decision to specialize or not to specialize:

  • I went to a small high school where they needed every athlete to play multiple sports just to field teams. A lot of my athletes go to huge schools where you get 50 people trying out for a freshman basketball team. Competition to make the team is obviously high. This might play a role in realistically if you should focus on one sport or not.

  • Depending on the sport you really like could also play a role in your decision. If you are a football player, it would not be smart to play year round and in fact, college coaches such as Urban Meyer encourage playing another sport to make you more well-rounded. If you are a gymnast though, the high technical difficulty of the moves that you do probably require at some point you focus on perfecting those moves year round.

  • Before you decide to specialize, you might really want to assess how good of an athlete you got. I have seen plenty of athletes whose athleticism stinks and decided to specialize. Eliminating the other sports isn’t necessarily going to make you better at that one. Especially if you chose to specialize in the wrong sport. Meaning, you picked the sport that didn’t match your skill set the best.

  • You don’t want to specialize at too young of an age. I feel one of the reasons why it seems there are so many more traumatic injuries with our young athletes is because they started specializing at a young age. They started doing the same movement patterns 24/7/365 and this starts developing imbalances. The body is still growing and you need to challenge its nervous system and motor skills to continually develop. If you limit it by just doing one sport and its movement patterns, then I think you could increase the risk of a potential injury.

  • I always like to ask this, but what is the end game? Do you want to make it to the Olympics? Do you want to play college? High school?  Just make a team? What is it? Before you dedicate all this time to one sport really consider why you are doing it. If you truly do not like playing other sports anymore and feel passionate about the sport you are choosing, then great.

  • Do you still have fun playing the other sports and can still be competitive playing the other sports?  If the answer is two big YESSES, then why specialize. Enjoy this opportunity while you can.

I realize it is the rare athlete that can play 3 different sports at a high level for a long time. But, I know so many people that look back on what they did and think what if. What if I hadn’t dropped that second sport??  

Play the sports you love for as long as you can. If specializing really starts creeping in your mind, then seriously consider some of the points I bring up above. I just want to make sure not only would it be the right time to specialize, but you are doing it for the right reasons.

Photo courtesy of Republic of Korea on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/koreanet/