MULTI-SPORTS PARTICIPATION: WHAT EVERY ATHLETE AND PARENT SHOULD KNOW
This article was first posted on ScoutsFootball.com
Bo Jackson recently turned 55. Aside from that milestone being another startling smack-in-the-face reality check about my own mortality (Jackson was, for a time, in the late 80’s and 90’s, as popular nationally as Michael Jordan. Anyone over the age of 40 remembers the “Bo Knows…” Nike campaigns).
Fast forward to 2017.
Jackson’s comments earlier this year are newsworthy.
Jackson was asked by a reporter if knowing what he knew now about the risks of playing tackle football, would he put on the pads again?
“If I knew back then what I knew now, I would have never played football,” Jackson told USA Today. “There’s no way I’d ever allow my kids to play. I’d smack them in the mouth if they said they wanted to play football. I’d tell them, ‘play basketball, baseball, soccer, golf. Just anything but football.”
I respect Jackson’s thoughts about his kids (although he was baited a bit into jumping on the “anti-football” legacy media campaign). He can choose to raise them anyway he wants. His feelings are more personal as his athletic career effectively ended after a hip injury on a routine tackle in an NFL playoff game in 1991. He played MLB through 1994 but was never the same player.
My point in leading with the Jackson anecdote is not to debate his quote about the merits of football. It’s what he said after:
“play basketball, baseball, soccer, golf”
Bo knows the merits of multi-sport participation.
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Since I announced I was doing this series, I’ve gotten quite a few emails with input on what I should write about (that’s great…keep sending them).
One topic included in almost 100 percent of emails is multi-sport participation. When I run into dad’s around town, and the conversation lasts beyond one minute small talk, the topic of multi-sport participation invariably comes up.
There is a belief among those that sent notes (and those I speak with off the cuff) that multi-sport participation is not part of the current Scouts football culture.
Said one subscriber who recently had a Scouts football-playing son graduate:
“I can guarantee you that at the other top 6A schools, all of the top athletes at the school are playing football. That’s not always the case at LFHS. Every year there are are a number of great athletes that simply do not play football even though they would provide a huge contribution to the team. Many elect to play basketball, baseball, lacrosse, etc. instead of football. At those other schools, these kids are most definitely playing football in addition to those other sports.”
Another subscriber with a son currently in the program:
“(We should) encourage all of our best athletes to compete in all the sports they can. Create a culture of ‘be the best athlete you can be’ at all the sports you can play.”
Another subscriber with a son currently in the program:
“Why are not more of our kids playing other sports? I don’t get it.”
There’s a couple of ways to look at this issue. Let’s start with the first quote.
“There are a number of great athletes who simply are not playing football”
This is difficult to parse through as there are so many subjective data points to evaluate:
How do you define ‘great’ athlete? Were these ‘great’ athletes exposed to football at a young age and stopped playing for some reason? Are they stars in another sport and the commitment level simply leaves no time for football? Are they concerned about head injuries?
We can go on and on. Without doing significant market surveying, there is no way to offer any real empirical data that would give us true neutral answers.
I’ve had parents site specific examples of situations where they said someone chose not to play football. I’m hesitant to use specific names for obvious reasons.
Again, the the merits of this argument, although valid, are difficult to prove without specific testimony.
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The other way to look at the issue is through the lens of the last quote from earlier in this article:
“Why are not more of our kids playing other sports. I don’t get it”
This to me is more definable. There is data/science that backs the argument that multi-sport participation is healthy for our youth.
And there is data that shows our Scouts football players are not participating in other sports at a level that maybe they should be.
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In 2016, the National High School Federation commissioned a study on multi-sport participation. The study was conducted in Wisconsin and used a mixture of geographic areas (rural/suburban/urban) and enrollment sizes (less than 500-over 1,000) as data points.
The result of the study found that athletes who specialize were almost twice as likely to report an injury as ones who participate in more than one sport. It found that for males, the top specialization sports were soccer, basketball and tennis. For females, it was soccer, softball and volleyball.
A recent study by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association show a decline in team sports participation by boys from 50% in 2011 to 39% in 2016 (36 to 31 percent by girls over same period).
A simple Google search on the topic will call up dozens and dozens if studies and experts all bemoaning specialization (favored by those with financial stakes in one sport athletes) and backing the argument in favor of the merits of multi-sports participation.
So can we all agree that playing more than one sport is good for a high school’s athlete’s physical and mental health? OK.
Let’s do a deeper dive into what Scouts football players and those from our biggest rivals are doing.
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In the 2017 Scouts football program, here is the breakdown of players per graduating class (I’m eliminating current seniors from analysis):
2019 33
2020 23
2021 36
I took a look at winter rosters. I wanted to see how many fall football players in all three classes were participating in a winter sport (four options):
Hockey 5 participants
Basketball 9 participants
Wrestling 9 partcipants
Swimming 0 participants
Out of 92 total ’19-’21 grads, 23 are currently playing another sport. That’s 25 percent.
Before we draw any conclusions, a few addendum footnotes:
*with the exception of wrestling and swimming, all sports are cut sports. If you aren’t good enough, you’re out.
*there are only four sports. By comparison, in the spring, there are six sport options.
I don’t know how many of the 69 football players not currently playing a sport tried out for one of the cut sports and didn’t make it. I do know many players plan to try out for a sport in the spring.
But I will relay a recent conversation I had with a current junior football player (a starter for much of the season) who I ran into around town recently. I asked him what he was doing this winter.
“I’m lifting. And playing intramural basketball.”
OK. Weight lifting checks off one off season box. And I know intramurals (at Lake Forest and other schools) have become very popular. I think we can all agree intramurals are fun and an enjoyable experience for young people.There is a social integration component that should not be ignored.
But it’s worth asking…does having athletes playing intramurals help the football program get closer to winning a state championship? That’s what we’re talking about here, right?
Why are more kids not participating in wrestling? Or hockey? Do they plan to play a sport in the spring? If not, and the reason is, ‘I want to focus on football’, why is this, especially when there is overwhelming evidence that says specialization is not the healthiest road to take?
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On the night of Dec. 7, I visited Libertyville High School to report on an article for the Tribune on their annual Chicagoland Football Recruiting Night. For Midwestern Division 2, 3 and NAIA schools, the event is the college football equivalent of a job fair
“We love it as we get to meet prospects in a casual setting,” said one area college coach who had a booth set up in the main gym.
The host of the event was Libertyville head football coach Mike Jones. I’ve known Mike for a long time and I asked him about multi-sport participation at his school.
He had on his computer data of current kids in the program (’19-’21 grads) playing winter sports:
2019
*39 total in program
*4 playing winter sport
2020
*32 total in program
*14 playing winter sport
2021
*50 freshman
*24 playing winter sport
I asked him about the low percentage (10 percent) of juniors on a winter sport roster.
“It gets harder to make squads as you get older and there’s less (sports) in the winter,” Jones said.
“Is it something you encourage?” I asked, referring to multi-sport participation.
“We don’t really get involved in that too much,” Jones said. “If kids want to play another sport, that’s fine. We support what they want to do. We certainly don’t discourage it.”
What Jones said next was very interesting. He talked about the importance of year round weight lifting and how kids, if they play another sport, must keep up with their strength and conditioning. This is an area where he sees conflict at times, where a multi-sport kid will show up in June for football strength and conditioning testing and be well behind his teammates.
In end of year meetings, he encourages multi-sport kids to ask their other sport coaches about weight training in that sport. Do they lift regularly? What is the program? If the sport does lift during the season, that is acceptable to Jones. He’d like his kids to be at the football sanctioned lifts and he schedules morning lifts so multi-sport kids can attend and not miss practice time after school. I got a sense from Jones that he and his staff try and accommodate multi-sport athletes as much as possible. But do athletes at Libertyville feel that way? Why are only four of 39 juniors playing a winter sport? Why are not more wrestling, especially at a school like Libertyville that historically has one of the best wresting programs in the conference? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that Libertyville did make the state title game in 2015 but since then has gone 10-8 with zero playoff wins.
(Much like Lake Forest, Libertyville out sources their weight lifting program to a strength coach who is not a full time teacher or member of the coaching staff. He is out of the building but runs sessions in the school weight room. Larry Lilja, the Scouts strength coach, is on the coaching staff, designs the strength and conditioning program and supervises sessions at West Campus).
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I reached out to the other rival coaches in our conference on this topic. Here are the responses I received:
LAKE ZURICH
28 current juniors
18 play a sport in the winter or spring
STEVENSON
36 current juniors
23 play a sport in the winter or spring
WARREN
28 total juniors
10 currently playing a winter sport
COMMENTS FROM EACH COACH
Bryan McNulty (Warren):
“The benefits of playing multi sports are learning how to compete in an environment that may be different than something you are used to. For instance, you may be the best player on the football field, but simply a role player on the basketball court.
“We have a very high participation fee per sport ($225) so I do not discourage it or encourage it because of that. My only stance is that kids need to continue lifting during their non-football season and that they perform that sport of choice at their best regardless of circumstance.
“We lift in the mornings. When our kids have games we greatly modify their lift. We do not ask them to do anything we wouldn’t do with them in football. For instance, we lift on game day as a football program.”
Josh Hjorth (Stevenson):
“We highly encourage our players to participate in all sports. We have an athletic culture at Stevenson and we want to see our student-athletes playing as many sport as they can.
“We don’t have a morning lift. We do speed training two times a week for student-athletes not in season with another sport. There are no conflicts. We want them to go out an win as a Patriot, no matter the sport.”
Luke Mertens (Lake Zurich):
“The best athletes play multiple sports and the science is proving the benefits (or reduced risk of injury due to overuse) of playing multiple sports. I remind my players this is their only chance to be a high school athlete, so be sure to play what makes you most happy, not your AAU coach or in some cases, your parents.
“Overall, I am discouraged by the trend to specialize in a sport. Rather than spend money on a personal trainer, invest in an academic tutor do your can post on Twitter some day, ‘I am blessed to announce that I was admitted to Harvard’ rather than ‘I am blessed to announce I will be continuing my athletic career at Carthage’.
This quote from Mertens is really interesting:
“Unfortunately, conflicts exist and many schools over sharing athletes, which, to me, is all due to the egos of the coaches. If a coach truly cares about his/her athlete, then that coach will support his/her athlete in all athletic endeavors. All the adults need to remember that it’s not about us, rather, it’s about the kid and what he/she wants.”
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From an enrollment standpoint, these schools aren’t exactly apples to apples with Lake Forest. But the meta data is similar––two programs, Lake Zurich and Warren––have less juniors currently in their program (28) than the Scouts (33). Now will those programs add players because of the existing culture? That I don’t know.
The facts are the facts. Three of our rival programs––Lake Zurich, Stevenson and Libertyville––have been in the state title game for their respective classes in combined four of the last five seasons. Vernon Hills made the Class 5A title game in 2016 (they had a bunch of multi-sport players on that team). Lake County has had a representative in a football state title game for five straight seasons.
The North Suburban Conference, as presently constructed, is here to stay. If Lake Forest is to make it to a state title game by 2022, it has to more consistently beat Lake Zurich, Stevenson, Warren and Libertyville.
Since 2013, the Scouts are 5-15 vs the big four.
Looking at how these programs view the issue of multi-sport participation does not give a complete picture as to Lake Forest’s recent struggles against its rivals. It’s a complex topic, one where I hope this series can provide some insights. What I hope is that the data informs future decision making.
As Stevenson Coach Josh Hjorth said, are we encouraging an “athletic culture” within the LFHS football program?
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Many of you know Sean Trkla. He’s known mostly as a basketball player, but he came out for football this past season, his senior year. He got injured early and did not play.
I asked Sean recently why he decided to come out after not playing as a junior or sophomore:
“John Deering and Bryan Ooms are two of my closest friends. They kind of convinced me to come out. Although I didn’t play, it enjoyed my time in football. The guys were there for me.”
I asked him about perception of the football program amongst other athletes in school.
“I had two concussions playing football in middle school. I was scared all summer leading up to the season that I was going to get hurt and I did. It was pretty bizarre. People know how much of a time commitment it is, what they are getting into. People get hurt and it can be a really scary thing.
“I know guys that are maybe not the best athletes but are good ones and would be good football players. But football is the most time consuming and you are most at risk of injury. There are other sports where you won’t get hurt and other options to show your athleticism.”
I asked him if among your peers, would more outreach, more ‘selling’ of the merits of the sport make a difference in kids wanting to try out?
“Hypothetically, yes they could. I think they think, ‘you know what (our sport) is about. You know what the commitment level is.’ They are not beggars. They run a tight ship and they have results. They could do more but you might get more flaky kids to come out. I think the guys who play football and basketball want to be there more than anyone else. Athleticism is only half of it. Your heart has to be into it.”
Now this is one opinion. A small sample size. But most of us know Sean to be a pretty popular kid, well liked amongst his peers. He’s credible. Two points that jump out:
1. Perception that football is high risk for injury. As I wrote about in the previous article, the concussion issue is a real one. Injuries? That’s been a concern since the days of the flying wedge. But these are more football problems, not necessarily Lake Forest football problems. The Scouts rarely have non-concussion injuries that require players to miss time. They are as well- conditioned to prevent injuries as any in the state.
2. They are not beggars. This begs (pun intended) multiple questions…how much do the football coaches promote the sport within the building? Do they think internal promotion will make a difference in getting more kids to come out for the sport? Or do they believe it is beneath them to have to promote the sport?
Back to the first obtuse argument in this article, that not enough of our best athletes play football.
OK, then, would more athletes in the school play football with more promotion of the sport’s merits/benefits? If negative perceptions are widely held, should there be active messaging that pushes back against such perceptions?
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Tuesday morning (Dec. 19) I met with Coach Spagnoli in his West Campus office. I asked him the questions posed in this article. Here is transcript of our Q&A session. I am running as much of conversation verbatim as possible (with minimal edits) so you can read full context of answers.
Q: What are your feelings on multi-sports participation? Does it help athletes be better football players?
A: I don’t think there’s any question it helps. I don’t know if it’s specific to football but it helps them mentally. Any time you can put somebody in a position where there’s competition, I think its an incredible thing because of the experience they will receive. Whether they succeed or fail is not 100 percent the point. There has to be success learned before you can have success earned. You can’t earn it without learning it. the more opportunity someone has that’s a good thing.
Does it make someone a better football player because he’s a swimmer, or does it make a guy a better swimmer because he’s a baseball player or is someone a better lacrosse player because he’s a wrestler? I don’t know if there’s a correlation physically. To some degree as there’s movement involved in all of it. To me it’s the mental aspect of it all.
Q: There is a belief among some people around the program that you and the coaching staff do not encourage multi-sport participation. What do you say to that?
A: I can’t think of one player we never told not to do something. We’ve never said ‘why are you playing baseball or wrestling’ or whatever it might be. Pick the sport. I don’t think that’s ever happened. What we do ask if you are not doing something, get your butt in here. That we do ask.
Frankly I know this and I’ve heard this from kids but I’ve never heard coaches tell this to kids. I’ve heard kids say, ‘my future is in lacrosse so I think I need to focus on that.’ Well OK. Go play lacrosse. Dig in. I don’t think it’s beneficial for anyone to be here that doesn’t want to be here. I don’t see the value.
I think it’s interesting that we had a couple of kids who came out this year who hadn’t played before or played for a short time. Sean Trkla, Caleb Durbin. Why? Because we don’t encourage other sports? There was a kid last year as well. So it’s happened several times over the last few years.
Q: Could you and the coaching staff do more to promote the program internally? Maybe more kids would play football as a result?
A: We don’t go through the building recruiting seniors. We do try and identify some freshman that may not be involved. I have this one kid in my class who is a pretty good athlete but has never played football. That’s probably a conversation.
This may sound arrogant but I don’t mean it to. We expect a lot out of our guys. A whole lot. I don’t see the value of having anybody here who doesn’t want to be here. I don’t care if they are three-year starter in their senior year. If they don’t want to play, it ultimately becomes a self-inflicted problem. There is too much invested by everyone who is here. Primarily the kids.
I’ve had the same conversation with three different people over the past couple of weeks who think that we, our program, doesn’t do a very good job promoting other sports. My hard answer to that is this…does lacrosse do anything to promote football? Does baseball do anything to promote football? Does basketball do anything to promote football? Does wresting do anything to promote football? Why then should we do anything to promote them?
Having said that, certainly we support them. We are not detrimental to them, we don’t go around bad mouthing them or bitching or whatever. But is it my focus to promote other sports in my school? I’m not certain that is my responsibility but we are certainly not negative. Over the years some of our best players have been involved in other sports.
During football season we ask them to be here. That’s what we tell them. We don’t ask them to practice football during baseball season. The argument I get back is, ‘well you ask us to lift.’ I do. I do. But I also ask you to be successful and I don’t see how the lifting will hurt you in other sports.
I don’t even mean to make this sound like it’s about to come out of my mouth but if every coach asked their kids to lift to the degree that we do or to half the degree that we do I think we’d have a lot better athletes.
It’s not other people’s focus. In other sports your physicality is not as pronounced. In our sport it is. Does baseball compare? Lacrosse? Basketball? I don’t think so.
I don’t apologize for a second for what we ask our kids to do to have a chance to have success. Having said that, I don’t think you could ever find one kid that could walk in this room and say we told them not to play another sport.
I don’t think it’s ever happened. Ever.
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OK, so there’s a lot to digest in this article. Before we end things, a few takeaways.
These are conclusions all based on the controlling question: How can the varsity football program get to and win a state championship by 2022?
*the coaching staff needs to do more to promote the sport internally. For under and upperclassmen. When guys like Trkla and Durbin show up for summer practice, it should not be a surprise to the coaches. How many Trkla’s and Durbin’s are there every year that don’t come out because of perceptions they have that come from outsiders who know nothing about the program? That’s a shame if more could have been done to communicate the pros of football in our community.
*where is the leadership to get coaches talking to one another? When was the last time Coach Spagnoli talked to the baseball coach? Or the wrestling coach? I didn’t get a chance to ask him. And I’m not saying that its his responsibility to initiate contact. But someone in the athletic department needs to get coaches in a room together and talk about how they help each other out. I don’t disagree with his sentiment… ‘why should we promote lacrosse if they don’t promote us?’ But how is continuing this parochial dynamic best serving student-athletes?
*the weight lifting mentioned by Coach Spagnoli is a concern brought up by multiple coaches in other programs I talked to (see earlier section about Libertyville). Weight training is not as emphasized in other sports. You can’t take three months off from strength and conditioning training and expect to be in shape for football. But this goes back to my the previous point…where is the communication? What’s preventing a football coach from sitting down with a lacrosse coach or wrestling coach or track coach and discussing this issue?
*one quick fix is to have a few more football coaches coach other sports. I know sophomore head coach Joe Busse coaches boys volleyball. Other than him, I don’t know of any football coaches who coach a winter or spring sport. That would not be a difficult thing to change but if coaches in one sport aren’t talking to other coaches from another sport, nothing will change.
I refer back to the comment from Luke Mertens at Lake Zurich:
“Unfortunately, conflicts exist and many schools over sharing athletes, which, to me, is all due to the egos of the coaches. If a coach truly cares about his/her athlete, then that coach will support his/her athlete in all athletic endeavors. All the adults need to remember that it’s not about us, rather, it’s about the kid and what he/she wants.”
I think it’s fair to ask if coaches at LFHS––not just football but all coaches––are doing all they can to encourage an ‘athletic culture’ at LFHS.
Again, what will get the Scouts closer to a state title by 2022?
Out with insularity. In with inclusiveness.
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Last article I brought in some historical context around George Washington.
This time we finish with Bo Jackson. What would Bo do?
If he lived in Lake Bluff or Lake Forest, I think he’d change his mind and let his sons play football. He’d realize there is no better football culture than here.
If it were the winter months, he’d lace up his hoops sneakers, put some balls in the back seat, and find a pick up game. In the spring, he’d find his track cleats and get some interval training in. Summer? Laps in the outdoor pool.
Then he’d put a steak on the grill, uncap his favorite brew, unlace his Nike Kicks, put his size 12.5 feet up on his deck table and shout into the night…
PLAY BALL!!!
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All the best,
Jon
Comments/thoughts/questions about this article? Email the author at jon@jonjkerr.com
