Multiple Sports Multiplies the Benefits
Since middle school here at Hawken, students are encouraged to compete in multiple sports in order to stay in shape and learn valuable team skills. However, some may argue otherwise, claiming that focusing on one sport allows an athlete to hone his or her skills much more in order to prepare them for higher levels of success, especially at the collegiate level. According to the philosophy of many Hawken coaches, this is not the case. Research echoes a similar dichotomy: 30 of the 32 picks in the 1st round of the 2017 NFL draft were multi-sport athletes. However, more than 95% of athletes in the English Premier League (Soccer) have been playing one sport since the age of 10. Regardless, Hawken urges athletes to pursue their own athletic goals, whether it be participating in multiple sports or just one. Athletic Director Jim Doyle states, “The most important thing is that everyone is different and we believe that everybody has a unique path.” At the Upper School, students are able to pursue any athletic goal they wish. They can play 1-3 seasons with opportunities for out of school sports as well. Doyle continues, “I think the decision of how many sports an individual plays is a personal decision, and I have learned this more as a parent than as a director or coach that kids do have other options that aren’t athletics.” These ideas foster a positive athletic culture, as students are able to chase any athletic goal while capitalizing on Hawken’s training facilities.
From a young age, Hawken promotes a multi-sport athletic mindset. In middle school, students are required to participate in two seasons of sports. Jim Doyle explains, “The reason we require kids to do multiple sports in middle school is because the data and science behind that is pretty compelling.” This participation is known to benefit overall athletic performance. Hawken is able to produce multi-sport athletes to feed into its Upper School programs while keeping students in shape. Doyle even describes how Hawken’s insistence on middle school athletes has produced college players. Audrey Dietz, a senior swimmer, swam for the Hawken Middle School team, as well as for a club team, and has now recently committed to swim at Washington and Lee University in the fall. Dan Usaj, Assistant Athletic Director and Head Lacrosse Coach describes how athletes “can learn different ways to move and strengthen their bodies that will help them whenever they choose what they want their sport to be if they want to play in college or not.”
Student-athletes can benefit from any type of activity no matter what sport they pursue, but the valuable lessons they learn from being on multiple teams is equally important. Usaj describes, “strength and conditioning of different sports that is performance-based translates to all athletics, but other traits like competitiveness, teamwork, and understanding how to deal with cultures and personalities, and different levels of buy-in and talent.” This variety of cultures can teach athletes valuable skills, whether or not they decide to continue to play sports at higher levels, as they have to adapt to different team cultures and roles. The ability to adapt to different environments and provides valuable life skills according to Mr. Doyle. He describes how “Kids play different roles in different sports as you might be a star during one season but a role-player in another. You may be a leader and captain for one team with a less central role on another.” This change in roles allows players to see both valuable perspectives and is able to learn more across those sports because of it. From the point of view of a head coach, Usaj again describes how “Gaining student-athletes that are coached by other coaches that are not just [me] and gain other skills are very helpful. Also gaining a student-athlete who is a competitor and has played other sports, coaches know they can pick up on their other theories better.” This experience that athletes gain by play multiple sports can be crucial understanding a variety of strategies, roles, etc. can be crucial to an athletes intelligence on the field. These various experiences that multi-sport athletes gain, both culturally and physically provide large benefits, especially from an earlier age as these directors describe.
However, the other side of this perspective is just as valid. The idea of single-sport athletes is even backed by coaches from Hawken of both the swimming and soccer programs. Jim Doyle advocates for this point of view as, “The individualized sport is easy to back up with data. If you want to be a top-flight swimmer, for instance, the sciences of endurance and biomechanics show that you need to spend more time in the pool.” The work that students put in by focusing on one sport is often how they are able to achieve the most success, especially if their end goal is playing at the collegiate level. In the end, however, the problem with most single-sport athletes the Coach Usaj has seen experience “burnout, where players get tired of a sport, or when they are being pushed to a point that they get tired. They could also suffer from injury when they are working the same muscle.” In the problems that players can face from competing long term in a single sport can often outweigh the benefits, but as stated by Mr. Doyle, “I think it’s unfair to say that everyone should be a multi-sport athlete, or that the only way to be great is to be a single-sport athlete. Neither one of those are true, but I think that in general, the evidence is compelling that early high school or middle school multi-sport athletes benefit from being most. It promotes all kinds of things that are obvious and not.” In the end, there are multiple paths for athletes to achieve goals and success across all sports.