People have always told me that I play too many sports, that I could be better at one if I gave up the others.
It’s the same thing that they told my brother Miles and my sister Meredith.
“Why play soccer, basketball and baseball when you could just play soccer and possibly be better?” they say.
This paper’s adviser also believes we have done too much and spread ourselves too thin.
Other teachers and coaches have encouraged us to be on all the teams we could, and this is essentially what we’ve done.
It’s a debate that’s been argued throughout Country Day’s classrooms and fields by teachers, students and parents.
There are two approaches to handling this problem for athletes who are good at multiple sports.
There is the Robbie Lemons, `10, method and the Bennett-Smith (`06, `09, `13) method.
Lemons, the school’s most publicized athlete of late, gave up soccer after his freshman season to solely pursue basketball.
After three years of playing only one sport, Lemons graduated and walked on to the Stanford basketball team, eventually earning a sports scholarship for his junior year.
He’s had to fight for every minute of playing time he can get throughout his college career.
Bennett-Smiths, on the other hand, play as many sports each year of high school as possible.
Miles also ended up at Stanford.
Instead of playing one varsity sport and fighting for sparse playing time, however, he has started on both the club soccer and baseball teams.
And Meredith played club and intramural sports at Cornell, participating in basketball and soccer.
Less is not more when it comes to athletics.
This year the second-year lacrosse team again has created spring conflicts, requiring many athletes to play multiple sports.
Baseball, lacrosse, track, golf and tennis compete for athletes in the spring, making it impossible for the teams to exist without dual-sport or even tri-sport athletes.
One half of the baseball team plays lacrosse. If those players opted to play just one sport, neither team could field a team.
It’s the administrators who decide how many teams to field each year, and it is up to them to allow only as many teams as can effectively compete.
If an athlete can play more than one sport, I say do it.
Country Day is a school that allows students to pursue whatever athletic interests they might have, regardless of experience or ability, and it is in our best interest to take advantage of this.
