(A picture from Whistler Cup in 2008 half of the J4 team, yours truly on top and below from right to left: Julia Mueller Ristine, Mikaela Shiffrin, Colin Martens, Hana Saydek, and Linnea Basinger. One of these athletes has quit, two are on the U.S. Ski Team, and four race in college.)
A lot of people talk about specialization these days. There
is a debate about whether athletes should focus on one sport or diversify and
do multiple sports (especially in high school). I decided to write a blog on
the subject because I was and am a one-sport woman. I want to say that what is
going below is not going to be an argument for the one-sport track but rather a
discussion about multi or single sport life and the pros and cons of both and
why I chose one but why you or your children might choose otherwise.
I began skiing at age 3. My father has always been into
skiing and my mom got into it as we went along but my parents really always
wanted me to be a ski racer. I was always pushed toward ski racing and so it is
unsurprising that I became a ski racer. But I tried other sports. I played soccer when I was little, a
little summer rec league. My dad coached our team and I never liked it. I
wasn’t good at it (I might have stuck with it longer if our team had won more
but my team always sucked). I didn’t like the team sport concept (it frustrated
me) and soccer simply didn’t excite me. I think I did three or four summers of
it until my parents let me quit. I played hockey for a year or two but in
addition to the problems of soccer there were only one or two girls on the
team. Because my family liked skiing we didn’t have a lot of extra cash for
things like horse back riding (I still have never ridden a horse) and tennis so
I didn’t have a chance to do those.
When I was about ten or eleven I told my mom that I would
like to try swimming. I was pretty good at it and soon began doing it
competitively. The sport was cheap, individual (except for relays but our relay
team rocked!), and I was pretty good at it. I was swimming five days a week for
an hour and half a day and I enjoyed it. Then I got good at ski racing. I went
to Whistler Cup my first year J4 and after that swimming was never the same. I
was barely medaling in states in swimming and I was winning Junior Olympics in
skiing. The choice seemed simple at the time.
So by the time I entered high school I only ski raced. I
never picked up another high school sport and personally I don’t regret that
decision. I wouldn’t have wanted to force myself through another sport I hated.
But I did some sport hobbies. I got into running my freshman year and did that
– and continue to do it -- on and off. Sophomore year I got into gymnastics and
took some classes (even though I had never done it at a younger age and was
about eight inches taller than anyone else in the building). I got into
slacklining. I played horrible tennis with my host father junior year.
Skiing is what I love -- it always has been. I did my hobby
sports without the pressure of competition and that definitely helped keep me
from comparing them to ski racing. It also gave me a break from the stresses of
trying to be the best. Some would say that I did do more than one sport in high
school but I disagree. To me they were hobbies, like knitting or reading. I did
them only second to everything else I had going on. I didn’t spend a lot of
time on them, not nearly the same amount that a school sport would demand.
The problem with the route I took is that there are certain
athletic disadvantages I have, chief among them that I have incredibly bad
coordination. One advantage I had was that I was able to attend more weight
lifting sessions and I am stronger for it. Many girls who tried to play another
sport (mostly soccer) couldn’t get enough strength sessions in before the
season. There were also some sports that I would have liked to play when I was
young that I simply couldn’t because my family didn’t have the funds. Yes, I
never got to play tennis but in the end they paid for a lot of ski camps and
for that I am grateful.
I have recently been reading Anders Ericson’s study on
deliberate practice. You may know it as one of the building blocks for Malcolm
Gladwell’s 10000 hour rule (there are some great blogs coming). He noted a
study that I found interesting stating “Greater
height is an obvious advantage in basketball, high jumping, and most sports
emphasizing strength. Shorter height is an advantage in gymnastics. Differences
in height were found to discriminate well among male athletes of different
events at the Olympic games in Montreal, although the average height of all
athletes did not differ from that of a control group of students.” This implies
to me that there is a sport for everyone out there -- you just have to find it.
Most of these articles and studies reach conclusions based
on what the best did. They don’t
look at the general population compared to the best. So most of the people
recruited to Ohio State football played two sports. My question is: Out of every
kid in Ohio who played another sport and football as opposed to just football,
who got recruited to Ohio State?
In conclusion I think that from my standpoint this debate
doesn’t make sense. If you want your kids to be great at some sport (especially
on a professional level) you should know that there isn’t some magical
algorithm to being the best. Yes, you need to be athletic and you need to put a
lot of time in, but you also need passion. Don’t make your kids play basketball
in high school just so Ohio State will recruit them. Don’t tell them to quit
swimming for soccer when they are ten because they are better at soccer at that
point. When your kids are little, do as many sports as you can afford and have
time for and let them figure out what excites them. Then provide them with the
opportunities to continue those sports as long as those sports enchant them.
More food for thought and articles that inspired this post:
https://stevenashyb.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/the-race-to-nowhere-in-youth-sports/
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