It’s a reality that young athletes have to deal with every day.
As players begin to differentiate themselves from their peers in a particular sport, travel teams and development coaches encourage them to choose that sport and drop the rest of their sporting interests to focus on a passion.
But this specialization is not always in the best interest of the athlete. And that’s a fight Michigan’s director of hockey operations, Topher Scott, has fought throughout his post-play career. Through his podcast The Hockey Think Tank and social media, he uses his platform to educate parents and coaches about the consequences of specializing too early.
“It’s different for different people,” Scott said Monday. “But at the end of the day, youth sports as a whole have become a business and when kids play the same sport all year round it’s good for business for the people who play those sports.”
Many skaters on the Michigan hockey team embodied this, playing multiple sports in their youth. In addition to hockey, second forward Mackie Samoskevich played golf; Sophomore forward Dylan Duke played baseball and lacrosse; Newcomers Adam and Luca Fantilli played lacrosse and even snowboarded.
This broad sports network is not an anomaly. According to a study by Dr. Hasani Swindell — a specialist in orthopedic surgery and sports medicine at Columbia University — of 303 college athletes, 94.7% of respondents played multiple organized sports while growing up, and 45% played another sport at least until age 16 .
The benefits of a diverse sporting background illustrate the rationale for these numbers. Participating in multiple sports builds a better athletic repertoire — whether that’s through developing motor skills, learning new strategies, or preventing injury and burnout. It also works different muscle groups and builds overall strength and coordination, rather than targeting specific areas used in a particular sport.
Of course, at some point athletes have to choose a sport if they want to play in college. At some point, a hockey player has to decide that hockey is his greatest passion, the only sport he wants to take to the next level.
But in many cases there is no need to rush the process. While some travel teams and competitive programs might encourage young skaters to put all their athletic eggs in one basket, the reality is that there is no one-size-fits-all path down the sports specialization timeline.
“It depends on the physical maturity, the mental maturity, the emotional maturity of when you really want to focus on a[sport]and I think it’s different for everyone,” Scott said. “But I’d say definitely not until you’re certainly a teenager – mid-teens – when you should at least try to specialize. Definitely do several sports before that.”
But the pressure to choose a sport has increased in recent years. Even Michigan’s coaching staff is feeling the effects.
“So I have a seven-year-old and (we) are going through this now — I think you really should play multiple sports,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato said Oct. 25. “…He goes and plays basketball or soccer and they’re like, ‘Hey, you can play on the club team at seven and it’s four nights a week.’ Like at that young age, it’s probably an organizational thing, and then you’re missing out on being a parent. So it’s tough.
“Even at the age of seven (years) you have to (almost) decide on a sport and then everything else is rec league.”
But that doesn’t have to be the case. And that’s what Scott wants to teach others.
“There are three pretty big players in all of youth sports,” Scott said Monday. “There are the players, there are the parents and there are the coaches. And if you can educate all three – I don’t want to say how to do things right – but a certain way of doing things that we believe will help kids grow into better players and better people, that is what we do. re trying to do.”
By disseminating research on sport specialization, Scott hopes the youth sport landscape can improve. By focusing on overall development and growth across multiple sports, young athletes can grow into better all-around competitors.
Eventually, these multi-athletes could join the DI ranks — just like many of the current Michigan players.
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