Choosing Between Two Sports

My personal bias is with soccer, which trys to be a year-around sport to the exclusion of others. My qb, however, is a great hockey player, which has gotten my attention. Personally, I think kids should play whatever and however many sports they want to while in elementary school. I'd prefer to see sports limit their seasons in elementary school to reduce the conflicts for kids, but as long as there are adults fulfilling their fantasies through kids, that won't happen. Once kids get to middle school, sports start getting pretty serious (and the kids get pretty good). At that point I think the kids go full-out competitive if they want, and specialize accordingly.

As for hockey, I think an Aug - March season is b.s. I coach 8th grade competitive basketball as well as football. We go mid-Oct to March. Hockey is an Oct-March sport, and the overlap with football should be about a month. The adults involved with hockey need to recognize what they're doing to the kids that want a balanced childhood with balanced experiences.

I've always had players that played other sports (fall baseball, hockey, soccer). I've told parents that it's fine with me if the kids want to play two sports, but another kid who attends all the practices and games may likely play more than their son. Parents often don't understand the consequences of missing one football practice. We practice three nights a week - typically one on offense, one on defense, and one on special teams and review. If we put something new in on Monday and a player is not there, he may not be ready for the game on Saturday. It's not fair to the coaches or the other players to ask the coach to give the absent player special attention because he was at hockey practice. More importantly, what message are you sending the kid who attends every practice and works his butt off if you start his competitor who missed practices to play another sport. It's not a good message.

The big question I see, however, is what it does to the kid who plays both sports. Give the kid the support he needs to enjoy and succeed at what he wants to do. Racing him from one practice to the next, getting him special attention so he can catch up with the other kids after he missed practice, or not letting him relax and enjoy the pace and comraderie of the team, just isn't fair.

Time management and not taking on more than you can do well is important for most adults. I think it's beginning to apply to kids also.

It's great you've got talented kids interested in playing multiple sports. I wish the adults would create a system that at their age they didn't have such conflicts. Unfortunately, that's not the system we've created. While we all like the idea of our kids being multi-sport stars, I think you've got to look seriously at the consequences of trying to have your kids do too much. Your question on this board indicates you're doing that. Good luck.