Napa trainer says multi-sport athletes beat boredom, avoid injuries

Parents might want to listen to Napa's John Cortese while they're considering how many sports their young athlete should try.

"We see that the kids who only do one sport act more like they have to train when they're with us," said owner and trainer Cortese. "The kids who play more than one sport come in and seem more enthusiastic. They enjoy the mental break they get when they go from one sport to another."

The trend toward asking even child athletes to choose just one sport, then focus on it, is facing opposition from Cortese and others who spend their lives dealing with young athletes.

 “It’s really unfortunate when a 10-year-old is told to pick just one sport,” said Rohnert Park University of Sports owner and youth sports coach, Aaron Locks. “Kids should use sports to have fun. They need to play different sports and enjoy them all as much as they can.”

Cortese says that the emphasis on a single sport is greater when kids are younger.

"It's probably more common to see younger kids doing just one sport," Cortese said. "We notice that middle school kids are focusing on one sport, while they start trying different sports in high school. Doing just one sport seems especially common for younger girls. They play soccer in middle school, then they play for club soccer team. The same thing happens with volleyball. The younger kids play one sport all year."

Others wish the age of multi-sport athletes hadn’t yielded to a generation of youngsters being pushed to choose one sport.

“I coach a team for 10-year-old travel baseball players,” said former Sonoma State University basketball and baseball star Paige Dumont, the lead sports director at the University of Sports. “I don’t like what year-around sports are doing for kids. I’m seeing kids who pick a sport and concentrate on it from the time they’re eight years old until they’re 14 – then they burn out. They get tired of that sport. I can’t stress enough the value of young people playing a variety of sports.”

Dumont was a 6-foot-8 basketball star at Sonoma State who went on to be a professional baseball pitcher who pitched for five seasons in the minor leagues.

“Having been a player, I saw the value of playing two different sports,” said Dumont, who is also the head baseball coach at Santa Rosa High School. “I never burned on basketball or on baseball. One sport helped develop me for the other."

Cortese is also sold on the idea of allowing youngsters to enjoy multiple sports until they decide which they prefer.

"It took me awhile to realize that my loves were football and track and field," Cortese said. "It's unfortunate now that some club team coaches won't let kids play on their teams if the kid wants to do another sport, too."

Cortese mentioned something that many close to youth sports forget.

"The best athletes in the country all did multiple sports when they were growing up," he said. "The real star athletes were the best football player, the best wrestler, the best in track. Anything that gets the body moving in multiple directions will help make an athlete a better athlete."

Dumont said that one problem facing youngsters who only participate in one sport is the risk of them becoming bored with and tired of the sport.

“I know 10-year-old baseball players who don’t want to play baseball all year around,” he said. “It falls on the parents to help the kid see value in playing more than one sport and knowing when it’s OK to step back. We notice that parents are the key when we talk about a kid playing multiple sports because it’s pretty hard to change a child’s mind about just playing baseball  just because we think he might have the talent to be a great football player or basketball player.”

Cortese said that parents are also responsible for keeping track of the potential injury that comes from taking part in just one sport.

"We're seeing 10-year-old kids with overuse injuries," Cortese said. "Overuse injuries in the knee and shoulder just shouldn't be happening at a young age, but we're seeing them because kids are doing the same movements in the same sport and it stresses the body."

Locks, who stresses fundamental skills when youngsters take part in University of Sports camps, believes that parents and youngsters might lose sight of what value youth sports have.

“Let the kids go play a sport for fun,” Locks said. “Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Let’s not spend 80 percent of our time trying to help a kid become a star in just one sport.”

 Locks knows why some parents focus on pushing their athlete into just one sport.

“They talk about getting a college athletic scholarship,” Locks said. “We have to be realistic because 2.3 percent of financial aid given at our colleges is actually financial aid given to an athlete because of sports.”

Cortese said that youngsters also play a big role in the decision to play just one sport.

"Some of them just aren't as good at one sport as they are at another," he said. "Kids don't like to try something they might not be good at ... they don't want to fail. So, it's easier for them to just keep playing the sport where they feel most comfortable. But, when they come in to train, we see that it's new to them and they get excited and energetic. Anything new is going to change their attitude."

Dumont, who is proof that a multi-sport athlete can star into and beyond college, tries to show youth sports campers that even a grown man benefits from skills training in different sports.

 “I run basketball and baseball camps,” Dumont said. “I’ve also run volleyball and soccer camps. I have to practice my skills in different sports. It’s nice to be able to let kids see that I can go through soccer drills and that I’m not just a basketball or baseball coach.”