Should Young Athletes Play Multiple Sports or Specialize?

If you are a young athlete, you are more than likely playing more than one sport.

However, if you’re wanting to play only one sport, like baseball, in late high school or college, you’re probably considering specializing in it.

I played both basketball and baseball throughout high school until my sophomore year when my baseball coach said in order to play college, I needed to put the basketball away, stop running, and hit the gym.

After that, I gained 15 pounds and ended up getting a college scholarship for baseball.

From my personal experience, here’s how I believe athletes can find the right balance between playing multiple sports and choosing to specialize.

When You’re Young: Play as Many Sports as You Can

As a young athlete, the best thing you can do is explore various sports. More than likely, you already are. Here’s why:

• Develop Overall Athleticism: Different sports challenge your body in unique ways, improving coordination, agility, and endurance. You could be focusing on your hand-eye coordination during baseball in Spring, but foot-eye coordination with soccer in the fall.
• Prevent Burnout: Playing one sport year-round can lead to mental and physical fatigue. Switching things up keeps it fun. You’ll also meet plenty of more friends and teammates this way.
• Build Diverse Skills: Skills from one sport often translate to another. For example, basketball sharpens agility and reaction time, which are valuable in baseball.

While you’re playing multiple sports, I believe it’s also helpful to focus on movement training early on. Learning to move efficiently—whether it’s sprinting, jumping, or changing direction—will pay dividends in every sport.

What “Generalizing” Doesn’t Mean

One mistake I’ll often see parents make when talking about “playing as many sports and positions as you can” is that they are afraid to go deep on a particular skill set.

What I’ve found is if you become great at one particular skill or movement, it’s often much easier to translate great movement into another skillset rather than having someone be “generalized” at everything but not really great at anything.

So “generalizing” does not mean “Don’t get good at any particular skill.”

Around High School: Narrowing Down Your Focus

By the time you reach high school, it might be time to choose one sport to prioritize, especially if your goal is to play in college. For me, this is when I had to pick just one sport.

My Story:

During my sophomore year, I was about 135 pounds. My coach gave me some advice:

If I want to play baseball in college, I need to put down the basketball.

I stopped playing basketball, focused on lifting weights, ate 4,200 calories a day, and dedicated myself to improving my baseball skills. Over time, I gained 15 pounds, got stronger, and eventually earned a college scholarship.

This doesn’t mean you must stop playing other sports right away. I get how hard it can be to pick one sport when you enjoy both so much. But if you have serious aspirations in one sport, consider:

• Increasing Sport-Specific Training: Spend more time practicing and playing your chosen sport.
• Building Strength and Conditioning: Lifting weights and eating properly were game-changers for me. It allowed me to keep up with the other varsity athletes that had been playing ONLY baseball for a while. Strength is often the biggest weakness for athletes.
• Strategic Planning: Use the off-season for skill development and physical preparation.

The Ideal Approach (From My Perspective)

• Youth (Elementary): Do Gymnastics to build strength and body control. Play multiple sports and focus on overall movement training. Focus on skill training in the sport and position your kid loves the most. Practice 10 minutes a day together!
• Junior High: Get some specialized coaching and get in the gym. Cleaning up your movement patterns when you’re younger and weaker is much easier than your senior year in high school.
• High School: Begin specializing in one sport around sophomore year if college athletics is your goal. Varsity is calling your name and you should know exactly how to get there. (Important note: If you’re a freak athlete you may want to play multiple sports all the way through high school. Many of the MLB and NFL starts you know today were also drafted out of high school in other sports.)
• Strength & Skill: Regardless of how many sports you play, prioritize building strength and refining your skills. Each sport will create extreme growth and skill development.

Next Steps In Your Athletic Career

You came here wondering if you should be specializing at one sport as a young athlete, or play multiple. Now you know the importance of both. Playing multiple sports causes appreciation and development across a lot of areas of skill. Specializing in one sport can be important later on in your career for those wanting to play in college and beyond.

The key is finding the right time for that transition and staying committed to your goals.

Just know, even the best athletes in the world played multiple sports at one point or another. It’s what helps makes you such an amazing athlete.

If you’re looking for more advice on athletic development, here are some resources to check out:

• Summer Workout Plan for Baseball Players (10-14U)
• How to Practice on Your Own as a Catcher
• Get The Plan To Become A Varsity Ready Catcher

I’m rooting for you!