Championship High School Football Coaches Promote Multi-Sport Participation

By Ken Reed

It was refreshing to read this week about two highly successful high school football coaches promoting the positives of multi-sport participation on the part of their athletes and how they detest the recent trend toward one-sport specialization at the youth and high school levels.

Rod Sherman of Valor Christian High School and Jay Madden of Pomona High School were at a press conference talking about their championship football game in Colorado’s 5A classification this Saturday. The questions were about the matchup but then a reporter asked them what they thought about multi-sport athletes and the trend towards single sport specialization at the high school level.

Here are their responses — refreshing responses I might add:

Rod Sherman, head coach Valor Christian High School:

“I think one of the things that’s worst about our youth sports culture, is the early push for specialization. I think that’s why you see more student-athletes burn out as they get older. I look out here at our young men and I see a young man that’s a scholarship lacrosse player to the University of Delaware. And I would actually encourage that it’s not just about multiple sports. It’s about multiple activities. We have a young man on our team that’s in the school play. I see many young men travel across the world on mission trips.

“I see some of our coaches who were able to play at the highest level, in the NFL. And none of them woke up everyday and just thought about football and worried about football. They were able to be young men that grew in wisdom and stature in multiple sports and activities. And I think that kids should do that more. But I think, unfortunately, there’s a push from, at times, outside trainers, parents, to specialize earlier.”

Jay Madden, head coach Pomona High School:

“I agree 100 percent. I look out here at my players I have here, and all of them play more than one sport. And if I could get them to play three, I would. You’re only young once. Life is all about experiences, and experiences is not lifting in the weight room. … (It’s about) basketball practice, or wrestling practice, or track. Obviously, my brother’s a baseball coach, so I love all the other sports. I wish this club sports thing would disappear, but obviously we know it’s not going to.

“With all of the scholarship money out there … that everyone thinks you’re going to get by specializing — great athletes are great athletes. You don’t create a great athlete, folks. It doesn’t happen. If you’ve got the talent, you’ve got the talent. Christian [McCaffrey, the Valor Christian graduate who is now a Heisman Trophy candidate at Stanford] played three sports, didn’t he? And he’s probably going to make money playing sports someday. But most people are not. So why not play as many sports as you can while you’re young?”

— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans