Rushing children to specialize in one sport might not be best path to success
I often talk with parents and coaches who urge their children to specialize in one sport, thinking it will maximize their chance at landing a collegiate scholarship or making it to the big leagues.
Medical professionals have long thought that might not be the best path to success, and now a recent study that I conducted along with my colleagues at Penn State Sports Medicine seems to confirm those suspicions.
We looked at the sports histories of professional and collegiate ice hockey players and found that, on average, the athletes played multiple sports as children and waited until around age 14 to focus solely on ice hockey.
The risks of specialization
As the Hershey Bears team physician, I have seen many young children begin specializing in ice hockey as early as age 6, which comes with many risks.
In addition to the risk of children becoming burned out after playing only one sport from a young age, there are also physical risks to early specializing. If children participate in one sport, they’re only working certain muscle groups, consistently placing their bodies through the same movement patterns and demands. That puts them at risk of an overuse injury.
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Hockey players like other sports, too
In the course of our research, we gave 91 professional, NCAA Division I and NCAA Division III ice hockey players a survey about their personal histories in sports participation. The participants noted when they started participating in sports, which sports they played, and when and why they decided to specialize in ice hockey.
After analyzing the data, we found that the mean age of beginning any sport was 4.5 years, and the mean age of specializing in ice hockey was 14.3 years. Only 12 percent of the athletes specialized in their sport before 12 years of age. Most of the athletes played two to four sports as children, with soccer and baseball being the most popular in addition to hockey.
The mean age of specializing in ice hockey – around 14 – was consistent across professional, NCAA Division I and NCAA Division III players.
I was surprised by some of the additional findings. For example, it was interesting that the most commonly played secondary sport among ice hockey players was soccer. Then again, before Hershey Bears games, I often see players warming up in a big circle in the hallway kicking around a soccer ball.
The benefits of sports diversification
I hope our study will send the message that it is not only OK for children to play multiple sports when they’re young, but that it can actually be an asset.
If you only play one sport, you also miss out on sports diversification, which is the idea that being a really good soccer or tennis player may help you be a really good ice hockey player. We’ve seen a lot of professional athletes coming out in support of this, saying that by playing a lot of sports you’ll learn many skills and work different muscle groups that will help you if you specialize in one sport later on.
But what about that scholarship?
If parents are encouraging their children to specialize in a sport in the hopes that they will go on to receive a collegiate sports scholarship, there are other avenues they could consider.
The truth is that most high school athletes will not receive athletic scholarships for college. However, if they are good students, academic scholarships can help lessen the cost of a college education while allowing for ongoing sports participation, especially at the Division III level. This may make science or math camp a little more appealing!
Dr. Matthew Silvis is a professor of family and community medicine and orthopaedics and rehabilitation at Penn State College of Medicine. His study on sports specialization was published in the journal Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach.