Getting More Multi-Sport Athletes

All sports are turning into year-round things... Summer and spring football & 7on7, basketball leagues all year, Fall & Spring baseball, club & school soccer, etc...

Sports are on a very thin wire right now and I hope that our society changes quickly and more of an emphasis is placed on sports and athletics in general and it gets picked up or some of our favorite sports could be in jeopardy of being dropped within the next few years.

Honestly, if you want multi sport athletes, be a multi sport coach and have multi sport coaches on your staff. I am the head football and head wrestling coach and I have a HUGE carryover from football to wrestling. Probably 30 wrestlers from a program with 50-55 football players.

We have been very accommodating to the few multi-sport athletes that are in our program. We, to the best of our ability, schedule summer events around the basketball programs events. After working with the basketball program, we gave them June to focus on their summer events and we would take July to focus on ours. Is this perfect, no. But it did work for a short time. For whatever reason, we began losing basketball players. They are not playing AAU or any year-round seasons, they just aren't coming out for football. I do not understand it. It is not like our basketball program is any good anyways (usually bounced in the 1st round of the play-offs).

I am wondering how much of this is due to Pay-to-Play. Our school is in an area of the state that is struggling more than most economically and I know that we have a large percentage of our players (and student body for that mater) that are on a free/reduced lunch program.

I hired the head Lax coach as an assistant...wasn't the most knowledgeable about football but was just a good coach. I was also friendly w/ the basketball coach, so we would plan camps so we wouldn't conflict..Our school also had multiple sports lift together. I opened the weightroom in the am and had a team of guys open it in the PM

Here is my completely un-scientific theory on what is happening to the participation levels in High School sports these days. First of all, I don't blame kids 100%. I believe that coaches and the "sports attitude" of the school system carry the burden of a lot of this situation.

Say a kid is a basketball player (or whatever sport you want to insert here), loves the game no matter who is coaching. Just wants to play basketball. You will never run him off from the program, but it is the kids who are playing for the fun of playing HS basketball that get ran off or put off because of a dictator type of coach. At a small school, you have to have those type of kids in your program. Say the coach is one of those "You have to commit year 'round to my program!" type of guys. Guess what, the kid makes another choice of activities. If there isn't a payoff for the kid, he will not participate. That payoff may be being with his friends, game night, brotherly bonding who knows, but you can not run him off.

This happens all of the time and you hear it all of the time from kids you are trying to recruit for another sport at your school. And before you say, "Well, kids are just soft or can't take coaching or blah blah blah". Think about it, we all have kids who could be playing another sport, but everyone who is in that sport hates it. I can't blame a kid for that.

Coaches have to make the activity/sport rewarding. We have to be involved and interested (genuinely interested) in the kids. We have to articulate what they will be gaining in their life long term by being in your program. They have to know that there will be hard work, bruises and blood, but it will be worth it.

And all of the sports have to be on that same marketing path, because that is what you are doing is marketing athletics in your school. That is where the administration comes into play. All AD's should be more in tuned to marketing the sports programs to the kids, parents and community-in that order. Get coaches together, see what works and what doesn't in each sport. Put together a recruiting plan and get to work. If you have coaches who run kids off, identify the problem and solve it.

Another topic is that I think kids are so convinced these days that even if they are 5' 1" 120 lbs, they are going to get called by Mack Brown any moment to be a starting line backer. But that is a whole 'nother topic.

Anybody suggest just showing up to other sports kids are playing at your school and maybe take an interst in those players?
I know when basketball players see asst fb coaches at their games they actually take notice and feel like they can approach those.coaches later


Help the other sports out (volunteer for.fundraisers/concessions,etc) and they will be.more.willing to.see football as an entire school sport

Simple:

Everyone lifts year round.

We encourage every kid to play any sport he wants to play.

If a coach encourages a kid to not play a sport, he will be fired.

We have tons of baseball players that play football. 4 of those guys also ran track during baseball season. Baseball played in the state championship series and track won state and football won the region last year. Most of my best football players play basketball. Have a 9th grade RB that won varsity tennis state championship as an 8th grader. It can be done.