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Invest in Athletic Diversification

January 7, 2013

By Scott Westfall
MSU Institute for the Study of Youth Sports 

As part of my duties at Michigan State University, I have recently conducted extended research in the area of sport specialization. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, sport specialization is focusing on one sport year-round while eliminating all other sports or activities.

According to Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, in order for a person to achieve expertise in a sport or activity, he or she must invest approximately 10 years or 10,000 hours of practice. Thus, children, parents, and coaches might see specializing in one sport as a fast track to gaining the expertise needed to win starting positions, state championships, and even college scholarships.

However, these remarkable accomplishments (if they are actually reached) can come with some nasty baggage including social isolation, mental burnout, psychological stress, and overuse injuries such as stress fractures, Osgood-Schlatter & Sever’s Diseases. Often what remains is a kid with some very polished skills, but no love for the sport and a body that has had enough!

To combat these problems, young athletes should participate in numerous sports until at least the age of 14 or 15. When young athletes diversify their sports experiences, they reduce the physical impact by spreading it across different parts of the body, thereby allowing for a faster and more thorough recovery.

Furthermore, sport diversification allows kids to learn transferrable physical skills to other sports, not to mention introducing them to a larger group of active peers, along with more coaches and role models to assist with the tribulations of adolescence.

As a former coach, I can attest to the excitement I felt when I had a group of players that were gung-ho and fully committed to my sport. I would become outwardly excited when they would ask, “What can I do this offseason to get better?”

While I was tempted to respond selfishly with answers specific to my sport (which most likely would make our team better), I would try to think of the “whole child,” causing me to reply with the question, “What other sports are you going to try this year?

The cultures in high school athletic departments can be somewhat ambivalent. While coaches would like to believe that their colleagues always support them and their program, there is adequate reason for them to be skeptical. After all, with the trend of sport specialization, coaches at the same school can end up competing with each other for athletes – even when their seasons do not overlap.

Often I have heard coaches say, “I don’t discourage kids from going out for another sport.” Even if they do not outwardly deter athletes from joining other sports, a coach’s personal interests, reactions, and body language can be felt and heard sometimes even louder than his or her words.

Coaches need to begin supporting, collaborating with, and trusting the expertise of their colleagues – believing they will improve student-athletes on many levels (maybe even in ways that original coach cannot). Coaches must work together and encourage young athletes to diversify by participating in additional sports.

The culture of the athletic department starts with the athletic director. Athletic directors must build a department and coaching staff that is conceived in collaboration, trust, and support for the high school’s entire athletic program. True collaboration cannot exist among coaches if competition for athletes is ongoing – coaches must share the pool of athletes by supporting and even encouraging participation in other sports.

Athletic Directors may be thinking “easier said than done.” So here are a few tips:

  • Hold pre-season meetings with all head coaches at the beginnings of each of the three major sports seasons (fall, winter & spring).
  • At these meetings, create buy-in with open communication. With the help of your coaches, make a list of the ways sport diversification can help the overall athletic program. Record the many transferrable skills that are seen between two sports (cross country gets wrestlers in shape during the fall season; basketball produces more athleticism for volleyball; track creates faster football players, etc.)
  • List fears or myths that each other’s sports or training regimens might present (heavy lifting on game days slows players down; football players lose bulk during wrestling season, coaches not wanting their best player to get hurt playing “other” sports, etc.). Once these fears are brought into the open and effectively addressed, coaches will be much more open to supporting each other’s programs.
  • Make a policy for offseason training (weight room, speed training, fall baseball, etc.). Establish that these are supplemental and should be held at different times of the day than practices or games. Example: Mandatory weight training sessions should take place before or during school – not during another team’s practice. This will eliminate athletes from having to prioritize between participating in Sport A and training for Sport B.
  • Create a huge master schedule to map-out and plan all summer sports camps so they do not overlap. This will allow athletes to participate in multiple camps and reduce the competition coaches have for athletes’ time during the summer.
  • Encourage (politely demand) all coaches to work in the weight room during the offseason and summer. This will boost cooperation among coaching staffs. No longer will the weight room be seen as belonging only to the football team. Conversely, football coaches will not feel they are babysitting athletes from other sports when they come to train.
  • Encourage (politely demand) all head coaches keep the scorebook and/or run the clock at the home games for other sports events. When athletes and parents see head coaches supporting other programs, the tone will be set that the athletic department is diversified and supportive of all teams.

Athletic Directors: If you are met with some hesitation, know you are creating change. If you receive backlash or resentment from your coaches, sit down with them and hear them out. However, stay true to your vision that collaboration, trust, and support are the new culture you want for your athletic department. To paraphrase Jim Collins from his book Good to Great, “You are trying to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people sitting in the right seats!”

Coaches: This change might take some getting used to, but in the end sport specialization will be better understood and allowed as the exception rather than the norm. Kids will participate in multiple sports and you will be a member of a high school coaching staff built on collaboration and trust. These will combine to create a richer athletic culture at your school.

However, the greatest improvement will be for your student-athletes’ individual experiences; they will be healthier physically, socially and psychologically.

Scott Westfall has spent the last 10 years as a teacher, coach, and athletic director in Fort Collins, Colo. He currently is working on his Doctorate at Michigan State University, with an emphasis in Sport Psychology and Athletic Administration, and assisting the MHSAA with its student leadership programs. Westfall is a former athlete who participated in football, wrestling, tennis and cross country at the high school level, and rugby at the collegiate level. He can be reached at [email protected].

Leadership: A Skill that can be Taught

January 30, 2013

By Jed Blanton
MSU Institute for the Study of Youth Sports

At the MHSAA and the ISYS, in the milieu of work we conduct centered on understanding and developing leadership in young athletes, there is one definition that seems to govern our approach and serve as a foundation for the research questions and training clinics that follow it.

Penned by Peter Northouse, that definition states “leadership is a process, whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.”

Choosing to frame ‘leadership’ as a process, rather than as some personality characteristic destined only for those naturally-born leaders, allows the concept of leadership to be utilized and taught as a skill, or set of skills. If a coach can agree with the philosophy that leadership can be learned, we can begin to design a series of strategies to enhance leadership in our young athletes.  

First, I’m going to discuss what most coaches already know about teaching skills. Teaching skills is essentially an effort of behavior modification. A coach sometimes is able to choose athletes who already possess a certain level of competency within the skills necessary for their sport; sometimes coaches must work with whoever shows up on the first day of practice.

In either case, coaches tend to conduct a subconscious assessment of skills that must be learned (that they must teach), whether complex strategies or mere fundamentals. When teaching athletic skills to young people, coaches must break down the multitude of steps involved.

Think about a lay-up in basketball or the high jump in track & field. Either skill itself is actually a combination of several skills, and the ability to pay attention to very specific cues in the environment. Coaches teach the approach, the proper hand/arm placement, the essential cues to focus on, and the follow-through. Coaches can devote segments or entire practices to particular skills – breaking down all the steps, creating drills to practice the steps, and offering the full practice of the skill in a competition-like environment.

During this episode of developing a skill in our athletes, to get them to perform in a very specific way, our interactions often mirror what behavioral psychology has known for decades: People respond to reinforcements and punishments. Coaches positively reinforce their athletes with compliments, clapping hands, and congratulations. Our words and actions shape how the individual learning the skill makes adjustments to receive more praise.

These shifts of their body and miniscule changes in their actions to get to the desired behavior of their instructor are “learning.” Similarly, coaches often threaten punishment of extra sprints or difficult drills to give athletes a clue as to what behaviors they should avoid. Often, something as simple as a disapproving glance can be reinforcing enough to change whatever behavior the athlete shouldn’t be practicing. The simple “good job” or the threat of sprints essentially shapes how our athletes behave athletically.

This same approach can work toward leadership development.

What would it look like for a coach to reinforce and punish athletes toward leadership development in the same vein they develop athletic skills? If coaches could determine what three or four behaviors they’d like their athlete leaders to showcase, and then positively reinforce those skills with compliments and thanks, and potentially punish athletes with disapproving glances or even lectures after practice, leadership can be learned like any other athletic skill.

Phil Jackson, the multiple championship-winning NBA coach, has been quoted saying he would try to give two compliments for every criticism with his professional teams. The Positive Coaching Alliance – a national nonprofit organization that strives to educate coaches on ways to enhance the youth sport experience – suggests a ratio of five positive comments to every negative criticism. Research has consistently shown that people respond better and more rapidly to positive reinforcement than to punishment.

All too often, coaches wait for leaders to emerge, rather than teach the leadership they desire. Imagine if coaches waited for players to figure out the offensive plays and strategies instead of teaching players where to move, how to move, and why they are moving there. Adopting a similar approach with your athlete has the potential to expedite the behaviors you’d most ideally want them to possess. Using tactics of positive reinforcement can help these young players to become excellent leaders in a shorter period of time than merely hoping someone steps up.

I’ll leave you with a simple list of suggestions of how coaches can teach leadership, just like they teach any other necessary athletic skill.

  1. Develop goals with your athletes regarding leadership. What kinds of things do your athletes value or feel would help the team? How can they practice leading their teammates in that way?
  2. Develop your own goals toward teaching leadership. What would it look like if a coach made it a goal to compliment three players on specific leadership behaviors each practice? Think about the ultimate team captain for your team, and develop strategies to teach your players how to be that captain.
  3. Break down leadership skills into smaller and easier to practice chunks, just like an athletic skill. Then create an environment where the athletes can practice these skills. By organizing your team into smaller groups, or even partners, you can assign leadership roles within each group. Asking certain players to lead various parts of practice (stretches, lay-ups, circuit training), you are giving them a sense of ownership over their athletic experiences and responsibility over their teammates.
  4. Positively reinforce the desired behaviors. How would it make a player feel if their coach pulled them aside and thanked them for their specific leadership behavior after a practice or game? A “job well done” or an approving thank you can go a long way in making a young athlete feel they are developing into the leader you desire them to be.


 Blanton is a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University in the department of Kinesiology, specializing in the PsychoSocial Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity, and a research assistant for MSU's Institute for the Study of Youth Sports. He has served as a facilitator at MHSAA Captains Clinics the last three years and currently is assisting the association with its student leadership programs.