NFHS Voice: Should Tech Aid Performance?
March 13, 2020
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
One of the age-old objectives of the NFHS has been to preserve the records, tradition and heritage of education-based athletics and activities programs in the United States.
As the leader and advocate for high school sports and activities, the NFHS has been keeping records set by high school athletes since the first National High School Sports Record Book was published by the NFHS in 1978. The Record Book was printed annually until 2010, when it was moved online to www.NFHS.org.
Names of more than 100,000 high school student-athletes have appeared in the Record Book in the past 42 years; and while there are a few individuals and teams still remaining from that first publication, in the spirit of “records are made to be broken,” most categories have had multiple leaders.
In addition to bringing proper recognition to high school student-athletes, coaches and teams who achieve outstanding performances in interscholastic athletic competition, we believe this recognition stimulates interest in high school athletic programs and motivates other competitors to improve their skills.
And we have strived that only records set in the spirit of good sportsmanship and fair play are entered in the Record Book.
It is understandable that records are broken frequently, with continual improvements in equipment, nutrition, training methods and – most recently – technology. However, at what point do some of these improvements, particularly ever-changing technology, begin to affect the No. 1 principle of rules writing for the NFHS: Fair Play?
The NFHS has been writing playing rules for high school sports since the 1930s when it published football and basketball rules for the first time. Baseball and track & field were added in the 1940s, followed by wrestling in the 1960s and many others in the 1970s.
It is impossible that the early rules writers could have envisioned the advances in technology and how some of these improvements challenge rules writing today. Although the question about whether to utilize instant replay for game-ending plays has drawn much attention, some of the personal technology items – and the increasing presence of drones at athletic events – are more onerous.
With high-tech watches, and electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets, the ability to view and process data during actual competition is readily available, which leads to the ethical question of whether this use of technology unfairly aids performance.
This topic has generated a great deal of discussion, and some high school sports allow limited use of technology devices by coaches during games. However, when athletes are competing against each other on the field or court, the stakes should be even. No competitor in high school sports should gain an unfair advantage over an opponent based on anything other than his or her athletic preparedness for a contest.
At other levels of sport, particularly at the Olympic and professional levels, history shows that the pursuit of winning rather than the pursuit of excellence becomes the focus. While we understand the pressure to win at these levels, there is a very recent and clear example of the misuse of technology with the sign-stealing scandal in Major League Baseball.
In high school sports, the focus should not be on winning but having fun. NFHS playing rules, which are used by almost eight million participants across 17 sports, will continue to focus on risk minimization, sportsmanship and fair play.
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is in her second year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.
Specialization Not the Only Pathway
April 21, 2015
By Eric Martin
MSU Institute for the Study of Youth Sports
Specialization is not a new topic facing athletes and parents.
In a 1989 study by Hill and Simons, athletic directors indicated that the three-sport athletes of the past were being replaced by athletes who only participated in a single sport. Multiple athletic directors indicated that the decrease of multi-sport participation was a concern for all involved in the sport environment as increased emphasis on sport specialization was not in the true vision of high school sports.
Even though the distress concerning sport specialization is not a new topic, the rise of club sports and year-round travel teams have increased the number of youth athletes who are forced to make a choice between playing multiple sports or focusing their time and training efforts solely on one sport. The decision to focus solely on one sport sometimes is done by athletes (or their parents) who believe that quitting other sports is the sole way to earn a coveted college scholarship.
However, even though counter intuitive, sport specialization may be hampering their pursuit to play at the next level.
Elite level achievement in sport is rare, with statistics showing that only 0.12 percent of high school athletes in basketball and football eventually reach the professional level. To combat these odds, many in popular media including Malcolm Gladwell have forwarded Anders Ericcson’s proposal that to become an expert in a field, an individual must accumulate 10,000 hours of practice.
To achieve this aim, many parents and athletes disregard other sports believing that extra exposure to a single sport may result in accumulating these hours quicker and increase an athlete's chances of elite skill achievement. Reducing the achievement of sport excellence to solely practice hours overlooks the importance that developmental, psychosocial, and motivational factors play in the achievement of high level success in youth. Further, several research studies have found that elite athletes typically fall short of this 10,000 hour milestone.
Simply accumulating a magic number of hours does not guarantee sport success, and in fact, trying to accumulate these hours too early can lead to many different negative outcomes for youth.
Sport specialization has been shown to have a variety of negative physiological and psychological outcomes for youth athletes. Typically, athletes who specialize in one sport play that sport year-round with little or no offseason. In these cases, athletes who continually perform repetitive motions such as throwing or jumping can experience overuse injuries that can range from tendinitis to torn ligaments.
In addition to the increased risk of injury, youth who specialize and play a single sport year-round are at risk for psychological issues as well. Youth who play a single sport are less likely to allow for proper recovery and face the increased chance of burnout or decreases in motivation that may result in leaving sport entirely. Additionally, as practice time demands and multiple league involvement increases, youth may feel added pressure to succeed due to the increased time and financial costs incurred by parents.
Finally, youth who specialize early in only one sport do not develop the fundamental motor skills that help them stay active as adults, instead only developing a very narrow skill set of a single sport.
If the dangers of sport specialization do not encourage multisport participation, a majority of studies have shown that sport specialization does not increase long-term sport achievement. In fact, most studies indicate that athletes who reach the highest level of sport achievement typically played a variety of sports until after they were well into high school.
For example, a study with British athletes found that youth who played three or more sports at the ages of 11, 13, and 15 had a significantly higher likelihood of playing on a national team at ages 16 and 18. These athletes had a more rounded set of skills, were more refreshed for their chosen sport, and were more psychologically and emotionally ready to perform due to their experiences in a number of sports.
A study recently conducted by the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports with collegiate athletes showed similar results as the British athlete study. In the ISYS study, 1,036 athletes from three Division I universities were asked to report their past youth sport participation. On average, youth participated in three or more sports in elementary and middle school. The number of sports youth participated in decreased with each year of high school, but even with the decrease of participation, a larger number of individuals played more than one sport during every year of high school including senior year than those who played a single sport.
Even though a majority of athletes did play at least two sports throughout high school, several athletes did indicate that they specialized in one sport indicating that there are multiple pathways to elite sport achievement.
Athletes were also asked for their perception of how important it was to specialize in one sport in order to earn a college scholarship. On a scale of 1-9, athletes felt that specializing in one sport prior to high school was neither important nor unimportant (4.97).
Sport specialization is not a new issue, but that does not minimize the damage that can occur if athletes are overtaxed early in their development. Each athlete is unique, and each situation requires care. If an athlete does decide to play in only one sport, the decision should be made in regards to the athlete’s interest and development, not just in the pursuit of a college scholarship. Additionally, if athletes specialize in one sport, it is critical to understand that youth are developing and proper recovery is critical both physically and psychologically.
Early specialization in sport is an issue that is not going to go away, but for coaches, parents, and athletes this decision should be made with a long-term perspective and with the athletes’ long-term well-being central to the choice.
Martin is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University. His research interests include athlete motivation and development of passion in youth, sport specialization, and coaches’ perspectives on working with the millennial athlete. He has led many sessions of the MHSAA Captains Leadership Clinic and consulted with junior high, high school, and collegiate athletes. If you have questions or comments, contact him at [email protected].