Pros and Cons of being a three sport athlete in high school
By: Lillian Rudy / October 2023
The pros of playing multiple sports are improving certain physical skills, mental toughness, health and wellness, athletic performance, leadership skills and teamwork, attendance in school, academic performance and decrease injury rates. Improving your physical skills can help with improving your athletic performance, which you would want if you are trying to be a three sport athlete. Improving your mental toughness can help with increasing focus and decreasing anxiety. Increasing your health and wellness means that your injury rates go down, performance athletically and academically improve, and you have better attendance at school. A decrease in injury rates obviously means that you get to play the sports more. Improving your leadership and teamwork means that you get to bond with your teammates and enjoy the time playing the sport. Better attendance at school means better academic performance which means you don't have to worry about being eligible to play based on your grades. Those are the pros of being a three sport athlete in high school.
The cons of playing multiple sports are that it takes time away from your main sport, injuries in backup sports, slower rate of improvement, burnout, and increased stress level. If you play multiple sports you won't have time to focus on your main sport, especially if you're a senior and want to go to college for a sport. There are two different types of injuries: overuse and chronic. Overuse injury is when you use a muscle or bone so much that it turns into an injury, usually by overtraining. A chronic injury is when you use a part of your body so much that it gradually turns into an injury. Examples of a chronic injury are stress fractures, shin splints, hamstring sprain. Usually when you are working on a skill it takes lots of time to perfect it which means it's usually in the offseason. And if you're always playing a sport that means there is no offseason which means there is no time to improve on your skills. Burnout is when you feel like you have no control over life because of your lack of social life, lack of enjoyment and lots of stress. Also playing multiple sports increases your stress level, the pressure to be great all the time from everyone around them. It can make an athlete devastated if they fail. Only focussing on getting better and neglecting other things in life leads to an unhealthy balance. Those are the cons of being a three sport athlete in high school.