“The Evils of One-Sport
Participation in High
School Athletics”
WIAA Coaches’ School
July 29, 2011
Coach Don Papasedero
They call me “Coach”
I have been blessed to have been in this
profession since 1974. I have been prodded,
pushed, and mentored by some of the most
skilled and passionate coaches our state has
ever produced. I consider myself a life-long
learner. I am fortunate to be asked to speak on
the unique and rare knowledge I have
accumulated…I have personal involvement
and passion for this subject.
I have coached baseball, men’s and women’s
basketball, women’s golf and especially football.
I wish I could say that I have “seen it all”…but I
am damn close to cataloguing the entire
spectrum of what high school sports has
entailed and offered.
“ I do not get ulcers…I give them”
Coach Don Shula
Why do kids participate in High School Sports?
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To have fun
To do something that I’m good at
To stay fit
To be part of a school activity (team)
My friends do it
My parents want me to do it
To keep improving and using my skills
To make new friends
It is “cool” to be an athlete in our country
I want to learn more about the sport
It may be a way to go to college
Why this Topic?
…we all have a problem
Kids are dropping out of sports at an alarming rate. In
Washington, the “numbers” have decreased 1-2% per
year since 2005.
The reason? What is this “Problem”?
One sport athletes!
Why this Topic?
…we all have a problem
Our programs no longer hold interest
• Too hard! too much time!
• Problems with coaches
• Peers quit…all sports
• Not fun unless I start...or “I am really good”
• D+A rules… “Why do I want more restrictions in my
life?”
Why this Topic?
…we all have a problem
•Parents want a singular focus to insure “what
is best.”
•Financial boundaries, either real or perceived,
are keeping players away from sports (gear,
camps, out of season teams, fees, etc.)
•Misguided adults encourage kids to
“Specialize” in a single sport. The pressure is
intense! The “big” sports are the hardest hit as
they demand the most time…
Why this Topic?
…we all have a problem
•The off-season is clouded. “Isn’t basketball a
winter sport?”
•Programs are competing for the athlete’s time,
commitment, and money. “Why do we compete
against ourselves?”
Two Schools of Thought:
“…I need better players…I have found that my
prayers work best when I have better players.”
Knute
Rockne
Or…
“If I knew for sure what this kid was going to do
in the future, coaching would be easy… This is
what I DO KNOW….he is 18 and in a few years he
has a great chance of being 20.”
Lou Holtz
Why are kids choosing to “Specialize?”
• They are convinced that putting all of their athletic
efforts into one sport will deliver them a scholarship,
all league honors, and a long term future in a single
sport. However, only 1 in 100 football players earn
scholarships! (CU 2008 study)
• American culture has shifted. High school sports
seem to be becoming devalued. The media has a
huge effect on this. We are finding high school
sports are not as “sexy” or attractive unless the
athlete is a “stand out”.
Why are kids choosing to “Specialize?”
• “Our team”... “Us”... Our familiar, local teams are
diminishing in importance when faced with the flood
of media coverage of the pro and college game.
• Parents are guiding their teenage athletes to ignore
the whole context of “youth” as an experimentation
time of life. They are brainwashing their kids into
viewing the teen years as “production” years that
will ensure their athletic future.
Why are kids choosing to “Specialize?”
• Out of season, club sports, can recruit and instruct
without regulations. Emotional blackmail… “How
badly do you want that scholarship?”
• Reluctance of teens to embrace a physical challenge.
Tougher sports like football, swimming, cross
country, and wrestling are really suffering.
Fueling this issue are some of the “adults” in
our schools and community…
phony coaches!
• Real coaches, (like us) regard our profession with
dignity. We recognize that there are a myriad of hard
earned qualifications, experiences and merits
needed to call yourself “Coach.”
• What are the qualifications of these club “coaches”.
At what level? Training? On field as a coach? Explayer? Dad?
Fueling this issue are some of the “adults” in
our schools and community…
phony coaches!
• MOST “coaches” that encourage kids to play one
sport are imposters! Somehow they manufacture
credentials, create situations that force kids to make
tough decisions, and fail to consider the impact on
other programs.
• These same misguided, phony coaches totally fail to
see the negative impact on the athlete as a person.
Our athletes are constantly evaluated by non-experts
who think they have the knowledge to judge…
Do you think that your choice to have kids
“specialize” is so superior?
These are the “good old days”
• Take a careful look at what the very best programs
in Washington are doing. With very few exceptions,
they encourage kids to play in other programs.
Hey, genius… you only get one shot at High
School sports…what if you, do specialize and…
• You fail to win, improve your standings, etc.
• The athlete does not letter, start, make allleague, receive recruitment, etc.
• All of your rhetoric about “110%”, “get better or
they will”, working from negative results in the
past to inspire, etc. FAIL!
Hey, genius… you only get one shot at High
School sports…what if you, do specialize and…
Playing on more than one team and more than one sport offers
critical life skills instruction to high school students. As a high
school coach you are accountable to teach:
•Leadership
•Respect for authority, rules, opponents and others
•Sharing
•Loyalty
•Tolerance
•Sacrifice-Risk-Reward-Celebration of honest effort
Hey, genius… you only get one shot at High
School sports…what if you, do specialize and…
• If a kid misses an opportunity to REALLY LEARN any
one of these concepts…because he is only on one
team, with one philosophy, I view this as an
inestimable loss…and it is on YOUR head!
There are only 3 ways to have a connection
with competitive athletics. Which are you?
a) Active participants
b) Fans…all they do is “share air”
c) Fans...who have some sort of playing experience
“when I was playing…”
“One of the greatest disappointments of a
football game is that the fans never seem to
get injured.”
Woody Hayes
The benefits of playing more than one sport
in High School seem obvious…but, let’s
review…
•Overuse injuries will decrease
•Involvement in many activities and sports supports
the educational direction of most schools, encourages
academic effort, and diminishes discipline issues.
•When kids are on teams, drug and alcohol violations
drop.
The benefits of playing more than one sport
in High School seem obvious…but, let’s
review…
•Improved athletic performance
•Players need less time to learn new skills
•Transfer of athletic skills is evident, especially
balance, eye-hand, coordination, appropriate CV
levels, flexibility, footwork, and spatial awareness
•Mental approach…expectation to succeed?
The benefits of playing more than one sport
in High School seem obvious…but, let’s
review…
• Students learn different styles of leadership and
teamwork. They are given different roles,
positions, focuses-of-concern and athletic
challenges. Goals change!
• Finding a niche, making the team, starting, etc, can
be learned in other sports. Every company in the
world is screaming for young people who are
proficient in many different things.
The benefits of playing more than one sport
in High School seem obvious…but, let’s
review…
• Can you remember the benefits that most of us
(adults) received?
• Our teams, coaches, variety of teammates,
competing with confidence…even failing, taught
us sooooo much!
• Success, traditions, high expectations, and winning
games are contagious.
The benefits of playing more than one sport
in High School seem obvious…but, let’s
review…
The first 3 questions a college recruiter asks:
1) GPA/SAT?
2) Character?
3) What are his other sports?
Papasedero’s 2010
College Football Players Survey
Thank you to all of the coaches, GA’s, directors
of football operations, secretaries, and media
specialists for helping me with this survey.
Athletes on the rosters who played another sport in addition
to football while in high school.
Northeastern
Assumption University
Colby
Humboldt
Central Washington
UPS
PLU
Montana State
Willamette
Eastern Washington
Linfield
University of Washington
Carroll College
Total
76/88
66/76
46/51
77/89
63/78
85/94
80/102
44/102
85/87
88/97
80/82
96/118
46/69
932/1132 82%!
Where Do We Go From Here?
• Hire coaches in your schools who are committed to
the health of the kids in addition to the health of his
program. (Note…any “coach” that is leading a
“club” team, summer AAU, “select,” etc. should be
thoroughly vetted.)
• Meet within your schools and create a summary of
qualifications needed for your fellow coaches. (AD’s
would love to share this responsibility.
• Try to hold a “Summit” meeting with the “club”
coaches to educate, investigate, and proffer
willingness to work together.
Where Do We Go From Here?
• Invite club coaches to collaborate. Let’s try to create
community partnerships. If these phonies won’t
cooperate…take away field and gym use. Starve
them out!
“…we should have invited all them %@!!*s to that
gun show we had last year. We could have
arrested all of them before they did their crimes! I
would show them what MY gang is like and how
to behave around here…”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio
(Arizona’s Chain Gang Sheriff)
Where Do We Go From Here?
• Find ways to celebrate and honor kids who play
more than one sport.
• Try to wipe out the “scholarship” fallacy.
• Use yourself as a positive example of having played
multiple sports. Tell your kids all that YOU gained.
Where Do We Go From Here?
• Here’s a sure fire way to bolster the attractiveness of
YOUR program…be VISIBLE!
• Visibility and active support for the other sports is an
easy way to show your players that we care about
them
• Players that recognize truth, empathy, honest
support, and acceptance of them as “people”, not
just “your” players will excel for your team.
Where Do We Go From Here?
• If you are modeling leadership correctly, then you
need to “BE THERE”. The other sports’ coaches will
see you attending….and supporting! They will
reciprocate!
• The community will also “see you there” and
celebrate your dedication to their kids.
Where Do We Go From Here?
•Here’s another sure fire way to bolster the
attractiveness of YOUR program…be organized and
exacting!
•If you want to make your program as attractive as the
sports that are drawing kids “away”… you need to be
definitive about what you can offer them…Success!
•It should be part of your own job description is to set
exact commitment levels for your athletes.
•In-season
•Out-of-season
Where Do We Go From Here?
•Offer exacting ways to make commitment!
•Commitment to your athletic program is a direct result
of how attractive, honest, challenging, empathetic, and
fun the atmosphere you have created “around your
house.”
•Commitment to your program comes from your
athletes understanding that what you do everyday has
MEANING! It should not always correlate to your sport,
but it should always correlate to how being in a
competitive environment is the single greatest gift you
can offer to them.
“….do you want to know how you get your team
committed? The best way I know how to get my
guys committed is to win their hearts…teams
with a lot of heart usually have another
name….Winners.”
Coach Lombardi
“Shame to him that finds evil here.”
From Sir Gawain and The Green Knight
Contact Information
•Coach Don Papasedero
•dpapasedero@gmail.com
•don_papasedero@misd.wednet.edu
•(cell) 206-719-0492
•(work) 206-230-6347