Excuses, Excuses - Part 2

Excuse #2) "I want to focus on (fill in the blank) sport"
A) OK, this one really gets me.  What do you mean focus?   Because if you mean that you want to play that sport year around, I bet you are going to get real tired of that sport.  If you mean that you want to develop your skills for that sport during football season, that can be done at the same time as football.  If you mean that the other sport that is not in season still requires all of your focus, then you better win a state title in that sport.  You know what, I've heard this tired excuse for about thirteen years now, and there have not been too many championships in these sports that have been focused on so much.  The exceptions: the years that I didn't get those excuses and boys played all sports and there were championships in ALL SPORTS, including football.
B) "Focusing" on a sport, I'm assuming, means that you want to continue to develop you skills so that you can become your best in that sport.  Well, I agree that you need practice to become great, but there is a point where it comes counter productive.  That's why all sports have an "off-season" mandated by the state sport agencies.  You need time for your skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems to recuperate.  This means continuing stimulation, but altering the methodology of training.  I would propose that playing football can offer that stimulation, keeping a player in shape and improving performance, while offering body systems a fresh training system.  Everything that we do in training for football can directly translate into individual athletic improvements in any other sport.  I also am willing to work with players that need some time with other coaches during football season.  Of course, it needs to be outside of football practice time, but I would allow it under certain circumstances as I support our players playing multiple sports.
C) Players of multiple sports are better athletes.  Is this because they are naturally better athletically and so play multiple sports?  Or is the fact that they play multiple sports and train for multiple sports end up making them into better athletes?  I don't know, I suspect it's a little of both.  What I do know is that I have always supported football players playing other sports.  They usually come back to football as good if not better than when they went to the other sport.  I also know that there are a LOT of professional athletes in every sport that were multiple sport athletes in high school.  In fact, and I haven't researched it, but I bet that more professional players played more than one sport in high school than only one sport.  Someone see if they can find out and let me know.  If it's not more, I suspect it's still much more than most people believe.
D) One final note.  I don't suspect our coaches of doing this, but there may be someone reading this from another school.  If your coach (football, basketball, baseball, track, soccer, or anything else) ever tells you "you will get behind if you play something else" or any other comment that persuades you to not play another sport, they are in the wrong.  This coach is only looking out for himself or herself.  You want a coach that will look out for you and encourage you to have a great high school experience playing whatever you want.  He or she should want the best players to play their best on all the school's teams.  If they are not looking out for you to have fun being a kid, and they are not looking out for the school's success, then they are looking out for themselves, there's just nothing left.

This is my opinion.  I have tried to think my argument through objectively, but I have not tried to locate any data to support (or refute) what I have written.  If you disagree, that's fine.  In the end, not wanting to play football so you can "focus" on another sport is just an excuse until you actually tried football to see if it is for you or not.

Well, I'm sure I have left out something, but I better wrap it up for today.  Tomorrow (I hope) I'm coming back with the conclusion of this blog series.  I will discuss "tradition".  It's not an excuse I hear often, but I do think it warrants addressing.  If there's anything else you would like for me to touch on, email me.  I'll see what I can do.