An all college football series of posts today starts out with this IndyStar.com article titled “Recruiting 101” by a former high school football coach who passes along his experience in what college coaches are looking for in high school football players. The article contains many interesting insights, including the former coach’s final one, which runs counter to the specialization of athletes that is the clear trend at most big high schools:
Regardless of position, it appears that in the recruiting of [big-time college football] players that being a multisport athlete at the high school level is the norm. I encourage athletes to play as many sports as long as they can. The benefits of multisport participation are many.
I went to one of the area’s big 5A high schools and only played one sport. I know then (and it was just at the beginning of the era of specialization, in the early 90’s), the coaches strongly encouraged you not to play multiple sports if they interfered with each other. You could play football and then a spring sport (baseball, track), but not football and basketball, or basketball and baseball. Or track and baseball. My brother is still in high school now and he has said in the past that the coaches expect you to pick one and stick with it, essentially devoting all your time to one sport.
I did go to school with a couple of guys that did go on to play college sports (and even the NFL and pro baseball). They split about even among the fall/spring dual-sport star and specialists.