Playing 2 sports at the same time

G

GREATGHS

Member
Taking with some Strasburg fans at the boys IVC Championships made me wonder. Since a lot of Strasburg girls basketball players play basketball and then go to softball workouts after basketball practice. Does this happen a lot of schools?
This happened all the time when we lived in Oklahoma. Our neighbor girl would go from Volleyball practice to softball workouts then from basketball practice to softball practice. Wasn't sure how often this happened in Ohio??? Softball was very big in Oklahoma
Hasn't hurt Strasburg since they will probably win a basketball and softball State Championship
 
 
GREATGHS said:
Taking with some Strasburg fans at the boys IVC Championships made me wonder. Since a lot of Strasburg girls basketball players play basketball and then go to softball workouts after basketball practice. Does this happen a lot of schools?
This happened all the time when we lived in Oklahoma. Our neighbor girl would go from Volleyball practice to softball workouts then from basketball practice to softball practice. Wasn't sure how often this happened in Ohio??? Softball was very big in Oklahoma
Hasn't hurt Strasburg since they will probably win a basketball and softball State Championship
Click to expand...
Feel like this is relatively common. I've even seen kids do something like vball before school, school, basketball, softball.
 
My school has girls who play two sports in the same season. We had a girl play both golf and soccer this fall and another girl who played both soccer and volleyball. Not ideal but when a smaller school offers multiple sports in the same season you need to share kids to have teams.

Strasburg actually has a girl who does both basketball and gymnastics I believe.
 
BelowTheLine said:
My school has girls who play two sports in the same season. We had a girl play both golf and soccer this fall and another girl who played both soccer and volleyball. Not ideal but when a smaller school offers multiple sports in the same season you need to share kids to have teams.

Strasburg actually has a girl who does both basketball and gymnastics I believe.
Click to expand...
Getting fairly common at smaller schools D5 and below. Smaller percentages of students are participating in athletics, so fewer athletes are doing more. The soccer/football double is happening more often and not just with placekickers. Soccer/cross country in the fall and baseball or softball/track in the spring have been needed to fill out cross country and track teams. Still waiting to see my first wrestling/basketball double though.
 
GREATGHS said:
Taking with some Strasburg fans at the boys IVC Championships made me wonder. Since a lot of Strasburg girls basketball players play basketball and then go to softball workouts after basketball practice. Does this happen a lot of schools?
This happened all the time when we lived in Oklahoma. Our neighbor girl would go from Volleyball practice to softball workouts then from basketball practice to softball practice. Wasn't sure how often this happened in Ohio??? Softball was very big in Oklahoma
Hasn't hurt Strasburg since they will probably win a basketball and softball State Championship
Click to expand...
Yes, sadly this is common and it's just another place where I feel could be managed much better, for player safety and just overall health and well being. We live in an age where parents/ coaches just can't say no. To me, it's highly disrespectful to the coach/ players on your in season to do full workouts for another sport. What do we hear from many kids/ coaches/ parents this time of year? They are tired. Basketball is the longest season in high school sports, spanning nearly 4 months. In some months of these seasons, we have players practicing or playing games 6 days a week, THEN doing another sports workout on Sunday, or a couple other times during the week. What if you are a starter or play significant minutes for the varsity basketball team, and you get a finger clipped doing a softball workout? Or roll and ankle doing club volleyball and can't play? To me it's not worth the risk. We are at least a month from any softball games/ scrimmages being played. Just because we are short of players, coaches feel they must just lay down and allow the players to control the narrative. I just think it's wrong. I'm sure the volleyball coach isn't too keen on their big hitter playing basketball in the evenings a few times a week during volleyball season.
 
GREATGHS said:
Hasn't hurt Strasburg since they will probably win a basketball and softball State Championship
Click to expand...
Well, softball is a possibility.

Lady Tigers had a great season in hoops and the future looks bright.

The tournament is a different animal though.
 
Anyone who says that Strasburg was going to win a State Championship in Girls Basketball this year was doing so to try and give bulletin board material to another school or just really has no familiarity with OH Girls Basketball. While they were certainly a top 5 team this year in OH (D7) and it’s a shame that they had to play another top 5 team in a District Championship game - to expect them to beat the Waterfords and Fort Loramies of the world, even if they beat Hiland again, was unrealistic this year.

As far as the two-sport conversation goes….there is a difference in playing two sports at once and doing skill work for another sport while in-season with your school team. Any coach at a small school would be foolish to prevent their kids from honing skills for another sport, while in their season. However, as someone mentioned earlier in this thread - it’s not cool for it to be expected that it should be ok for athletes to go and compete during a sport and risk injury. There is a difference.

I wouldn’t use Strasburg as the model for multi-sport excellence quite yet. Although they had a great season and the future looks bright, it’s pretty clear that those girls haven’t been in the gym enough - shooting, working on ball-handling, etc - and that was the difference in yesterday’s game against Hiland, who is a program known for doing those things. While everyone knows that the girls at Strasburg are pitching, hitting, etc during the Fall and Winter - and many now have even being playing JO during the Winter - I think it is a small number of girls who have picked up a basketball during the Fall and Spring. You really can’t expect to win in the tournament in the Winter with that approach.
 
Last edited:
My school started allowing this last year. For perspective, we are a very small Division 4 school in football, volleyball, and girls and boys basketball. To add to that, we added bowling this winter. From what I've been told, we have not had as many kids take advantage of this as you'd think.

The cynic in me says that this is just a tacit admission that our athletic programs across the board are not as good as we'd like them to be. I also don't trust that in the future there won't be some sort of conflict among coaches about pressuring kids which is their "primary" sport and which is their "secondary" sport.

Take that for what it's worth.
 
14Red said:
Yes, sadly this is common and it's just another place where I feel could be managed much better, for player safety and just overall health and well being. We live in an age where parents/ coaches just can't say no. To me, it's highly disrespectful to the coach/ players on your in season to do full workouts for another sport. What do we hear from many kids/ coaches/ parents this time of year? They are tired. Basketball is the longest season in high school sports, spanning nearly 4 months. In some months of these seasons, we have players practicing or playing games 6 days a week, THEN doing another sports workout on Sunday, or a couple other times during the week. What if you are a starter or play significant minutes for the varsity basketball team, and you get a finger clipped doing a softball workout? Or roll and ankle doing club volleyball and can't play? To me it's not worth the risk. We are at least a month from any softball games/ scrimmages being played. Just because we are short of players, coaches feel they must just lay down and allow the players to control the narrative. I just think it's wrong. I'm sure the volleyball coach isn't too keen on their big hitter playing basketball in the evenings a few times a week during volleyball season.
Click to expand...
I feel this is a large clarification point. A lot of how I feel on this issue comes down to how intense the non-in season "practice" is. For example, during basketball season my brother would have basketball all week. Then one night a week starting in January the pitchers and catchers would get together to start working on pitching. Also starting around January the QB's would get together to do some brain work on FB with some walk thru stuff too. Then in basketball off season (outside summer) coach opened the gym up at 6 a few days a week for some just open play/open gym type stuff.
 
CedarBuck92 said:
I feel this is a large clarification point. A lot of how I feel on this issue comes down to how intense the non-in season "practice" is. For example, during basketball season my brother would have basketball all week. Then one night a week starting in January the pitchers and catchers would get together to start working on pitching. Also starting around January the QB's would get together to do some brain work on FB with some walk thru stuff too. Then in basketball off season (outside summer) coach opened the gym up at 6 a few days a week for some just open play/open gym type stuff.
Click to expand...
Believe me, I get it. Coaches want to get their "pitchers" ready for the season and start ramping them up. My thought is for pitchers expecially, that's a very leg heavy exercise and to be honest, me as a player, shooting a basketball and throwing a baseball are two completely different motions that use the same arm. I always felt throwing affected my shot, just like lifting weights. I think if your legs are in good shape, you can get ready to pitch in a few weeks.
Again with basketball, you have the starting running back, linebacker playing open gym some night and they roll their ankle or pop a knee, why?? The body needs rest. I'd just make a flat rule that if you are in season for a sport, you don't do other sports on off days or whatever. At least not promote it.
 
14Red said:
Believe me, I get it. Coaches want to get their "pitchers" ready for the season and start ramping them up. My thought is for pitchers expecially, that's a very leg heavy exercise and to be honest, me as a player, shooting a basketball and throwing a baseball are two completely different motions that use the same arm. I always felt throwing affected my shot, just like lifting weights. I think if your legs are in good shape, you can get ready to pitch in a few weeks.
Again with basketball, you have the starting running back, linebacker playing open gym some night and they roll their ankle or pop a knee, why?? The body needs rest. I'd just make a flat rule that if you are in season for a sport, you don't do other sports on off days or whatever. At least not promote it.
Click to expand...
I think as a whole we actually agree. I'm just willing to be a bit more lenient for non-contact type things. Some schools put way too much emphasis on coaches sharing the athletes equally year round and it doesn't really make sense.
 
Times have changed if this is what is really happening, playing a sport and practicing another at the same time? I attended a very small school. I ran cross country which is not a very demanding sport mentally or time wise. Yet, if I so much as sniffed an open gym to play basketball my AD or cross country coach would threaten to expel me from cross country.

We also had a rule that when your fall sport ended, you had to wait one week before you could begin practicing your next winter sport. One kid tried to sneak in and start the day after football ended, the AD made him sit out two additional weeks because he broke the rule if a week of rest between seasons.
 
D4fan said:
Times have changed if this is what is really happening, playing a sport and practicing another at the same time? I attended a very small school. I ran cross country which is not a very demanding sport mentally or time wise. Yet, if I so much as sniffed an open gym to play basketball my AD or cross country coach would threaten to expel me from cross country.

We also had a rule that when your fall sport ended, you had to wait one week before you could begin practicing your next winter sport. One kid tried to sneak in and start the day after football ended, the AD made him sit out two additional weeks because he broke the rule if a week of rest between seasons.
Click to expand...
In a way, I really think all that has happened is bringing what kids were doing on their own out into the light. Kids would leave FB practice and go home and work on their basketball shot. Once the weather broke, kids would be outside throwing the baseball and hitting up batting cages.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top