When a famous athlete was asked about his youth development, his response was;
"I played maybe 6 hours a week with my team, but I played 15 hours a week with my friends. You tell me who I learned more from."
Structured team sports are great for team development and player development, but they are not the only part of an athlete's success. Most successful athletes have a team of team coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, and technical coaches behind them helping them reach their potential.
You may have heard of the buzzword "Early Sport Specialization" and conventional wisdom would assume that this is the best way for your young athlete to have success.
But after doing a survey at the Olympics, researchers found that the vast majority Olympic athletes didn't start focusing on one sport until they were teenagers. And more so, the majority of Olympic medal winners did not focus on their main sport until around the age of 16. Is this correlation or causation? It is hard to tell, but there is a few theories that could have some merit. The first theory is that letting youth athletes play multiple sports gives the athlete multiple chances to see which sport that they excel at, and focus on that sport more once they have matured into more of the athlete they are going to be as an adult. Think about it like this, youth athletes often stop playing sports because they are not successful, but just because they are not successful at football does not mean they will not be successful at swimming or tennis, or vice-versa.
Another theory is that when athletes compete in multiple sports, they have a transference of skill. This means that some of the skills that they learned playing one sport can translate over to other sports that they play. For example, playing soccer and football can be beneficial because of the different types of spatial awareness and fitness needed for each sport.
So, what does that mean for youth athletes? It means to get the most out a young athlete's athletic career, they should be encouraged to try to play multiple sports, even if those other sports are just with their friends, or at an intramural level.
Happy Training!