Inside Youth Sports: Playing on Too Many Teams

Many young athletes enjoy playing different sports and often excel in more than one. Your child may have the opportunity to play in multiple organized youth sport leagues at the same time. This typically occurs when sport seasons overlap or different leagues in the same sport are scheduled to run at the same time. Examples of organizations that may offer sports participation opportunities include your child’s school, volunteer sports organizations such as the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) teams, local clubs, and local community developmental leagues.

As described elsewhere on this blog and in my book The Joy of Youth Sports, playing multiple sports is beneficial to your child’s development and health. But before you commit to more than one organized activity or team per season, also consider the potential negative effect on your child, your family, and the teams for which your child will play.

Participating in too many activities can potentially burn out your child’s desire to play, harm his or her academics, and also add stress to your family life (e.g. transportation, missed dinners, time away from other duties, etc.). Too many organized activities may also consume other opportunities for your child to enjoy sports—specifically the self-directed neighborhood pickup games that offer essential benefits.

Less obvious is the detrimental effect that the inevitable missed practices and games will have on your child’s teammates and coaches. These individuals may depend on your child’s presence for success. Not only do a player’s skills and talent contribute to the success of a team, but the player’s participation in practice also directly impacts the team’s play. This situation commonly occurs with the “star” athlete—the boy or girl who is good in multiple sports or wants to play in multiple leagues in one sport. This player will show up for a practice or two and some games (the ones that don’t conflict with their more important league’s games). Despite their individual ability, most coaches inevitably wish the boy or girl was on another team.

Good coaches grow their program throughout the year, building upon each prior practice and game. In each practice, they both address mistakes in the prior game and teach new sets, plays, and other more advanced team tactics. They want to work with players to overcome their individual weaknesses. They seek to establish greater team chemistry and bonding. Without your child’s presence at practices, a coach cannot accomplish these tasks and achieve the program’s desired goals.

Although you want to provide your child with the best opportunities, balance your personal interests against those of other parents, players and coaches. Two core values in sports, both at the individual and team level, are respect and responsibility. In team sports, players are responsible to their teammates and must respect their teammate’s needs as well as their own. As a parent, demonstrate and convey these values to your child by realistically committing your child only to teams on which he or she can fully participate.