With high school sports becoming more and more important to student athletes in Michigan and across the country, the number of students that are specializing is on the rise. Specialization is when a student athlete spends his or her entire year focusing on one sport, this means year round conditioning, practicing, and other forms of training, all to prepare for one single sport. The main reason that student athletes specialize is the belief that by specializing, a college scholarship will be firmly in their grasp.



A problem with specialization is that it’s not always the student’s choice. Many student athletes are pushed to train year round for their sport by their parents, whether it’s for a scholarship, or to relive their athletic days through their child. Unsurprisingly, the Michigan High School Athletic Association strongly discourages specialization in any form.



“It’s the kid’s life,” MHSAA Executive Director Jack Roberts stated simply. Roberts said that if the student wants a scholarship, then they should push harder in their academics, because there are 70 times more academic scholarships than athletic scholarships. “Parents would be much better off driving their child to the library, not the playing field,” said Roberts.



Not everyone sees specialization among high school athletes as a bad thing, though. “Specialization is good to a certain degree,” said Alisa Wulff, a college junior and a member of the Michigan State women’s basketball team. “By the time you reach high school, you should know what pathway you want to take and what sport you want to do,” added Wulff. She also thought that specialization before high school isn’t a good thing because it can lead to some athletes burning out in high school or college.

“I don’t like it because kids are usually pushed by their parents to specialize,” said Tara Yeske, athletic trainer at ERHS. “They’re just asking to get burned out, it’s a lot better to cross train and work out different muscles.”



No matter how heavily discouraged specialization is, there will still be athletes that do it, a handful of them will get scholarships, the rest will go home empty handed. Executive Director Roberts believes that “all kids should play for fun, friendship, and fitness, parents should remember that they play for those reasons, not for scholarships.”