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Whether it comes from fellow students, fans, colleges or entire communities, the mantra is the same: The only way to earn a college scholarship – and maybe have a shot at becoming a professional – is to specialize in one sport.
But a nagging question persists: do children who concentrate on one sport suffer more injuries than those who play more than one?
Dr. Jon Divine, a professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, said medical professionals have known the perils of overuse injuries for a long while.
“Where did it come from? I think just more of an increased, repetitive awareness about specialization in kids early in their athletic careers,” Divine said. “The rate of overuse injuries really hasn’t declined yet in that subgroup or adolescent population.”
Holy Cross girls basketball coach Ted Arlinghaus said there isn’t automatically a correlation.
“Not necessarily more or less injuries; we’ve seen more ACL (anterior cruciate knee ligament) tears with the single sport,” Arlinghaus said. “But I don’t know if that’s necessarily related; it could be.”
Newport boys basketball coach Rod Snapp thinks playing multiple sports is a good idea.
“And the way I look at it is for them to stay in shape, to stay engaged, to … keep their grades up to par; you need to keep them busy in a positive way during school,” Snapp said. “The only thing I can say about the single-sport thing is, if you really feel like you can go and play somewhere, you’re gonna get a scholarship, you’re gonna play at a decently high level, you need to go all in on that sport.
“ … You need to be in a gym five to seven days a week, and doing weights, where you’re doing plyometrics and stretching.”
‘Fear of falling behind’
Divine believes there’s definitely a trend.
“The fear of falling behind is a genuine concern,” Divine, who is also the head team physician for UC Athletics and Director of Primary Care Sports Medicine with the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, wrote in a January article for the National Federation of State High School Associations (bit.ly/4sG2nZk). “But what if that advice is wrong?”
“The downside of sports specialization, especially in early adolescents, has a growing body of research evidence that early specialization results in more harm than good to younger athletes.”
Holy Cross junior Alyssa Arlinghaus focuses on basketball and plays soccer. She has dealt with soccer-related injuries (and none on the basketball court), and she knows someone who specializes in basketball and has battled multiple ACL tears.
“There haven’t really been big serious ones, but this past year I suffered from Achilles tendonitis, and the two years before that, I’ve had hip problems,” she said.
Jordan Wilt, a St. Elizabeth Healthcare athletic trainer, has worked with Simon Kenton athletes a little more than three years. He said playing a sport with little rest can be a cause for injuries.
“It’s more just constant sport play, practices, whatever it is, year-round training,” Wilt said. “Kids … finishing one sport in the fall, jumping right into their winter sport and then jumping into another spring sport.”
Overuse
Divine defines “sport specialization” as more than simply liking more than one activity. He said there are three core elements: intensive, year-round training in one sport for more than eight months a year; quitting other sports to focus exclusively on one; and starting young, a significant concern for children age 12 or younger (typically in the seventh grade).
In a March 2026 article in the journal Pediatrics in Review (bit.ly/41KPUZj),Dr. Nailah Jepera Coleman of the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, concluded that 50% of sports medicine visits for overuse injuries are common in pediatric populations.
“These complications can also lead to attrition from sport and exercise,” Dr. Coleman wrote. “Seventy percent of youth discontinue their organized sport by 13 years of age, some of which may be due to overuse, overtraining, and burnout.”
There’s also a mental health component.
Divine wrote that the injuries to athletes who specialize are not acute traumatic events, “but rather injuries that result from repetitive micro-trauma to bones, tendons and joints without sufficient time for recovery.”
“We always come across a kid, once or twice a year, under 16, that has an overuse injury, that for whatever reason, we throw the book at, and it’s not getting better,” Divine said. “About the second or third visit, he or she and I have a heart-to-heart chat to say, ‘Do you really want to go back?’ And about half of them don’t.”
Delay, rest, recover
In 2019, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) published six recommendations (bit.ly/429ytBX) to help young athletes stay healthy and mitigate the risks associated with specialization. They include:
• Delay specializing: Wait as long as possible before focusing on a single sport. Strive to participate in or sample a variety of sports.
“A lot of these kids feel like they have to make a decision way before they probably should have to make a decision about being more specialized,” Highlands head football coach Bob Sphire said. “… Probably those decisions shouldn’t be made ‘til after their sophomore years as far as whether they’re gonna be scaling down and being a little bit more specialized.”
• Play for One Team at a Time: Avoid playing for multiple teams in the same sport at the same time. The total volume of organized participation is a major risk factor for injury.
• Take Time Off: Do not play a single sport for more than eight months per year.
Brady Jones, a St. Elizabeth trainer at Covington Catholic, said athletes who specialize in one sport should take at least two weeks off from training after the end of a high school season – advice he believes most athletes heed.
“You always have some outliers, but generally for the most part they do listen, especially when I talk to the parents,” Jones said.
• Follow the Age Rule: The young athlete should not participate in organized sports for more hours per week than their age. For example, a 14-year-old should not participate in more than 14 hours of organized sports per week.
• Rest (Two Days Per Week): Take at least two days off per week from organized training and competition to allow for physical and mental recovery.
• Recover (After Each Season): Spend time away from organized sport at the end of each competitive season to recover physically and mentally, which helps prevent injury and burnout.
“I would think one of the other factors is, are you doing any other type of strength training conditioning for those other muscle groups that aren’t necessarily getting used by your sport-specific muscles?” Ted Arlinghaus said.
Alyssa Arlinghaus has some advice for grade-school athletes: try a little of everything.
“I would recommend them trying out for as many sports as they can to see what they like,” she says. ”You never know that you’re gonna get hurt, but I think it can prepare you and help you from preventing more injuries in your other sport.”