I hear more people are saying, “If you play a sport, you become a good athlete. If you want to be an elite athlete, you need to play multiple sports”. And one even said that you need to play multiple sports by the age of 13.

According to National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS), 40 million children play sports each year. But when they become 13 years old, 70 percents of them quit playing sports because it is not fun anymore. 

This study might explain why they are recommending to play multiple sports by the age of 13. And here is my experience. 

AAA

When I started playing baseball for the first time, I was placed in AAA division at the Little League after the tryout. I remember I was 10 years old. I loved the games and practices. There is little bit of discipline, but there are a lot of encouragement from coaches and other adults. Overall, it was PURE FUN. 

Junior 

When I returned the little league from Japan, I was 14 years old, and I was placed in the Juniors. Many things were different. The coaches expected us to behave and perform better. My coach was the one of nicest coach, so we received a lot of encouragement and appraisal a lot. But when we didn’t perform well, we’ll get yelling by the frustrated coaches.

All Stars

This summer, I was selected in the All Stars after little league season was over. During the meeting before All Star practice started, the coaches told us that “In the little league, we hope every players enjoy playing baseball. That was the goal. In All Star, our goal is to WIN, not to have fun. So some players might be all ways benched and not be able to play the game.”

The higher the division goes, there is less in focusing on having fun, and coaches expectation got higher. And we received more yelling. This my experience supports the National Alliance for Youth Sports study. I still enjoy playing baseball, but some players might felt NOT FUN TO PLAY SPORTS ANYMORE.

That might be why many people recommend to play multiple sports since young age while coaches are focusing on player to purely have fun.