Essay On Sports Specialization

Ray Lewis once said, “Life is about being a versatile athlete and training in all realms of life”. Some people would beg to differ with Ray Lewis, as they are encouraging their children to choose one sport to specialize in instead of being a multi sport athlete. Sport specialization is becoming extremely common in young athletes and is having detrimental effects. Physically and psychologically, young athletes are suffering. Children are specializing in sports too soon. Sports specialization is intense year round training in one single sport. Specializing in a single sport often results in giving up other sports and activities (Jayanthi, Pinkham, Dugas, Patrick, & LaBella, 2013). The trend of specializing in sports became popular in the 1990’s when there was a shift into organized club leveled sports (Should Young Athletes Specialize, n.d.). Some degree of sport specialization is necessary for elite level skill development, which is why specializing is becoming more and more common (Jayanthi, Pinkham, Dugas, Patrick, & LaBella, 2013). Sports specialization in early to middle childhood has become increasingly common (Jayanthi, Pinkham, Dugas, Patrick, & LaBella, 2013). Kids want to specialize due to the fact that they want to be the best in their sport …show more content…
With the anxiety of failure so high in athletes they will do whatever they can to be perfect to escape critiques (Currie, 2010). Female athletes are more prone to eating disorders due to the fact that a lot are gymnasts, swimmers, divers, and dancers. These sports often emphasis appearance and size, and that psychological stress becomes too much (Athletes and Eating Disorders, n.d.). Eating disorders along with the other psychological issues young athletes suffer from are not easily identifiable, which is why they can end up being so harmful (Currie,