Lots of people play sports. In fact, studies have found that nearly 25% of all people engage in a sport. This takes dedication, focus, sacrifice, and willingness to give your best.

Even doing one sport, it can be difficult to balance friends, school, homework, family, and the sport you play. It can be daunting to imagine having that much going on in your life.

But some people push past this and play two, or even three sports. Different sports take different kinds of skill. For someone to be successful in both basketball and football, they need to be tough and unafraid of contact to play Football. Along with immense hand-eye coordination to shoot a basketball. Although some sports may involve some of the same skills, they take different strategy and different kinds of athleticism.

It’s hard to imagine someone balancing everything, along with multiple sports, let alone having to practice and succeed at two entirely different activities. But there are lots of multi-sport athletes here at Rocky. How do they manage to succeed at two different sports while also keeping up with schoolwork, friends, and family?

According to Alan Stein, performance manager of Pure Sweat Basketball, “Anytime someone plays on two teams during the season, that’s just fraught with potential problems from an injury standpoint, from a commitment standpoint and for simply wearing out the body and mind.”

Freshman Hyrum Tuft runs cross country and track for Rocky but is also on a basketball team with his friends. How does he manage playing so many sports? “For me, cross country and track are similar enough that it makes it manageable. Plus they’re at different times of the year, so that helps. It would be hard to play different sports at the same time though.”

Sophomore Preston Houston, who plays tennis and runs cross country said, “Both teams are very tight knit and a lot of fun. I can do both because one is in the spring and the other is in the fall. Cross country compliments tennis well because it forces you to be in good shape. I love playing both because I get to compete for our school all year round.”

As students have said, it is much easier to do multiple sports if they take place and different times of the year. Balancing sports can be difficult, but as demonstrated by the people who do several sports, it is clearly doable with planning and commitment.