During recent years, and mostly in larger metro areas, high school student-athletes have begun to specialize in just one sport and play it year-round.
In Sedona and the Verde Valley, though, multisport athletes make up the fabric of some of Camp Verde, Mingus Union and Sedona Red Rock high schools’ best sports teams. While it seems like the number of such athletes drops, their value to smaller schools remains high; they nearly rely on them. The student-athletes benefit, as well.
“To keep a kid’s interest and experience the whole high school experience and sports experience, I think they should have free reign in what they do,” Red Rock head girls basketball coach Dave Moncibaez said. “I think it’s important for a student and student-athlete to experience what high school has to offer and sports and all that stuff, because for a lot of these kids that’s it, it’s over for them.”
Sedona Red Rock’s girls basketball team went to the Conference 2A state title game, and all five of its starters participated in another sport in the fall season leading up.
In Camp Verde’s case, its softball team, which plays in the spring, made it to the Conference 2A state championship game. Two of its starters also played on the girls basketball team, which qualified for the state tournament. Four softball players participated in volleyball in the fall.
Two of the Cowboys’ starters on the baseball team also played football.
Two of Mingus Union High School’s top softball players also played basketball, and one played volleyball as well.
Schools with lower enrollment like Camp Verde and Red Rock naturally benefit from multisport athletes. According to Andrea Bagnall, Red Rock’s athletic trainer, of the 133 total students who participated in athletics during the 2018-19 school year, 68 played just one sport. Forty-eight played two, 16 played three and one played four.
“I think it’s extremely important. An athlete is an athlete,” Moncibaez said. “I like all my girls being committed and playing other sports, and I think it’s good for them. It keeps that competitiveness in them.”
The athletes themselves benefit from playing more than one sport, too. Multiple coaches in the Verde Valley said it helps keep the athletes from burning out while they play any given sport. It also prevents injury by not overusing muscles while creating a balance in strength.
Multiple-sport athletes are proven to be some of the best; 29 of the 32 first-round draft picks of the 2018 NFL draft were multisport athletes in high school, including eight of the top 10.
They also said their players may not be in shape for the sport they transition into, for example basketball to baseball or softball, but it does not take long to adjust. Some of the skills needed for one sport do translate to the next.
“When they come in they’re actually a little bit behind, but what they learned how to do, they learned to become an athlete, so they adapt pretty quick,” Camp Verde head softball coach Henry Smith said. “But by the end of the season or halfway through, they’re beyond or past everybody else because they know how to learn and listen and they’re better athletes.”
Of the three schools, Mingus is in a different situation. It has the largest population and competes in Conference 4A, classified as a “big school.” Many “big schools” are from metro areas like Phoenix or Tucson, where specialized athletes are more common than multisport athletes.
From a skills standpoint, a player who is all-in on one sport will likely be better at it than one who spreads themselves around to different sports. Mingus head boys basketball coach Dave Beery said having a mixture of players would be best.
“Here [at Mingus], what I like about it is, I do like having some kids that are basketball kids,” Beery said. “Strictly from a skills standpoint they’re probably going to put in more time, they’re probably going to be a little better skill-wise, and that helps you. But I am trying to encourage my guys to play another sport.”
Playing multiple sports does not just build a student-athlete physically. They learn skills and ideals that are useful in all facets of life. They gain experiences they perhaps otherwise would not have had.
“Just competing and being part of team, kind of those little intangible things that you don’t always think about,” Beery said. “Communicating with teammates, whether it’s on the field or on the court, you’ve got to know what the guy behind you or next to you is going to do. Otherwise, things don’t work out really well, it doesn’t matter what sport that is.”
The logistics in allowing high schoolers to play multiple sports year-round recently changed.
Last spring, Arizona high school athletics’ governing body, the Arizona Interscholastic Association, began allowing coaches to be in contact with their student-athletes year-round rather than only during their respective season.
Rather than creating club programs, finding other facilities and jumping through other hoops, coaches can outright coach their players all year. High school programs have practices, scrimmage other teams and go to tournaments, but players cannot be in two places at once.
Communication between coaches is a key factor in allowing the players to participate as much as possible with all of the teams. Naturally, when one sport’s specific season approaches, it takes priority.
“It’s important that we all work together as coaches, and we do that, volleyball, basketball, we work well together. I think we all have the same goal,” Smith said. “We’ll send messages back and forth, and at this point we’ve been doing it long enough that we all have an understanding and don’t have to say much.”
Red Rock’s girls basketball team enters a rebuilding stage after graduating the majority of a group that went to three consecutive state Final Fours. Having the opportunity to coach those players year-round will be beneficial when the regular season arrives.
“[Assistant coach Kirk Westervelt] really is that solid coach that’s willing to open up the gym for the girls and really pushes that drive for them, and just giving them those opportunities, which is keeping them in the gym,” Moncibaez said. “Considering that Sedona and our numbers, it’s small, he’s giving these girls these opportunities, which is definitely a big impact for the high school program.”
In many places, the high school multisport athlete common with past generations seems to be a dying breed. Verde Valley’s local high school sports teams thrive with them to this day.
