Fit for Play
TITLEIST PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE
Variety HOUR
by BHRETT MCCABE, Ph.D., sports and performance psychologist / licensed
clinical psychologist, with TOM CUNNEFF
THIS SPRING’S MASTERS
VICTORY by Jordan Spieth might lead
you to believe that the 21-year-old phenom
did nothing but play golf all his life to achieve
such major success at a young age. In addition
to becoming the second youngest Masters
champion (behind Tiger Woods, who was 21
in 1997), Spieth also made history at the 2013
John Deere Classic when, at 19 years and
11 months, he became the youngest champion
on the PGA Tour since 1931.
But the truth is that Spieth was a multisport
athlete growing up in Dallas who excelled not
only at golf but as a high school basketball
player as well. He also played baseball and
soccer. Yes, I’m sure he spent more hours on
the practice range than the average kid, but
he’s also very well-rounded and mature beyond
his years. Right after winning the Masters,
his dad said, “Go out there and thank the
crowd,” evidence of tremendous balance in
that family.
Balance and variety are the keys, but in
the last 10 years, there’s been a dramatic shift
in how young athletes develop and train. In
order to gain an edge, they’re focusing on one
sport year-round. Truth be told, this approach
can be very detrimental in the long run both
physically and emotionally. We know that
kids who specialize early have an increased
risk of overuse injuries; sports medicine-based
organizations are very concerned about it and
rightfully so. Ultimately, not only are kids
risking overuse injuries by specializing, but
they’re also never getting time off to recover,
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both psychologically and physically. It’s a case
of more and more being a little bit better. The
next thing you know, you’ve got a kid who is
running ragged.
The problem is that specialization works
only up to a point, particularly when kids are
younger. Take golf, for instance. If you have a
14-year-old kid and all they do is play golf—
they’re constantly at the range working—and
they go play in a tournament against a kid
who’s playing basketball and baseball, who’s
going to win? Given that dynamic, there’s
no doubt the kid who specializes in golf will
come out victorious.
Now, the research questions are: First, where
does the transfer to the course under pressure
occur for the kids who don’t specialize but are
well-rounded? Secondly, where do they catch
up and surpass (or do they) the kids that early
specialize? There’s no doubt that many kids
who overspecialize will burn out at some point
and have overuse injuries. One recent 10-year
study of kids who dropped out of sports found
that early involvement and specialization
actually lead to higher rates of psychological
disengagement from the sport. This is the
primary reason that young athletes transfer to
other sports or opt-out altogether.
LINGERING LIFE LESSONS
It’s been my experience that kids are much
better off playing a variety of sports. If a
growing boy or girl focuses only on one
sport and becomes so good, when do they
ever learn to lose? When do they learn to
struggle? Where do they learn humility?
Where do they learn to deal with frustration?
It’s through those struggles that we learn to
find pathways to success.
Let’s take a kid who is a superstar on the
tennis court, but is also playing baseball, and on
the diamond he or she is a third outfielder and
not excelling as quickly. How do they handle
that? There are a lot