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Specialization Risks

July 21, 2014

Another informed and influential voice has joined our frequent refrain that sports specialization is rarely in a student’s best interest.

David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, offered an opinion piece for the New York Times last month that “hyper-specialization . . . is both dangerous and counterproductive.”

Epstein described the results of a three-year study at Loyola University of Chicago that found highly specialized youth had a 36 percent increased risk of suffering a serious overuse injury, including “stress fractures in their backs, arms and legs; damage to elbow ligaments; and cracks in the cartilage in their joints.”

Epstein continued: “Because families with greater financial resources were better able to facilitate the travel and private coaching that specialization requires, socio-economic status turned up as a positive predictor of serious injury.”

“In case health risks alone aren't reason enough for parents to ignore the siren call of specialization,” wrote Epstein, “diversification also provides performance benefits.” He cited “better learning of motor and anticipatory skills – the unconscious ability to read bodies and game situations – to other sports. They take less time to master the sport they ultimately choose.”

Classes or Divisions

April 4, 2014

Never is the continuous cycle of school sports more obvious to me than at this time of year. Just as winter tournaments conclude for 2013-14, we post the classifications and divisions for MHSAA tournaments in 2014-15.

Unlike many states which reclassify every two, three or four years, we collect enrollment figures each year and redraw the lines between Classes A, B, C and D each year in late March. And for all sports except basketball and volleyball, we place an almost equal number of schools that actually sponsor the sport into equal divisions – usually four divisions, but fewer for sports that are sponsored by a relatively small number of schools.

This traditional treatment of boys and girls basketball and girls volleyball – continuing with four classes rather than four divisions with an equal number of schools that actually sponsor the sport in each division – reflects that when last considered for change 17 years ago, there wasn’t much difference in the number of schools in the four classes vs. the four equal divisions in these three tournaments.

For 2014-15, of the 749 MHSAA member schools, 724 indicate they sponsor boys basketball, 716 sponsor girls basketball and 704 sponsor girls volleyball. (Among the sports in equal divisions, the most populous is baseball with 630 sponsoring schools.)

Last January, the MHSAA Classification Committee requested that staff provide the Representative Council what the numbers would look like for 2014-15 if these three sports were in “equal divisions” like other sports. The Classification Committee wasn’t recommending any change – just asking that the Representative Council see the numbers again.

  • In boys basketball, the number of schools in Divisions 1, 2, 3 and 4 would be 181, compared to 188, 182, 182 and 172 in Classes A, B, C and D, respectively.
  • In girls basketball, the number of schools in Divisions 1, 2, 3 and 4 would be approximately 179, compared to 186, 181, 182 and 167 in Classes A, B, C and D, respectively.
  • In girls volleyball, the number of schools in Divisions 1, 2, 3 and 4 would be approximately 176, compared to 186, 178, 180 and 160 in Classes A, B, C and D.

Obviously, every time more schools are placed in a division, the enrollment range between the largest and smallest school of that division expands. Therefore, a change to equal divisions places more schools and expands the enrollment range in the division of schools where enrollment spreads have the greatest impact - Division 4. It was our smallest schools that least liked the change to equal divisions in other sports 17 years ago. They would be the dissenters to this change for basketball and volleyball today.