Let's Play 2 (or 3, or 4)
February 16, 2012
A few conversations I had at last week's Women In Sports Leadership conference further affirmed a point I've been making for years -- high school athletes, if they'd like, shouldn't hesitate to play multiple sports.
Doing so does not hurt, but might just help their chances at landing that prized college scholarship -- on top of adding another layer to the high school sports experience.
Reaffirming this for me last week was Michigan State softball coach Jacquie Joseph, who spoke on that subject at the WISL conference. She's heading into her 24th season as a head coach at the Division I college level -- so she's been around for some of the evolution of both high school sports specialization and college recruiting. Plus, she coaches a sport that sees its share of athletes playing just that one.
Later, I spoke with a high school coach who leads teams in three sports and also played one at the Division I college level. She's a believer in this as well.
Some of the things I've been told over the years about playing more than one sport:
- It allows an athlete to learn more skills and hone more parts of his or her athleticism.
- Using another range of movement further helps condition an athlete's body and make it more resistant to injury.
- It's hardly rare to see a college football coach watching a prospect's basketball game -- coaches like to see how athleticism transfers across sports, and sometimes will see something from an athlete playing basketball that he didn't show on the football field. (Football and basketball are used in this example, but the same applies to a number of similar situations.)
- Athletes get an opportunity to play whatever they'd like only this once (unless they turn out to be that rare college athlete who takes on more than one sport at that level).
These are hardly new arguments. But they are always worth repeating -- especially when the people frequently making them (college coaches) are the ones single-sport athletes often are trying to impress.
Baseball's Record-Setting Spectatorship Headlines MHSAA's 2024-25 Attendance Report
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
December 12, 2025
An overall attendance record in baseball and several more all-time bests for specific rounds of other sports’ postseason tournaments kept attendance at Michigan High School Athletic Association events near 1.4 million spectators for the third-straight school year in 2024-25.
Total, MHSAA Tournament events drew 1,397,574 spectators at competitions for which admission is charged – which counts all MHSAA-sponsored sports except golf, skiing and tennis, as single tickets are not sold for those postseason events. The total of just under 1.4 million spectators is a decrease of 3.6 percent from 2023-24, but still the third-highest overall attendance over the last eight school years.
Attendance at girls events for 2024-25 was 453,320 fans, a 3.9-percent decrease from the 2023-24 record-setting total but the second-highest over the last eight years.
The boys attendance of 944,254 was 3.4 percent fewer than the previous year. However, baseball set an overall tournament record with 65,150 spectators, with records as well of 38,086 at the District level and 7,517 attending Quarterfinals. Every round of the baseball postseason saw an increase from the previous year.
Overall attendance totals for the ice hockey, team wrestling, gymnastics, boys soccer and girls swimming & diving postseason tournaments also were up from 2023-24. Ice hockey set records at its Semifinals (7,758 spectators) and Finals (7,857), boys soccer at the District level (18,219) and team wrestling also at its Finals (11,604).
Football remains the most-attended MHSAA Tournament sport and drew 361,139 spectators for its playoff series – a decrease of just above a half-percent from the previous year but with the highest Finals turnout (44,535) since 2019-20. Boys basketball attendance remained second across all seasons at 251,668 spectators, followed by girls basketball at 145,313 and girls volleyball at 110,927.
Track & field (41,418 spectators) and softball (47,763) posted their second-highest attendances on record after setting records during the 2023-24 school year.
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.4 million spectators each year.