1 sport or 2? High schools encourage athletes to branch out

• Forty five percent of high school student-athletes are playing multiple sports, according to MHSAA study,
• Schools across metro Detroit have been recognized as “high achievers” for encouraging student-athletes to play more than one sport.

At 17, Drew Sikora signed a letter of intent to play college football, fulfilling a childhood dream. What helped him get there?

Playing basketball and running track and field.

Hitting the court helped Sikora’s hand-eye coordination and running track helped him with his speed on the gridiron. Those who lead the governing body for high school sports in Michigan want to see more student-athletes like Sikora.

Since 2016, the Michigan High School Athletic Association has surveyed hundreds of schools to learn how many athletes are choosing to play more than one sport. Turns out the percentage of athletes who are making that decision is growing steadily.

MHSAA’s annual survey reported that 45% of all student-athletes played more than one sponsored sport during the 2023-24 school year, compared with 43% during the 2017-18 season when the association started the survey.

The MHSAA started the survey as part of its effort to encourage athletes to play more than one sport to “prevent burnout and overuse injuries.”

It also strengthens athletic programs, said Geoff Kimmerly, the association’s director of communication.

“I think it’s helped athletic programs to thrive. You need help across programs, especially at smaller schools where you just don’t have as many athletes,” Kimmerly said. “But I think that at some schools, there has to be a philosophical move toward that. I think that’s what we’ve seen.”

High achievers

Sikora’s school, Gibraltar Carlson is among the survey’s high achievers — defined as “schools that exceed participation norms” — in metro Detroit, along with Hamtramck, Livonia Franklin, Warren Fitzgerald and Detroit Douglass. All have been in the top 10% in three different school years. Michigan Collegiate has been ranked in the top 10% for four years and Detroit Cody has been the most consistent for five of the six years.

“I think down here, it’s kind of a cultural thing to be involved,” Carlson athletic director Dan Kalbfleisch said. “My principal, my superintendent, really encourage our students to get involved in some way while they’re here. And so, once they get involved in one thing, they have fun and want to try other stuff.”

At Detroit Douglass, the state’s only all-boys public school, with an enrollment of 70, athletic director Pierre Brooks credits the students for their school’s success.

“I’m aware of that ranking, but I’m not surprised because being in such a small school, to me, it’s a true brotherhood,” Brooks said.

‘I believe that’s the culture we’ve built here …’

Over 68,000 student-athletes were accounted for in the survey. Fifty-five percent reported playing one sport and 32% played two at their school.

The combinations of sports varies but there are some trends. For boys, it’s football and basketball. Other sports include track and field, cross-country and wrestling. Girls tend to play volleyball and basketball, along with track and field, according to athletic directors.

Detroit Cody has nearly 600 students and offers 13 sponsored sports with the overall roster growing. The school started an Esports team in 2023 that has seven players and Cody is one of 18 schools that joined the Detroit Lions Girls High School Flag Football program this spring.

Antonio Baker, the school’s athletic director, said that “a large percent” of the student-athletes at his school are playing three sports throughout the school year to stay in shape, and that students play additional sports, in part, because of their coaches.

“Some of the coaches, they coach multiple sports, so the athletes move with the coaches from those sports, ” Baker said.

At Gibraltar Carlson, coaches serve as teachers, hall monitors and other roles for roughly 1,050 students.

“Can you build an environment at a high school where coaches collaborate and coaches support each other’s successes and coaches believe that a student-athlete can play multiple sports?” asked Kalbfleisch. “I believe that’s the culture we’ve built here in this building.”

A parent’s view

For Sikora, playing basketball and running track was really all about football.

“I know a lot of the skills and different sports transfer over,” Drew Sikora said. “Like, I know playing basketball is really helpful for a receiver of football. And then track helps a lot with explosive ability and all that stuff; and, obviously, helps with speed. So mostly, I’ve just been enjoying myself and supplementing for football.”

Sikora’s parents, Kent and Melissa, said all of that hard work added up to the moment he signed his commitment letter.

“It’s an opportunity for him to go be the best version of himself and go chase dreams that hopefully surpass everything that Melissa and I have ever done,” said Kent Sikora, 52, of Gibraltar.

It’s common for young athletes to specialize in one sport. Drew Sikora’s parents credit their son’s participation in football, basketball and track with making him a more well-rounded athlete.

“It helps him learn how to be a part of the team,” Kent Sikora said. Melissa Sikora added that her son avoided “pigeon-holing” himself.

That’s what DeMarko Thurman, a former Division 2 athlete, said he experienced when he played high school ball.

“I played basketball and I put all my eggs in one basket,” Thurman, 52, of Detroit, said. “But looking back on it … I totally regret not playing football. I kinda let my mom, (talk) me out of it, and then so it just kinda (became) tunnel vision with me.”

Thurman advised his 17-year-old son Jeremiah, who plays basketball, to branch out.

Jeremiah Thurman played a bit of football in middle school but focused on basketball. He didn’t get involved in another sport in high school until students at Detroit Douglass recruited him to participate in track and field. He was inspired by three seniors on the team who competed in the state championships.

“I saw an opportunity to learn from those guys because they were all really, really athletic,” Jeremiah Thurman said. He learned breathing techniques and leg exercises that he says improved his basketball skills. “I could definitely tell it was a difference. I actually felt a lot more athletic when I was playing track.”

But sports aren’t cheap. DeMarko Thurman, who works for the Ann Arbor school district, said he works multiple side jobs to cover the costs of in-season basketball and track and Amateur Athletic Union basketball.

“I have to work harder, too, in a different way to be able to support these things and at the same time, not set our family back,” he said.

Student-athletes will always specialize, athletic directors say, in hopes of getting noticed and playing at the next level. But the chances of becoming a professional athlete are slim, and playing different sports offers lessons.

“Play as much as you can and try as much as you can. Because you’re going to be coached by different people. You’re going to meet different kids. You’re going to be exposed to different backgrounds, and I think all of that is just so valuable to a kid growing up. … You’re gonna have to get along with different bosses,” Kent Sikora said. “You’re gonna have to get along with different employees and colleagues throughout your life. So I think that is the greatest lesson that you can learn by playing along.”

Eric Guzmán covers youth sports culture at the Free Press as a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support this work.

Contact Eric Guzmán: eguzman@freepress.com; 313-222-1850. Follow him on X: @EricGuzman90.