As tryouts wind down and final rosters are being made for spring sports, a handful of Redwood athletes head from the hardwood to the field with no break in between seasons.
Due to overlapping schedules, basketball playoffs coincide with tryouts for spring sports. Ultimately, athletes intending on participating in both miss recognition from coaches, preseason practices, and fall behind their teammates.
“It’s a hard situation because the end of basketball season is the biggest time of the year, but it’s also the start of soccer, so it’s hard to do both,” said senior Chace Schornstein, a four-year varsity basketball and soccer player.
Once a winter sport ends, athletes begin attending practices as their tryout for their spring sport. However, in that limited time, their skills are not fully showcased.
Junior Brian Heck, who is currently playing his first season of varsity baseball, played JV basketball his sophomore year. With hopes to make varsity baseball, playing basketball created a disadvantage.
“If you play multiple sports, the coaches expect you to be there year round, and they take into account if you’re not at a practice when other kids are because you’re playing another sport,” Heck said. “I came into the season a week late which hurt my chances of making varsity.”
According to senior Oliver Madison, who completed his first season of varsity basketball and is entering his fourth of lacrosse, winter sport participants still in season are allowed to attend captain’s practices and other unofficial forms of conditioning for the following season with their coach’s permission. However, they cannot attend official practices due to injury liability issues.
“It’s a little hard seeing my lacrosse team out there and wanting to be with them, but knowing that I still have to be at basketball, even though I love my team, is tough,” Madison said. “But they obviously don’t want you to get injured in the sport that is just beginning once you’ve played through the whole season.”
In the time leading up to tryouts, Madison believes training individually improves one’s chances for playing spring sports.
“Do as much as possible that you have time for without wearing yourself out,” Madison said. “Especially if you’re coming off a season, it is a very long time to play and you do get very tired. And obviously there is a transition time, but coaches know that, and they won’t cut you for that.”
For Schornstein, there was no transition time last week. Even though her basketball season ended on last Tuesday, she played in her soccer team’s first game on Wednesday.
“The transition is a challenge because the sports are different and the team dynamic is different,” Schornstein said. “But it’s also fun because you’re moving from something you love, but you’ve been doing for a long time, to something new.”
With various sports requiring different conditioning, suddenly beginning the next season’s sport can lead to issues.
“It took me about a month the get my arm back into shape for baseball because I had basketball all the time,” Heck said. “It’s difficult because you’re not used to playing that sport.”
However, playing multiple sports prevents repetitive stress injuries by working different muscle groups.
“It also helps prevent people burning out by focusing on one sport their whole life,” Schornstein said. “Having basketball for four months at a time lets me take a break from soccer and do something else that I love, so when I come back into soccer I’m super excited for it.”
In many instances, athletes quit one sport to focus their attention on another one. Madison did not play basketball his junior year because of his lacrosse team’s potential.
“That was the year where we were going to do what we wanted to do,” he said. “It was one of those years that I decided I would put all my time and energy on lacrosse and really focus on it. I was able to practice every day to the start of the season which really benefited me.”
Similar to Madison, Heck did not play basketball his junior season in order to focus on baseball, but plans on joining basketball his senior year.
“I definitely would have lost playing time if I had played basketball because I wouldn’t have even started playing baseball yet, and it’s already two weeks into the season,” Heck said. “But since I didn’t play basketball this year, I’ll have a lot of catching up to do.”
Schornstein has also contemplated playing only one sport.
“I considered quitting basketball during my underclassmen years. But basketball is a good break from me, and this year was my most fun basketball season played at Redwood.” Schornstein said. “Quitting would have helped me and been a good decision for soccer, but because basketball has been so fun and I’m going to miss it.”
