How playing multiple sports made Patrick Mahomes the QB he is today

G07KeeperMom said:
I thought this was a great article - makes a lot of great points about the cross training skills that are acquired from playing multiple sports.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/01/30/patrick-mahomes-became-nfls-best-quarterback-by-refusing-specialize-football/?fbclid=IwAR0s0zhg_Sa553aBIQw4G5lljvipuAc_pszKNknWxrmHCuIbCr3fRTn5zbU
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Yup as discussed in this thread:

Zion Williamson Back - 1 sport specializing is dangerous

Great debut back for Zion and fantastic to see him on the court. If you haven't seen the highlights on Youtube from yesterday's game, check them out. 6'7", 285lbs beast. Just wish he played for the Raptors. Let's hope he stays healthy, otherwise he will be another PRIME example of how...
www.socalsoccer.com www.socalsoccer.com
 
Step One: grow to be 6’3”, 230#.

Step Two: be an athletic anomaly. (“You look at someone like Patrick,” Cook said, “and he just breaks physics.”)

Step Three: play multiple sports and if a coach questions it, tell coach to look at Steps One and Two (especially Two).

I’m a big fan of kids playing multiple sports precisely because virtually all of them are not Patrick Mahomes (or Mike Trout or Steve Nash or LeBron James or Abby Wambach - all multi sport athletes people like to mention) but those kids are not going to win a Super Bowl because they play multiple sports but they may be happier. But there are also a lot of great, even elite, athletes who are not the level of the über elites and it bothers me that articles are written about players like Mahomes as though they are representative of anything but the rare athlete who “breaks physics” (espn.com had one on a soccer playing HS basketball player. Of course, she’s the #2 recruit in the country) as a suggestion that any good athlete can do what Mahomes did without acknowledging the impact on their futures (and to ignore that impact is to ignore the structure of elite youth sports today. Certainly worthy of criticism but it should be addressed to present a more fair picture).

(To be clear, I’m not bothered by the original post but by the underlying theme of profiles like the article)
 
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure the article suggests that playing multiple sports will make any child a "Mahomes" level athlete. That said, I do like the discussion of the various skills he was able to pick up from other sports and bring into his football game (creativity, blind passing, versatility in leadership, etc.).

Oops! I didn't realize Mahomes was also discussed in the Zion Williamson thread! My bad!
 
G07KeeperMom said:
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure the article suggests that playing multiple sports will make any child a "Mahomes" level athlete. That said, I do like the discussion of the various skills he was able to pick up from other sports and bring into his football game (creativity, blind passing, versatility in leadership, etc.).

Oops! I didn't realize Mahomes was also discussed in the Zion Williamson thread! My bad!
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I actually think sharing these articles are good b/c the discussion is important. And I completely agree with the points you make here. You are not saying that anyone will become Mahomes b/c she or he plays multiple sports but I do think that is the theme of these types of articles. But it is just not really accurate - or at least overly-simplistic. If you are a great girl athlete and playing multiple sports means you can't play, in the case of soccer, ECNL or GDA because you are playing lacrosse or swimming or field hockey or softball, and b/c of that you miss the prime fall and spring showcases + national playoffs + your team is just not going to be "watched" at the same level as even mediocre teams in the proper alphabet soup of organizations, you will be putting your college hopes on camps - and while all coaches can give an example of a player recruited from a camp, those players are very few and very far between. So while playing multiple sports has benefits - maybe to everyone - doing so has risks for SOME athletes and I think these articles should not overly simplify (or even romanticize) the topic.
 
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