I was speaking with a couple of coaches in the northeast Ohio area who were complaining to me about the effect AAU basketball has had on their program. Now, I'm sure everyone has heard this refrain before, but these complaints weren't coming from basketball coaches talking about the "sanctity of the game" and all of that nonsense.
These were football guys who are saying that many of their best athletes also play high school basketball during the winter and AAU basketball during the spring and because of that they're missing out on a lot of the winter and spring lifting that their teammates are involved in. Not all of them obviously, but enough that they're not getting the full benefits of an offseason's worth of lifting and conditioning.
I wanted to hear some thoughts from the board on this. Is Ohio, or really the country, headed for a situation where athletes are going to be forced to specialize in one sport to continue to stay elite and ahead of their peers? Is this is an issue anyone else has found at the high school level?
These were football guys who are saying that many of their best athletes also play high school basketball during the winter and AAU basketball during the spring and because of that they're missing out on a lot of the winter and spring lifting that their teammates are involved in. Not all of them obviously, but enough that they're not getting the full benefits of an offseason's worth of lifting and conditioning.
I wanted to hear some thoughts from the board on this. Is Ohio, or really the country, headed for a situation where athletes are going to be forced to specialize in one sport to continue to stay elite and ahead of their peers? Is this is an issue anyone else has found at the high school level?
