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Deion Sanders writes about choices

The McCormick kids of Simi Valley, Calif. -- Nicole, 9, and Jonathan, 12 -- play only soccer. Their mom, Maria, says she hopes that will help them "stay out of trouble and someday get them into college."

of early burnout" are the results of specializing too young, says Steven Anderson, sports medicine expert and chair of the academy's committee on sports specialization in children. "The returns for this early investment of time and energy do not seem to justify the costs."

According to the AAP, signs of sports overload include chronic injuries and illnesses, weight loss, sleep disturbances and falling grades in school. When any of these problems present themselves, Anderson says, "the sport, the intensity, the source of motivation and the fun level need to be closely examined."

The AAP's policy statement focuses on kids age 12 and under. It encourages them to play a variety of sports at least through elementary school and advises their parents not to become too caught up in producing the next Tiger Woods.

Even the incomparable Tiger, who began swinging a golf club soon after he could walk, "may have been even a better golfer if he spent time playing soccer or basketball in grade school," Anderson goes so far as to suggest.

But many parents -- not to mention their kids -- aren't convinced. They say focusing a child's time and effort offers a big upside: Children become experts at an early age in a particular game or skill. U.S. Soccer's Virgil Lewis calls the period from age 9 to 12 "the golden age" for youth sports because "it's amazing how quickly they can pick up the game."

But physicians and even coaches warn that's exactly why children need to diversify -- so they can mine a healthy range of activities in their early years of physical and social development without risk of early burnout or injury. Instead of building self-esteem and athletic prowess, they say, overzealous parents and overlapping seasons wear down today's budding superstars before they even have a chance to get in the game.

In today's goal-oriented, increasingly specialized society, it seems the real threat to some children's well-being are hard-charging parents intent on turning their kids into little champions. Headlines tell of rabid parents who make stage mothers of earlier times sound quaint. Last month in Reading, Mass., one father killed another on the sidelines of a pickup hockey game.

Far less extreme and more common are parents who simply want to give their children a head start toward sports success, possibly leading to a college sports scholarship. This is especially true if the child exhibits a bit of athletic talent early on.

"I'd love for him to get a scholarship," Dave Landry, an Internet executive in Vienna, Va., says of his 12-year-old son. Kevin is a Little Leaguer who plays baseball in the spring, summer and fall. "I know I shouldn't buy into that," Landry says, "but he's a good player."

And so he is. Under the lights one recent muggy night at a suburban baseball diamond, Kevin pitched a few innings, then moved to shortstop and later center field. His running catch finished off a 7-0 victory for his team.

"Sure, I wish I could play everything," says Kevin, who was an all-star in soccer before giving up that sport for baseball. "But I'm glad I'm concentrating on this. I think I can go a long way in this game."

Chris Ayers, whose son Brian, 9, recently quit baseball to play on an elite soccer team in Bethesda, Md., also sees the logic of lighting on one sport. "If you want your kid to get something out of sports, to play in a league that is worth something, you have to make hard choices," he says. "You have to make decisions that we never had to make as kids. You can't play everything anymore."

Summer hockey, fall baseball, indoor winter soccer, elite year-round teams that travel far from their neighborhoods -- these are all part of a new kidcentric culture in which specialization breeds success. Says sports psychologist Rick Wolff, author of Coaching Kids for Dummies: "Excelling in sports has become as much a part of the American dream for parents as getting their kids into the best schools and living in the best neighborhoods."

Ten years ago, Little League Baseball began "Second Season," with 350 leagues participating in non-traditional fall and winter play. Last year there were 2,342 leagues. Participation in off-season basketball programs run by the Amateur Athletic Union has tripled nationally over the past decade. The American Youth Soccer Organization has seen its ranks double in recent years, and "the great majority are playing year-round," a spokesperson says. In swimming, 40 new year-round clubs joined USA Swimming last year, and kids participating year-round rose by 10% while seasonal memberships declined.

Washington, DC high school basketball star Joanna Barnes, 16, decided in seventh grade to play hoops year-round, with an eye toward a college scholarship.

The stunner: 75% percent of those who play organized sports quit by the time they're 14, according to one study.

"Starting out, most kids just want to play. It's the parents who keep score," says Christopher Anderson, author of Will You Still Love Me If I Don't Win? "They can kill the love a kid has for a sport. Once that's gone, it's very hard to recapture it."

Not all parents are convinced their children are the next Michael Jordan or Marion Jones, but many hope a promising athletic career could lead to some needed scholarship money. In truth, less than 1% of kids playing organized sports will receive a college athletic scholarship, says the National Center for Educational Statistics. But that doesn't stop parents like soccer mom Maria McCormick from trying. She's on the road at least three days a week, 12 months a year, shuttling her 9-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son to games and practices. "They are both good players," says the Simi Valley, Calif., mother.

But McCormick insists she's constantly on the lookout for telltale signs of overdoing it. On the way to practice, she'll often quiz her kids, "Are you still enjoying this? All this soccer?" All she hears is a resounding "Yes!"

Tim Wendel is the author of the novel Castro's Curveball. His stories have appeared in The New York Times and Esquire.

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Different sports offer different values

Talk about athletic multitasking. "Neon" Deion Sanders is America's crown prince of playing -- mastering -- more than a single sport. The Washington Redskins football star, who often doubles as a pro baseball player, holds the distinction of being the only person on the planet to play in both a World Series and a Super Bowl.

How has he done it? Here, the Hall of Fame-bound father of three shares his passionate take on kids and sports.

By Deion Sanders

Choices shape a child's life: What will I have for lunch? Where will I sit in the classroom? Who will be my friends?

What sports will I play?

These days, parents want to take away their kids' choices when it comes to the games they play. I don't think it's fair. Let a child be a child. You don't want to minimize moments. You want to maximize them.

Right now, my kids play lots of different sports. My daughter plays softball. She loves flag football. My son plays football, baseball and soccer.

When I was growing up, I gave myself lots of opportunities to succeed. My thinking? If it didn't work out in one sport, I wanted to give myself more chances to be the best in others.

Parents need to make the major decisions that affect their kids' lives. But when it comes to play, they shouldn't discourage a broad approach. When a child wants to color, do you tell him to use just one black crayon? Parents who force their kids to play one sport are being narrow-minded. After all, our children don't take math class all day at school, do they? We let them take on algebra, sociology, sciences -- different facets so they turn into well-rounded human beings.

Playing sports is the same thing. Different sports offer different values. This helped me when I was young. In football, I had to be aggressive. In baseball,

I had to become a more relaxed person: calm, cool and collected. In basketball, I had to keep it going at all times. You can't take a break on the court. This prepared me for a lot of things in life, outside of games.

No one ever told me to stick with football and forget the other sports. As you grow older, if you start to dominate in one sport, it needs to be a natural process. Not a forced one. You need to grow into it. For me, it wasn't clear until I was in my mid-20s -- not 8 years old -- that I'd have so much success as a football player. And with basketball, I didn't even play on a formal team until middle school. But I still made all-state.

Parents are using their kids as a lottery ticket. Before all this money came along, moms and dads didn't go crazy at games. They didn't curse at their kids and get on them to play better. It was just fun. Now, there's a Yellow Brick Road, and parents think it's their ticket.

My mother was the type who just made sure I made it to practices and games on time. Parents now invest lots of money in intensive sports camps where kids spend all day zeroing in on one sport. I never went to any of these camps. Never. We did everything in our back yard. Our street formed a baseball team -- our street against another street. That evening, it was a different challenge with a different game. Football, baseball or basketball. Didn't matter.

If you outplayed the kids your own age, you got to play the next pickup game with kids three or four years older. You always had to keep up. It made you strive to get better. So the best "camp" was my neighborhood. That's where I learned how to play sports.

Photo credits: DAN MacMEDAN for USA WEEKEND (soccer girl), MARK FINKENSTAEDT for USA WEEKEND (basketball), BRAD TRENT for USA WEEKEND (Sanders)