Two-sport athlete Overn’s advice: Just do it
Ryan Crouser comes from a dangerous lineage.
When his uncle Brian Crouser, an NCAA champion at Oregon and two-time Olympian, set the collegiate record in the javelin with a 312-foot throw that sailed beyond the sector landing on track, the spear stuck in the rubberized surface as if it was a warning shot, which it was.
Not long afterward the sport’s officials decided to alter the balance of the javelin so it wouldn’t travel as far.
Ryan Crouser probably should have come with a warning sticker attached to him by the time he reached West Orient Junior High located between the towns of Boring and Sandy, Oregon on the way up to Mt. Hood.
Crouser grew up throwing the shot put from a ring built by his grandfather Larry Crouser next to his grandparents’ home. By the time the younger Crouser was in the eighth grade, he was sending the junior high implement careening off a fence past the border of the throwing area on a regular basis.
“That wasn’t too big of an issue,” Ryan
Crouser said, laughing.
But that same year, he launched a throw around 60 feet until it crashed through the roof of his grandfather’s garden shed.
“I had to go back the next day and fix that and that was my last practice there,” Crouser said.
Whether prompted by a knowledge of Crouser family lore, simple math or common sense, when the Prefontaine Classic relocated to Stanford in 2019 while a new Hayward Field was being built in Eugene, meet officials decided that the Stanford sector wasn’t large
My kid is baseball player, but he also wants to play basketball. Actually, he wants to run track and play football too!
How can I explain to a 10-yearold that if he’s serious about getting a baseball scholarship and someday playing in the big leagues, he has to pick a sport and specialize, perfect his skills and not mess around with other sports in the offseason? Because what if he gets hurt away from the ball field? What if coaches at the next level don’t think he’s taking baseball seriously? — VARIETY IS THE SCOURGE OF LIFE
If your kid wants to play, let him! And don’t get ahead of yourself. You’ve probably read before that fewer than 2% of athletes receive full or partial scholarships and fewer than 2% of college athletes go pro — though you also might be among the 55% of parents who think those stark figures don’t apply to kid.
So maybe you’re not moved by experts who warn against specialization even in high school, citing burnout and injuries from overuse and repetition. Because as far as you’re concerned, they’re
Austin Overn, who played four sports at Foothill High School, now plays baseball and football for USC.