i chose D2 wrote:
I'd let my best high school runner miss a meet for another sport as long as he trained and showed up for the championship meets.
I think that middle school athletes should be allowed (and encouraged) to enjoy multiple sports. This of course means understanding that they will have time conflicts and miss meets or games sometimes. At that age, the benefits of having a safe environment to be competitive with teammates far outweighs any benefits of exclusively focusing on one sport.
But I disagree that high school athletes should be allowed to miss track for another sport. I would cut any athlete who prioritizes another sport over track. At that age, they should be learning that being part of a team is a commitment to their teammates.
In some districts, the alternative is that half of your track team is doing year-round club volleyball or soccer and missing most of your meets. IMO, at this age they should be encouraged to do other sports outside of track season (or cross country if they're a distance athlete), but they should be focused on one sport per season.
I have coached on a track team where the head coach allowed the athletes to skip track for soccer, basketball, volleyball if he thought they would quit track otherwise, and he wanted the points. The result was that the kids who did not do those other sports took notice and many of them became much less committed and flaky. Some of the kids that remained dedicated became frustrated and upset that their relay teammates who did multiple sports were letting them down. Some kids were also very upset when they were scoring points in varsity during the year, but then in the league championships, they were bumped out of the entries for some races (we were only allowed a set number per event) for kids who had been at other sports during the in-season meets.
I think those are the wrong lessons to teach in high school.