In 2019-2022, according to The National ACL Injury Coalition, there were 8.3 ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries per 100,000 teen athletes in a group of studied sports. This rate is up from 6.2 in 2007-2010. Today in my 5 body points, I'm going to be talking about why this rate is growing constantly; the reason ACL injuries are becoming increasingly more common, the pressure on young athletes to commit to a sport, why committing to a sport can cause injuries more often, why kids get this idea, and what we can do to fix this issue.

First, why ACL injuries seem to keep getting more common. The rate of ACL injuries is higher than ever, contributing to 14% of all injuries involving the knee. This is not the only measure to show athletes are getting injured increasingly more often, but it is the one I will use. ACL injuries keep getting more common because there is pressure on young athletes to commit to a single sport. After all, we as a society are uneducated towards the fact that being a single sport athlete is horrible for development as an adolescent. This lack of education about diversification creates a pressure on young kids who are good at sports. This pressure on adolescent sports players leads me to my next point.

Next, the pressure to commit to a sport is the main reason diversification is slipping away from our youth. Many young athletes see college or outstanding high school students living the life they want to live. They see this and think that they need to commit to a sport to live this life. This is not true though because information directly from the NCAA website tells us only 7% of high school athletes go on to play college sports, and only 2% go D1, which is the highest level of college sports. The pressure on the students is not only by social media or their intuition, it can also be caused by coaches or peers. When coaches or peers see an amazing athlete in high school, they may prompt them to fully commit to the sport they’re great at. This is not usually the coach's fault that they are prompting the student to do something bad, they merely want the best for the player, but what they don't realize is that sticking to a single sport while they’re growing can cause lots of stress because everyone expects them to do good. This is also reflected in the peers, because they may start to take to these star athletes for guidance. This causes a tornado of stress on the student that can lead to many different problems in their personal life and future. There are also physical reasons that students shouldn’t commit to a single sport in high school, this is my next topic.

Third, the physical dangers of being a single sport athlete in high school. A study by Truveta Research from April 21, 2023, shows that with 3-4 sport athletes, their injury rates are magnitudes lower than single sport athletes. This is most likely on behalf of the fact that when athletes only play a single sport in their adolescence, they only develop certain muscle groups and then when they do get injured, since they only developed those muscles, their injuries are much more serious and can take so much longer to heal. This also means they're only training in 1 or 2 seasons of the year, which means they’re not getting the same cardiovascular training year-round. Another study by the National Federation of High School Associations found that in single-sport athletes, lower limb and body injuries are 70% more common than in athletes who play 2 or more sports. This further goes to show that specializing in a single sport in high school is not a great idea, so we should look at what leads kids to believe that it is a good idea.

Next, the reasons kids have this idea that they need to specialize so early. In a study named Single Sport Specialization: NCAA DI Collegiate Student-Athlete Perceptions by Jordyn Blood from Eastern Illinois University from July 2020, A group of 138 college athletes were surveyed. In this study, 68 college athletes said they started specializing in a single sport at an average age of 11.54 years old. This is very scary because this just shows how early these kids are taught that they need to specialize in a single sport to go to college for it, even though there was almost an even amount of kids who specialized early versus the amount that only specialized in college. If a kid hears that if they want to go to college for a sport they have to specialize in that sport, they're gonna listen because they’re not smart enough to realize that it can have repercussions. This isn’t their fault though because that idea makes sense. The thought that someone needs to only train one sport makes lots of sense because if a person trains a lot they’re just gonna be better than everyone else who doesn’t train as much, right? These common misconceptions get blown out of the water due to these kids being so young and not understanding the effects specialization can have on their bodies when they’re young. So let's look at how we can fix this problem.

Finally, here is what we can do to fix this issue in our young athletes. We need to change the mindset in our children that they need to specialize because it can lead to devastating injuries and issues down the line. We should start by making sure these kids know that they most likely will not go D1 or to the league as this is the most dangerous factor to adolescent sports development. Second, we should warn them about the dangers of being a single sport athlete and promote diversification lots more, such as shouting out students who do well in multiple sports, and not just one. Finally, the biggest step we can take toward our goal of making this generation and generations to come diversified sports freaks is just acknowledging that specialization isn’t all bad and that we need to let our kids decide if they want to commit to a sport, whether they want to take that risk of injury to possibly be that much better. 

All this research and evidence just shows why diversification of physical activity in adolescence should be pushed more, because of the ACL injuries, the pressure on young athletes to specialize in a sport, the dangers of being a single sport athlete, the reasons kids have this idea that they need to specialize so early, and how fixing it would affect our children. I think the biggest piece of evidence as to why specialization is a bad thing, is the increase in ACL injuries and the pressure on young athletes to get good at a single sport. This was all my evidence to show that diversification needs to be more common, and the delusion about being a professional athlete needs to be brought to attention.