How Multi-Sport Athletes Manage the Challenge

Nora Price runs at the Clash of the Classes meet on August 16, 2025. “I need the mental stimulation from basketball, but I also need the relaxation from track and cross country,” said Price. Photo Credit: Ellie Hege, Watauga Yearbook

Aspen Hickman, Staff Writer for The Powderhorn

For many students, competing in a sport is an important part of their high school experience. Sports provide extra community, as well as opportunities for students to exercise and compete for valuable scholarships. Most of the time, students compete in one or two similar sports, like cross country and track, so they can focus on one skill and perfect it. But some students choose to play two or more different sports, balancing time and skills between them. 

“I do basketball and I run, so that’s cross country and track. I do long distance in track,” said Nora Price, a sophomore. “Running, there’s a lot less that you’re thinking about. I feel like running is very intuitive. You just kind of run. But with basketball, there’s so much action to be processed. There’s a lot more going on in basketball.”

Since sports are a huge time commitment, many students only compete in one. Between school, homework, practice, extracurriculars, and sleep, student athletes are stretched thin. One such athlete, Crue Stoddard, is a senior who plays football, wrestles and runs track. He participates in track in the spring to become faster for football.

“[In football] we do a good amount of running. Most of our conditioning is with our reps, so we don’t do strictly running,” said Stoddard. “I play defensive end. It’s on the line. I was playing middle linebacker for most of high school, but this year we had to switch some things up. It’s the big dudes at the front. I’m a smaller dude, but I make it work.”

One of the main difficulties of playing two very different sports is the varying fitness and weight requirements that each sport needs. Wrestling, for example, demands specific weights for competition. 

“I’ve wrestled at a lot of weights, but this year I’ll be wrestling at 190,” said Stoddard. “Soon I’ll have to start doing some running and wrestling specific workouts, because wrestling shape is a whole lot different than football shape. Football shape is more short bursts and sprints. There’s a lot of endurance with that, but it’s a lot of short bursts, high intensity. Wrestling has a lot more endurance, and it’s high intensity too.”

There are benefits to playing multiple sports. Athletes are able to stay in shape throughout the whole year, and sometimes skills from one sport carry over into another. Endurance is important in almost every sport, and keeping up that endurance between seasons is crucial to start strong. Xitlali Luna, a sophomore who plays soccer and runs cross country, uses those sports to improve her skills in both. 

“I’m a center attacking mid, which means that I’m in a position that is above the defense behind the forwards. The ball goes through me so we can move up the field,” said Luna. “You always have to dribble the ball, a lot of stability, a lot of cross movements. There’s a lot of ball control, so you have to know how to dribble. You have to know how to juggle. You have to know all that stuff.”

The need for agility in soccer helps Luna during the cross country season, too. Strong ankles, one of the main facets of agility, mean less injuries when running on tracks that are often uneven or bumpy. 

“I tore my ACL in February. Tearing your ACL is one of the hardest injuries there is because it’s what holds your knee together. Without your ACL, your knee can’t hold any weight whatsoever,” said Luna.  “[Recovery is] a 9 month to 2-year process. I’m in my 6th month now. I started running 3 weeks ago, but the season started about 2 months ago. I can’t play soccer until January, and the season starts in December.”

Luna said that her teams have been understanding of her injury, and both teams have allowed and encouraged her to attend practices and games. Luna emphasized how much the support of her teammates and coaches has helped her recovery in their own ways. Team environment is one of the other main differences between sports, even though all are working towards similar goals. In Luna’s case, her continued recovery. 

“Soccer is definitely a smaller sport,” said Luna. “Cross country, we have 50 girls, and then 35 boys, so almost 100 people. You definitely have your groups, but you also get to talk to a lot more people. Practice is 2 hours long, so there’s a lot of bonding time. We have pasta dinners every single night before a race.” 

Sports that run a specific amount of people on the court or field tend to be smaller, while sports like cross country and track have essentially no player cap. This creates wildly different team environments, but many find cross country’s community to be closer knit then one might expect. 

“Cross-country is massive. There are so many people. I actually kind of prefer that because there’s such a big community,” said Price. 

Whatever sports they play, multi-sport athletes face many challenges that strengthen their competition and help to grow their experience and skills in a variety of areas. For most students, any additional sport is an effort. For these students, it’s second nature. 

“When I was 4, I would always go to my brother’s games, my cousin’s games. I remember that I would go on the sidelines with my parents and they would pass with me. I loved the feeling of kicking the ball very far,” said Luna. “After the 6th grade mile run, I fell in love with running. I thought, I want to do this every day.”