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[QUOTE="Excalibur, post: 3009857, member: 62"]
I can speak to this.  My son (turning 11 shortly) is a very good soccer player, and could be great if he wanted to play year round.  He doesn't.  He wants to play basketball (he's decent but small) and baseball (not very good).  He's also started running -- 5ks for now but asking about longer races.  He understands the consequences but will not cave to pressure and thus will not play on the premier club in our town given their futsal and training requirements during the winter.  So he plays at the competitive travel level, where he is the dominant presence and learns valuable lessons about leadership, and still gets to play other sports that he enjoys.  He says he'll eventually want to concentrate more on soccer, and I've explained that it will likely be harder to break into the premier level the longer he waits.  He gets it, and doesn't care.  As far as I'm concerned, if it comes to that, it's the club's loss.

Specialization probably makes sense for about 5% of kids that are truly exceptional at a sport from a young age and that clearly love that one sport.  But it's tough to field enough teams with only that 5%, so the people running the teams appeal to parents' egos, and it works.
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First name of men's bb coach