news-record.com

The car ride is often Rebekah Page's only break. The Caldwell Academy sophomore competes on the Eagles' cross country, basketball, soccer and, until this season, track and field teams, and the commitments often bump against each other like power forwards jockeying for a rebound.

When basketball season ended, Page had soccer practice the next day. Once, she drove from a Greensboro Twisters club soccer practice to play the second half of a game at Caldwell. Her only memory of that game?

"Being very tired."

"It's hard, honestly," she said. "(But) I don't know if I've ever felt like, oh my gosh, this is too much, like my body can't handle it physically. I love it and enjoy it, so I guess I would say the time is worth it."

In a climate in which high school athletes increasingly specialize in one sport as soon as they can trade in their onesie for a uniform, Page is one of the select high school athletes who has competed in four or more different sports for her school throughout a year. She said skills from one have helped with another, like anticipating the ball in soccer and basketball.

But it comes at a price. Despite winning an NCISAA 2-A state championship in the 400 meters and taking second in the 800 meters last year, Page dropped track this season so she could devote more time to soccer, the sport she hopes to play in college.

"As parents, we said no (to track)," her father, Greg Page, said. "She took it fine. It was not what she wanted, but she understood why."

The decline of the multisport athlete is a phenomenon of the last two decades, as the rise of AAU and other summer programs has given young athletes hungry for the best competition an opportunity to play one sport year-round. For some, it's a wise move to maximize the chances of a college scholarship. But it comes with a greater risk of overuse injuries and psychological burnout, and the migration from local to regional teams has eroded the feeling of community that once sewed high school athletics together.

"There are so many outside forces out there now that are telling kids from the time they're in fifth grade that they're a Division I prospect," Western Guilford athletics director Jim Clontz said. "They've got, not what you say true agents, but you have AAU people out there showing up at middle school games carrying their bags and shoes for them. When a kid gets treated like that in the seventh grade, he's going to think he's probably better than he is. ... I think it's a parental problem in that they have to realize sometimes these folks are taking their kids for a ride."

Those who try to run the gauntlet at their school require a delicate balance between student, parent and coach needs. Page freshman Anne Bennett Osteen played golf and ran cross country in the fall, an arrangement borne thanks to cross country coach Zack Osborne's willingness to let her run on her own when practices overlapped.

"It was tough to watch the cross country bus leave when I was going to a golf match or the other way around," said Osteen, who also played basketball and ran track before injuring her foot.

Page senior Portia Oakley plays volleyball and runs track on top of varsity and AAU basketball, and she can count on one finger the number of times she has ridden home from Page on the bus instead of sticking around for a practice.

"I was soooo bored," she said. "I don't see how kids just sit and do homework and then -- I guess nap? Because that's what I did. I've got to do sports. I've got to do something."

Oakley likely won't play a sport in college, but she wishes she could have been a four-sport athlete at Page.

"It really made me stay out of trouble," she said. "Sports help you ease your mind. If you're having a rough day, you can take it out on the court. I go to my house and there are so many trophies and awards. Who would want to give that up?"

Bishop McGuinness senior Rose O'Shea and Northern Guilford freshman Jimmy Hollingsworth have each run indoor and outdoor track and cross country and swam. Hollingsworth said he occasionally reaches a breaking point, "but then something fun will happen, like I hit a certain time swimming or I do better on a certain stroke, and then I get more pumped up and get my head back in the game."

His older sister, Chelsea, is a senior at Northwest, where she was the News & Record cross country runner of the year on top of competing in track and field and swimming. She sometimes stays up until 1 a.m. to finish her homework, but that it would be harder without athletics.

"It just helps me get some energy out," she said. "If you have energy bottled up, then your mind isn't going to be able to focus on what you're trying to do."

Dustin Stewart played four years of football for Southern Alamance but took up cross country his junior year and then helped form the school's first indoor track team. Oftentimes last summer, he would go to football practice in the morning, go home and nap for an hour, then run 10 miles to train for cross country, often going home with blisters on his feet.

"It was rough," he said. "I was always tired. Weekends felt good when I wasn't running. But I knew it was always worth it. It helped me get all-conference with cross country, and it helped me in football with stamina. Every game during the fourth quarter, I could outrun everybody. It really helped because I'm not very fast with sprints, but if I can sprint the whole game while other dudes are tired, it helped me get up to their ability."

Stewart will run for Belmont Abbey and hopes to become a coach one day. He said he understands why more athletes don't subject themselves to what he did, "because it is so physically demanding and intense," and he knows he likely could have achieved greater success in any one sport had he focused. He still says he would encourage his players to compete in multiple sports.

Clontz coached girls basketball at Southeast Guilford in the early '80s, before the sport had reached a national stage or the Internet could make a sales pitch for you. Still, when the Falcons had a player worthy of the next level, scouts from all over the country found them, whether they were playing another sport or not.

"If you truly are the Michael Jordan type, then maybe it is beneficial to you to put all your efforts into, say, basketball," Clontz said. "But if you're not somebody who's going to get signed by the ACC or SEC in football, then to me you're better off being a high school student -- play a little bit of everything and see how it rolls."

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com