WPIAL football coaches, players highlight importance of being multi-sport athletes

By: Amani Clark-Bey
Sunday, June 30, 2024 | 1:32 PM

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Seneca Valley football coaches were sitting around the table in their coaches’ room going over a list of athletes on their roster and realized a lot of multi-sport athletes decided not to play this season.

“There’s a lot of kids who said they wanted to play basketball and soccer or focus on another sport,” head coach Ron Butschle said. “I can’t fault a kid for doing that, but I often wonder where is that pressure coming from?”

Butschle and his staff posted a statement on Facebook on June 14 saying multi-sport athletes are welcome to start camp in August after losing many multi-sport athletes to other sports.

“I think parents and outside coaches need to understand that prohibiting a kid from playing multiple sports is a disservice to the kid,” Butschle said. “We wanted to get it out there that if you show up in August we will give you the same opportunity to compete and earn a spot.”

Getting the message out was a collaborative effort across the entire Seneca Valley coaching staff: “If you want to play football and compete this fall,” it read, “you will be welcomed with open arms and a football helmet starting whether in our remaining nine summer workouts in July, or the official start of camp on Aug. 5.”

Butschle said the Raiders’ roster size has dropped significantly, despite Seneca Valley being a Class 6A school.

“This year has been different in terms of our numbers, and we are a 6A school and they are pretty low,” he said. “In January winter workouts, we have about 100 kids coming in, and, all of sudden, when spring hits, we start losing kids because of commitments to other sports.”

Bustschle, who was hired as the athletic director at Sto-Rox in the spring, said it’s important for coaches to share athletes across other sports.

“When I coached at Sto-Rox, you had to share athletes. At Seneca, you should share athletes, too,” Bustchle said. “There are dudes playing on that basketball team who could absolutely help us, and football guys that could help them.”

Bustchle sees other athletes at other schools playing multiple sports, but he doesn’t understand why things have to be different at Seneca Valley.

“I went to a Seneca Valley-Central Catholic (basketball) game, and I looked out there and all five starters on Central Catholic were football players,” Bustchle said. “If I went down the list of our roster for 10th, 11th and 12th grade, we would have zero basketball players, which is terrible.

“There are a lot of great athletes at our school that are not playing football. We’re missing kids who can help us on a Friday night who are not showing up because of summer commitments.”

Bustchle said outside circuits such as AAU and the tendency of kids to focus on one sport are here to stay. He said he believes multi-sport athletes aren’t playing football because of outside coaches telling athletes to focus on one sport, something he disagrees with.

“I’ve coached dozens of Division I players and players who have gone on to play in the NFL, and every single one of them played multiple sports,” he said.

Aliquippa football coach Mike Warfield said skills from other sports transfer over to the gridiron and encourages his players to be versatile.

“Playing multiple sports really helps athletes on the field,” said Warfield, who led the Quips to WPIAL and PIAA Class 4A titles last fall. “I really spotted DJ Walker playing basketball. Khalil Fields as well. To see how competitive and aggressive they were on the basketball court, I knew it was going to translate to football.”

Walker is a redshirt freshman safety at Ohio, and Fields is entering his junior year as a safety/wide receiver at Aliquippa.

Warfield also believes young players need time to relax, especially in the summer months when there aren’t as many school responsibilities.

“They gotta have time to be kids and play other sports,” Warfield said. “You don’t want them looking back and saying, ‘I wish I would have played basketball or other sports.’

“On the high school level, how am I, as a high school coach, going to open my mouth and try to dictate a kid to play a particular sport? How could I tell Cameron Lindsey he can’t play basketball? Who does that at the high school level? That is selfish and so self-centered.”

Lindsey will be a freshman linebacker at Pitt this fall after leading the Quips’ football and basketball teams to PIAA championships as a senior.

Other notable Aliquippa football players such as senior running back Tiqwai Hayes also have played multiple sports.

“I feel as if playing other sports helps big time,” said Hayes, a Penn State commit. “For example, running track helped me get the speed I very much need, and me playing basketball helped so well with explosive lateral movement and, obviously, being a corner and playing defense in basketball. So it’s really similar.”

Warfield added that playing multiple sports helps teach players about fighting through adversity and being determined to accomplish goals.

“I tell the guys all the time if they want to play another sport play it,” Warfield said. “Competing all year around is important. It’s a mindset and it translates to the field.”

Woodland Hills junior Scoop Smith is a three-sport athlete who plays basketball and runs track to strengthen his skills on the football field.

Smith, who won the 100-meter dash at the WPIAL championships this spring with a time of 10.64 seconds, said his sprinting training has translated to success with the Wolverines football team.

“I feel as though every sport I play helps one another. There is so much that goes into certain sports that a lot of people don’t understand because they’ve never played,” Smith said.

“Like track is self explanatory just for my speed and quickness, because that’s what makes me who I am in basketball and football. Basketball is a big stamina thing where you don’t get breaks like football. Balance, footwork and body control are big things with basketball that help football. Football is just a gritty tough sport. You have to have a different type of heart, and I feel like my heart makes me who I am in anything I do.”

Smith said every sport he plays has a purpose. He attacks every sport with the same amount of intensity.

“You could be bigger, faster, stronger than everyone else, but you have to show me you’re bigger, faster and stronger than me,” he said. “I just take that with me when I do anything in life. Basketball, track, even if I was to play tennis. That’s something that just always sticks with me.”

Tags: Aliquippa, Seneca Valley, Woodland Hills