The Elimination Of 3-Sport Athletes Is Hurting Lincoln County Athletic Programs & Its Ability To Compete..

When you think of the Banks Brothers, which include Alex Banks (C/O 2026) and Drew Banks (C/O 2025), you think of fierce competitors who are always competing and working year-around. Imagine if a coach had 10-15 of these type of athletes on their team? The difference would be incredible to say the least. The reason is they are 3-Sport Athletes, who are constantly competing, staying in-shape, and lifting weights. This provides a major advantage for a coach of any sport, and the athletic programs as a whole.

However, Lincoln County Athletics are now down to roughly 4 boys and 2 girls, who compete in 3-Sports for the school. There are Class A programs who don't have this problem, but Lincoln County is competing in Class AAA where 3-Sports Athletes are plentiful and rosters are full. Until this changes, it will be hard for the Panthers to compete across the board. Over just the last two years, athletic participation in multiple sports has declined further and further. As a result, 10 of our 13 programs had losing records, or records that were below .500 (ie. a team record of 10-10). In addition, some sports like football and basketball have been hollowed out when it comes to upperclassmen. The Boys Basketball Program, under new coach Robert May, has just one senior this season in Alex Banks. That's a very difficult situation, especially for a coach in their 1st Season. At the same time, he is weathering the storm and doing a great job keeping up the teams spirit amid a winless season so far.

As 3-Sport Athletes decline in numbers, so does the roster size of each individual sport. It forces coaches to spend much more time on getting in shape, instead of sharpening their teams skills and fundamentals. They are constantly playing from behind throughout the season, and desperately trying to catch up to the competition. There is nothing in the playbook that can help you in this situation. By the Spring, coaches in Baseball, Softball, and Track & Field benefit by having a few more athletes who have previously competed in a sport during the year like basketball, soccer, etc. So, the Spring Sports can focus additional time on fundamentals, plays, routine, etc. This might also be why our school is having success in the Spring, but struggling in the Fall. Furthermore, dwindling numbers of multi-sport athletes leads to an empty weight room, which is a recipe for disaster in terms of a schools ability to compete on an even playing field. On the positive side, we have the right coaches in place to lead the comeback. We have coaches that have been part of successful programs in the past, who understand the importance of athletes becoming more active in athletics and building their bodies for competition.

In my personal experience, I worked for a school that struggled in athletics and had minimal athletes playing multiple sports. For example, there were roughly seven 3-sport athletes among 2,000 students. However, 5 years later we had about thirty 3-sport athletes and the team records went up across the board. So much so, that we were competing for Regional & State Championships in multiple sports. Also, more athletes were going to Division 1 Schools and a few competed professionally years later. It can be done at Lincoln County, but it takes all 13 Head Coaches to work together and be on the same page to achieve collective success.