News Photo by Mike Gonzalez
Joe Sheridan, a team captain of the Alpena High School track team, runs laps around the Thunder Bay Junior High School track on Thursday.


ALPENA — Earlier this year, an American Academy of Pediatrics report said that about 70% of all youth athletes drop out of organized sports by age 13.
Contributing to that drop, according to the report, is the professionalization of youth sports putting more pressure on kids who play a single sport, leading to burnout, stress, and potential injuries from overwork.
Spencer Kraft, head coach of the boy’s track and field team for Alpena High School, said monitoring everyone’s work and communicating with athletes about their schedules helps ensure all athletes have fun.
“If you’ve never really done this, especially getting into something like, let’s just say sprinting, it’s a lot,” Kraft said. “There’s a lot of hip strength that’s required, a lot of lower leg strength, and ankle resilience, too. A lot of things are needed for everything to go perfect — which, obviously, you never expect everything to go perfect, especially a young kid. So, if I can just get them to just finish, that’s step one. We can make it look nice after, but just completing it is good.”
Kraft wants to help everyone on the team realistically achieve their goals, which means lots of communication between him and individual athletes. He thinks a lot of the burnout people see can boil down to how busy students’ schedules have become.
Kraft said many of the athletes he trains participate in multiple extracurricular activities and sports and have other responsibilities to manage, so one of the most important aspects of helping students is to know when they can make it and when they can’t.
“I remember, when I was in high school, people had jobs, but it was in the summer, and, nowadays, they have jobs on their 16th birthday and they’re trying to manage that schedule,” Kraft said. “Sometimes, you have to understand that and talk to them about what they want out of this. If you have four other things planned this week, then come talk to me and we’ll figure it out.
“Some people come here and then they’re just distracted while they’re here because they have, like, 17 other things, and we’re not a contact sport, but there’s still a risk,” Kraft continued. “Like, if you’re doing pole vault and you’re distracted, that’s a great way to get a concussion. You want to do your best as a coach to make sure they feel comfortable enough to come talk to you about those things.”
Joe Sheridan, a senior and team captain of the Alpena High track team, started track in seventh grade. It’s become one of his favorite sports.
Sheridan originally started in football and still plays that sport, but he wound up joining track to stay in shape during the offseason. Now, he plans to attend Adrian College to run track and play football.
“Coach Kraft makes sure that the discipline throughout the team is very good, so, if there’s any issues, we bring it up to him and he’ll figure it out,” Sheridan said. “I think this year, especially, has got to be one of the most hyped track groups we’ve ever had.”
Sheridan said many of his teammates have high grade-point averages and all try to manage their time to the best of their abilities.
He also said one of the team’s other coaches does physical therapy for students who are in pain or are at risk of injury and will help stretch muscles, mitigating inflammation.
Because of Sheridan’s work in multiple sports, he agreed that students should try to find something they love, even if that means branching out to other athletic groups and sports.
“Trying different sports is important to find a sport that really fits what you want to do,” Sheridan said. “The nice thing about track is there are so many different events, different things you can do, so it’s a very versatile sport. I agree that, if you don’t enjoy the sport, you should branch out to other sports, but I wouldn’t just stop doing sports in general and get frustrated because you’re not having success. You have to work for success.”





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