Foxcroft’s championship track stars specialize in versatility

Foxcroft Academy’s Class B state championship boys track team reflects a throwback accomplishment of sorts in today’s Facebook vernacular.

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STATE CHAMPS! — The Foxcroft Academy boys are the 2016 Class B state outdoor track and field champions. The Ponies finished the meet on June 4 in Bar Harbor with a score of 71 points, edging York High School by seven points. The state crown is the second in program history for Foxcroft, joining the Class C title won in 2013 when the seniors were freshmen. For more from the meet, please see page 6.

Not that single-sport specialization is readily rampant among young Maine athletes, but at the heart of the coach Rob Weber’s championship squad were several standouts who seemingly know no limit in accepting athletic challenges — much like their predecessors from generations ago.

Take Hunter Smith, the senior who led the way with two firsts and two seconds during the state meet on Mount Desert Island last Saturday. Smith has thrived athletically in football, basketball and track for Foxcroft, and as a result will continue his competitive career as a scholarship football player at the University of Maine in the fall.

Teammate Zach Caron also has stood out in multiple arenas, including the wrestling mat where he is a three-time state champion. And after he transferred from Dexter to Foxcroft for his senior year, he took up the pole vault for the first time — and finished third in that event at States with a best of 12 feet to go with another third in the triple jump and a seventh in the high jump.

Another Foxcroft senior, Nate Church, has balanced his efforts as one of the state’s top sprinters — he was third in both the 100 and 200 at states — with his role as ace of the pitching staff for the Foxcroft baseball team, which finished the regular season with a 12-4 record and was scheduled to begin postseason play with a Class B North preliminary-round game against Nokomis of Newport on Tuesday.

Church also played two sports last fall, both soccer and as the placekicker for the Ponies’ football team.

And Brandon Brock, also part of Foxcroft’s Class of 2016, has blended success in track’s throwing events with playing a key role on the school’s football and state championship wrestling teams.

Multi-sport athletes remain largely the norm in eastern Maine’s high school ranks, in part because with the state’s aging population there are fewer kids to fill the rosters of varsity and subvarsity teams in what is a steadily growing number of athletic options.

But the explosion in off-season programs for most every sport presents options that some youngsters have used to focus more on specializing in a single sport or merely adding to their already full plate of activities.

The trend toward specialization may be even more extreme elsewhere in the nation as young athletes and their parents pursue athletic scholarships in the face of otherwise considerable college debt or simply in the quest for more playing time.

Such specialization isn’t always without a cost.

Mark Rerick, athletic director for the Grand Forks, North Dakota, Public Schools since 2012, cited several negative consequences related to specialization in an article published recently on NFHS.com, the website for the National Foundation of State High School Associations.

Among the risks faced more frequently by student-athletes who specialize in a single sport, he said, are burnout, lack of free time, increased pressure to succeed in a specific sport, and, perhaps most significantly, injuries caused by overuse.

Preliminary findings of a recent study of Wisconsin high school student-athletes also suggested that participating in a specific sport for eight months a year or more appeared to be an significant factor in increased injury risk.

Of the more than 1,000 athletes studied, the report found 49 percent of specialized athletes suffered an injury compared to 23 percent of multi-sport athletes.

Injuries are inevitable among anyone who participates in athletics but the prevailing notion is that specialization leads to repetitive injuries to the same areas of the body — as reflected in one example by an increase in the number of young baseball pitchers requiring Tommy John surgery.

All of those factors have led to criticism of sports specialization by younger athletes from the likes of Hall of Fame baseball pitcher John Smoltz and Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer.

The number of eastern Maine high school student-athletes opting to specialize in one sport seems relatively modest, and when you consider the success of some of the state’s current crop of elite multi-sport athletes it’s easy to understand why — both fun and rewards can be earned through such versatility.

Foxcroft’s Smith is just one example of an athlete who has thrived in multiple athletic venues and still earned a Division I athletic scholarship.

So, too, has Trevor DeLaite of Bangor High School, bound for UMaine on a baseball scholarship next season. Not only is the pitcher a top contender for the state’s Mr. Baseball Award this spring, he was a finalist last winter for the Travis Roy Award symbolic of the state’s top Class A hockey player.

Another University of Maine-bound scholarship baseball player, Matt Pushard of Brewer, not only stars for the Witches on the diamond but was an All-Maine basketball player last winter.

And Orono junior Jake Koffman, whose discus throw of 189 feet, 9 inches at Foxcroft Academy during last Saturday’s Class C meet was the longest in Maine high school history, is also a key contributor for both the Red Riots’ soccer and basketball programs

Perhaps the most significant common denominator that quartet shares beyond being among the 7 percent of high school athletes who undoubtedly will get to compete at the collegiate level is the chance to pursue both fun and excellence on multiple stages.

Similarly members of the senior-laden Foxcroft Academy boys track team shared one last adventure on their athletic stage of the moment Saturday. It was both fun and excellent.