Adam Silver, Jay Bilas on Youth Sports

One of the main topics at the fourth annual Junior NBA Leadership Conference was the importance of having young athletes play a wide variety of sports, instead of specializing too early.

Several basketball luminaries with Duke connections weighed in on the topic, often referring to their own experiences with youth sports.

“I recommend playing multiple sports when you’re younger,” Jay Bilas said. “First and foremost, the reason is sports are supposed to be fun. The more you participate and play different things, the more varied your experience and the more fun its is. The guidelines put out by the NBA and USA Basketball say there should be no specialization until at least age 14. One reason, I’m a parent and had to deal with this issue. One issue that comes up is repetitive stress injury. Basketball can be a taxing game. Playing only basketball or only any sport, really doing the same thing over and over, your body takes a pounding in the exact same way. It leads to repetitive stress injury at some point in your career.”

Former Duke women’s player Lindsey Harding, now a Player Development Coach for the Kings, also weighed in.

“I did a ton of sports,” she said. “I didn’t get to basketball until I was almost 13. Gymnastics was my first love. Then I ran track. My mom pushed me to track, because it was free, because gymnastics was really getting expensive. I was the kid that would race everyone in the neighborhood. Girls were playing with dolls. I was playing tackle football. In seventh, eighth grade, my volleyball coach encouraged me to play. Volleyball, to me, was a little too slow. She said, ‘You should play basketball.’ I said, ‘No. People touch you. I’ll stick with track. Growing up in Houston, the WNBA had just started—the Houston Comets. Dad got season tickets, and the first season, first home game I saw the arena, saw those women out there playing and I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ My dad said that they all played in college, so my goal was to play in college. I ran track up until senior year. I had the option to run track in college or play basketball. It was the hardest decision I had to make. I wanted to focus on one and chose basketball.”

NBA commissioner and Duke alum Adam Silver talked about his experience with multiple sports as a kid.

“I loved playing sports growing up,” he said, “whether basketball or running track or cross country. I can’t say I ever exceled at those sports, but I really loved playing and loved the relationship with my coaches. I went on to attend Duke University and have those great memories. I never excelled like Jay (Bilas) did, but I loved watching Duke Basketball, to this day. It’s nice to have a team I’m allowed to root for.”