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Eight year old Emily looks like a soccer prodigy as she runs down the field displaying dribbling skills that are far superior to her teammates. Unlike the 'beehive' mentality of most of her peers, Emily seems to have a greater understanding of the nuances of soccer strategy as she plays her position and does not simply chase the ball around the field Emily deftly receives a pass from a team-mate and rockets another ball into the back of the net. For a student who sometimes struggles in the classroom, it is a welcome sight for Emily's teacher to see her excel and enjoy herself in an activity.
For many children, elementary school is their first chance to take part in physical activity classes or a structured sport program, such as after-school soccer or basketball. Therefore teachers (in physical education classes) and coaches (those involved in after-school sport programs) can play a pivotal role in shaping children's early sport experiences. When confronted with a student such as Emily, teachers and coaches must decide on the best way to foster the child's athletic talent. Should they encourage her to focus solely on soccer because of her obvious abilities, or to participate in a variety of sports/activities throughout development? Simply stated, Emilys teacher must decide whether to advocate early specialization (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993) or sampling (Côté, 1999; Côté, Baker, & Abernethy, 2007; Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2007). Early specialization is characterized by investing in one sport on a year round basis from a young age with the goal of developing expertise (Ericsson et al., 1993). In contrast, Côté et al., (2007) defined sampling as engaging in a variety of sports during childhood.
Whether a child takes a specializing or sampling route, sport participation can have implications for physical and psychosocial development. The risks of early specialization have been outlined previously (e.g., Baker & Roberson-Wilson, 2003; Wiersma, 2000) however the numerous benefits of sampling have not been addressed. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to detail both the early specialization and sampling approaches and propose the psychosocial and sport-related advantages of sampling over early specialization.
The Early Specialization Approach
The early specialization method has grown out of the work of Ericsson and colleagues (1993) who studied violinists...