Offseason no longer applies to many prep athletes

Published 6:10 pm Sunday, June 14, 2009

Early last Sunday afternoon Miranda Granger and her father, Gordy, were driving home to Snohomish from a fastpitch softball tournament in Kent.

Granger’s select team, the Blaze Fastpitch 18A Blue, had just been knocked out of the Ladyhawks Invite a little earlier than expected. Father and daughter had just hit the road when Granger had a thought:

Did this mean she could make her basketball game after all?

And thus the gears that run Granger’s summer sports schedule began spinning in overdrive once again.

Phone calls were made to determine time and location. The car’s pace northbound on I-5 began to quicken. Arrangements were made for mother Cheryl to meet Granger at the school with basketball uniform in hand.

Granger ended up trotting into the gym at Snohomish High School just as the game was beginning, giving her a daily double of softball and basketball action.

Ho hum. Just another typical day during Granger’s hectic summer sports schedule.

“A lot of people think I’m crazy,” Granger said. “But I love doing it.”

While summer is a time to kick back and relax for the majority of high school students, for Granger and the handful of others who juggle three sports, the summer represents perhaps and even wilder schedule than during the school year.

‘Summer is just packed’

On the Granger family computer there is a calendar. Hours in the making, it catalogues Granger’s sports schedule for the entire summer. Games, practices and tournaments; softball, basketball and soccer; it’s a color-coded jumble during which every day, week and month is filled. It includes multiple locales on single days, with notations on how long it takes to drive from one venue to another.

“Our whole summer is just packed with sports,” said Granger, who’s just finishing up her junior year at Glacier Peak High School.

Such is summer life for a three-sport athlete.

High school athletes have increasingly been encouraged to specialize. The theory is that dedication to a single sport allows an athlete to reach his or her greatest potential in that sport, rather than diluting his or her development across a multitude of pursuits.

To that end, many sports have become year-round endeavors, even though the high school seasons only last about three months. The offseason is littered with select teams, while the summer is filled with tournaments and camps. An athlete can remain plenty busy during the summer simply pursuing one sport.

But for a select few that’s merely the beginning.

Take Granger. Her select softball team, which is her top priority, has tournaments every weekend in June, July and the beginning of August. Some of those tournaments extend beyond the weekend, and four of them are out of state. During the week when it isn’t participating in a tournament the team holds practices at its Mill Creek home.

However, Granger is also a member of the Glacier Peak basketball team, which has its own busy summer schedule of practices and tournaments, as well as a week-long camp at Gonzaga University.

And that’s not all. Granger is also on the Glacier Peak soccer team, which doesn’t play any games during the summer but does hold practices and workouts. Granger, as one of the captains, is expected to run those practices.

Add it up and it doesn’t leave many free moments, and sometimes it becomes outrageous. Granger remembers one instance two years ago when she managed to squeeze four softball games and two soccer games into a single day, being chauffeured back and forth between Snohomish and Monroe throughout.

“My parents love that I can drive now,” Granger said with a laugh.

Playing three sports during the summer isn’t for everyone. It requires a unique blend of energy, drive and determination to maintain that type of schedule. Granger is universally described as someone with those traits.

“I don’t even know what days off are anymore, to be honest,” Granger said. “But I love doing it. For me, when I play sports it’s kind of a release on everything, a way to relax from school and stress.”

As a result, Granger has fended off those who suggest she specialize. One by one Granger’s teammates from their youth days have drifted off teams and into the cocoon of a single sport. Now Granger has reached the point where she’s the only one she knows who’s furiously racing between practices for multiple sports.

“My whole life people have always been saying, ‘You have to focus on one sport, you’re not going to be able to do it all in high school,’” Granger said. “But when someone tells me I can’t do something, I’m going to prove them wrong.”

So far, so good.

Coaches understand

Glacier Peak softball coach Brad Johnson faced a dilemma.

He was trying to schedule a week for Glacier Peak’s summer youth camp, and he wanted to set it up so that Granger, one of his captains, would be available to help.

Week after week was suggested, and week after week was shot down by conflicts in Granger’s schedule.

“You have to try to adapt,” a resigned Johnson said.

Indeed, playing three sports during the summer isn’t just a challenge for the athlete, it can be an ordeal for the coaches, too.

Juggling three sports during a three-month summer inevitably leads to schedule conflicts. This can put a coach into a bind. Some don’t give the players a choice, demanding full commitment to play on the team.

But the Granger family has always provided full disclosure to coaches before the season began, finding the coaches were willing to work around Granger’s schedule.

“It’s always worked out for us,” Granger’s mother, Cheryl, said. “We’ve been blessed with awesome coaches. We’ve been very up front with the coaches and given them as much advance notice as possible, and they’ve been willing to work with us.”

It helps when the athlete is a standout. Granger was an all-Wesco South performer in both soccer and softball as a junior. She was a starter in basketball. Coaches are more willing to grant some leeway when dealing with a player who is a difference maker. They also understand what Granger is trying to accomplish.

“Both myself and the basketball coach know (softball) is where she’s going to get her college scholarship,” Glacier Peak soccer coach Melinda Torre said. “It takes away from soccer, but I’m willing to accept that because that’s what will make a kid the most successful beyond high school.”

Not that there aren’t concerns about Granger’s heavy workload.

“When I look at her (high school soccer) season this year, she was sick more often than others because she was doing so much at one time,” Torre said. “I also have her in class and you see it in the classroom, when she has two practices in one day sometimes it catches up to her. But usually she’s able to figure it out.”

Bernie Slocum, the head coach of the Blaze Blue fastpitch team, has the advantage of being Granger’s top priority during the summer. However, he still approves of Granger’s extracurricular athletic activity.

“What else are they going to be doing?” Slocum asks. “Say they’re not playing other sports. What else are they going to do the other four or five hours? They’re going to be hanging out at the mall, they’re going to be going to movies, they’re going to be at the beach working on their tans. They’re all 17, 18 and 19, they’re not 45 or 50, so they can handle it.”

Enjoying the chaos

Granger, like all those who cycle between three sports during the summer, knows she has a long road ahead. It may not leave much time for other activities — though Granger still finds time to squeeze in kickboxing sessions and the occasional wakeboarding outing. But for those truly dedicated to their three-sport endeavors, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I love something different about every single sport, so I couldn’t see myself not playing one,” Granger said.

“It’s something I enjoy,” Granger added about the summer. “I always look forward to it. I can’t wait for it.”

And as long as they enjoy it, the summer sports warriors will continue making those phone calls checking whether they can make that extra game, pushing the limits as to how full they can keep their summer schedule.