Monk excelled both in football and basketball at East Poinsett County High School. More than a few observers thought he was even a better basketball player than he was a football player. But football seemingly offered the best chance for an professional career.
After an injury-plagued football career, Monk has rejoined the Razorback basketball team.
Marc Winston, a pretty good basketball player at Little Rock Parkview High School, saw limited action for the University of Central Arkansas basketball team last season and could continue his basketball career within the next year or so.
One issue for multi-sport athletes is getting into shape and into rhythm for their respective sports.
The days are about over when a college athlete could automatically walk out of his football uniform into a basketball uniform.
It's the era of specialization.
It has filtered down to high schools.
"Particularly at the large high schools, we don't see very many athletes who play football, basketball, baseball or run track anymore," said Tim Horton, the University of Arkansas football assistant who recruits central Arkansas.
The top-level athlete nowadays is under heavy pressure to specialize in a single sport by the ninth or 10th grade. He is pressured to do that in order to gain a spot in the pecking order and better exposure and credibility for college scholarships.
College football coaches want players whose No. 1 priority and mindset is football. College basketball coaches want players who are almost solely devoted to basketball.
A youngster is forced to make a choice of his sport of choice before he almost reaches full maturity in either.
Most good young athletes have pro dreams. They often have to make their choice on which sport offers them the best future opportunities in college and then the pros. Some of the reasoning behind that choice relates to size, speed, hands, dedication and projected position.
It comes down to this for many a young athlete, who is good or has the potential to be good in several sports. But can he be great in the upper echelon among athletes in the country in any of them?
Peyton Hillis, who might quite an impact in professional football with the Denver Broncos before he sustained a season-ending injury, was an outstanding high school baseball player and could have been pretty good in college, particularly because of his hands. He did not play baseball for Conway High his senior year because football was his sport of choice. Apparently, he made the right decision.
Torii Hunter was a decent football player at Pine Bluff. But he made the decision to focus on baseball. Another correct one.
The surface observation for any high school football program that hits hard times is "a lot of good athletes" are walking the halls."
That's an overrated excuse.
Occasionally that's true. More often than not, that's a rationalization for the following reasons:
* It's an easy explanation to hide the fact that in the up-and-down cycle of strong athletes at almost every high school, the school in question has hit a down cycle, either collectively or at a few key positions.
* Some of the potentially good athletes are not academically eligible for athletics.
* Some of the potentially good athletes, riding laurels from glory days when he was a dominant young athlete, don't want to do what it takes and dedicate themselves to getting better when faced with the challenge of going against players just as big and just as fast.
* Some of those athletes are making the choice to specialize in the sport that they think gives them the best shot for future success.
Most sports nowadays are no longer seasonal; they require fulltime devotion. The key to a lot of football development is offseason and 7-on-7 leagues. The good prep basketball players go directly from high school tournaments to spring and summer programs usually against competitive programs throughout the country. The good baseball players are expected to play until football season or frost (whichever comes first) then go into a sport-specific offseason program. The good young golfers, if they are serious about that sport, have to played competitive rounds for all but a couple of months.
Therefore, the attractions, as well as the distractions, are difficult for a young athlete to handle.
Then, you have all these recruiting gurus and services who are assigning stars and rankings to middle-school athletes. That masks the reality that the best eighth-grader doesn't always translate to the best 11th-grader.
An athlete at a young age is faced with choices that would be difficult for adults. To do that, they have to trust someone who supposedly knows what he is taking about. Sometimes, they get good advice. Sometimes they get bad advice. More often, they don't get the big picture or they get the picture from the perspective related to the motives of those giving advice.
A young athlete, faced with all the normal teen-aged stresses, often has to specialize before he really realizes what things make him special.
(Sports columnist David McCollum can be reached at 505-1235 or david.mccollum@thecabin.net)
