Is it at all feasible to play 3 sports? I know several 3 sport athletes who’d love to continue all 3.
Hannah: Volleyball/Basketball/Tennis
Megan: Field Hockey/Swimming/Softball
Chris: Football/Basketball/Baseball
FWIW, their intended majors:
Hannah: Economics
Megan: Psychology
Chris: Biology (premed)
Two sport athletes are not unheard of, even at D1 schools, but thry are rare. For women, volleyball and basketball is a common pair while for men, baseball and football sometimes end up together. Runners may do x country, indoor and outdoor track. But at most schools, athletes participate in captains practices outside of the main season so it would be logistically very challenging, if not impossible, to be a three sport athlete. I would guess, and it’s only a guess, that if someone were to do this, a small D3 school in an uncompetitive conference would be the place where it’d be most likely to happen.
My suggestion would be to look at some school websites and check out the rosters to see whether there are students who show up on the roster of more than one team. Many college athletes, btw, we’re 2 or 3 sport athletes in high school but play only one in college. (You can read bios on the websites as well.)
Cross country and distance track student athletes generally compete in all three seasons from D1 through D3 - it’s a warrior sport. in high school and college, almost all speed position football athletes run in the alternating seasons, and in high school many soccer and lacrosse athletes do as well.
Unless it is as gardenstategal said, at a very small D3, highly unlikely. The sports overlap. Even in season training for the spring sports starts in January.
I don’t know if you could do 3, the preseason training for each sport would overlap with the end of another season.
It is possible to do 2 sports. My younger son has been asked if he would consider playing soccer in the Fall and running sprints for the track team in the Spring.
Thanks everyone! They’ll be disappointed, but they can always do the 3rd as an intramural.
I think they (particularly Chris) are overestimating the amount of free time they will have. 
They might have time for the occasional pick-up game. Chris will possibly have a challenge doing even one sport with lab schedules, let alone 2 or 3. Good luck to them, though.
Oh, @skieurope I totally agree, ESPECIALLY about Chris. 
While Chris’ sports seem the most unrealistic, frankly, the others do too. At least at the D3 schools we know, winter or spring season athletes were in “off season” training several months before their own season began. And the fall season sports had their own off season training. Off season training – captain’s practice, lifting, conditioning – was perhaps 10-15 hours a week, still substantial enough that I don’'t see how a student could layer the 20-30 hours a week of an in-season sport, plus academics. Perhaps at schools which do not have successful programs, and are only looking to field teams and avoid last place in the their conference, coaches would be happy to pick up the athlete after their other sport season ends, and fold them in, late, to the next season sport.
I do know a guy who is going to a NESCAC for football and Basketball, but he is not pre-med. That would be white knuckling it. The two coaches would be able to work something out at a D3, but I can’t imagine playing 2 or 3 varsity sports AND sweating out the best GPA possible, unless the guy is bloody brilliant.
Pretty much every college coach we talked to did not want the athlete participating in intramurals…Too much risk for injury.
Thanks @jumpermom. Can’t say I’m too surprised.
I think many (not all) college coaches allow students to do a fall sport and then a spring sport. The two sport athlete is excused from fall conditioning for the spring sport. There really isn’t time for intramurals as the fall sport will take all fall, and the spring sport will start immediately upon returning to campus in Jan.
It’s the winter sports listed above that would be the problem. Basketball and swimming start in Oct and go until March and April.
Extremely rare at the D1 level. I’ve heard/seen the football/track combo. And there was one young women recently at Stanford, Hannah Farr, who played both D1 soccer and lacrosse. http://www.gostanford.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=5366
The time commitment is enormous just for one sport, and keep good grades, but two D1 sports is crazy. Most kids the off-season to get their grades “back to normal.”
Also, there aren’t too many people who truly are D1 talent in two sports either. No idea about other college divisions.
There are D3 three sport athletes, but they are rare. Typically they have the raw ability of a D1 athlete, but never specialized. As a pure guess I would say no more than one per graduating class, per college and most likely, far, far fewer. As athletics gets better, they occur with less frequency. I believe Bill Belichick was a three sporter at Wesleyan (football, squash, LAX).
That was 100 years ago (OK, 42 years ago). Three sport athletes were more common a generation ago (or longer in Belichick’s case), but these days, the buzzword is specialization, and multi-sport athletes are a rarity. Right or wrong, it is what it is.
Nowadays, both at the high school and college levels, the best athletes are sitting out to protect either their scholarships or their future professional careers.
Two examples: One local high school football player sat out his high school’s playoffs because he didn’t want to get hurt and affect his D1 football scholarship. And Christian McCaffrey sat out the Sun Bowl so he could prepare for the NFL Draft. There are probably hundreds of similar examples. Multi-sport athletes are a dying or dead breed.
In the olden days, the 2 or 3 sport athletes were the top of the heap. Dion Sanders, Bo Jackson, John Elway. A bunch of the U of Miami football players had track scholarships when Miami lost football scholarships in the 1980’s. Christian McCaffrey was a three sport athlete in high school (as are/were his brothers). McCaffrey admitted he would have played in the bowl game if Stanford was going for a national championship or probably the Rose Bowl.
It’s not uncommon for field hockey and lacrosse to share athletes. I think it might be easier if the second sport is an ‘individual’ one, like track or swimming or golf, when the entire team isn’t waiting for the player to finish up the first sport.
Three sport athletes do exist, but as everyone has said, they are quite rare. This gives some insight into playing three sports in a NESCAC school.
https://www.colby.edu/magazine/three-sports-for-standout-athlete-kate-pistel-play-is-nonstop/