Many skills and techniques transfer from one sport to another. Playing multiple sports can help kids build important life skills such as problem-solving, teamwork, communication, and responsibility. You’ll find most high school athletes that play at least two sports…football and baseball…football and track. What about those rare athletes that play four sports. Is it possible to do this? Fourteen year old D’Aren Igho-Osagie is proof that it is.
This rising high school freshman plays baseball, participates in track and field, basketball and his first love…football. He’s what we call a super-athlete and truly lives up to his nickname “Big Texas”.
D’Aren and his family moved to Georgia just two weeks prior to him entering 7th grade. When he went to an open house at his middle school, the football coach took one look at him and couldn’t wait to get him on the team. “Coach couldn’t wait for me to play football for him,” D’Aren said. “But he didn’t know how to say my last name on the first day of tryouts. So since he couldn’t pronounce my last name he called me Texas.”
The nickname has since stuck with him throughout middle school and will most likely follow him to high school this fall. D’Aren says that he’ll most likely play multiple sports in high school as well. “Playing multiple sports helps me with my foot work, and also with team bonding skills,” he says. “It also helps keep me busy because there isn’t one week I haven’t had something to do everyday.”
Although he’s a multi-sport athlete, his love for the game of football stands front and center. He says in college he’ll more than likely play football because he already has the size for it. He stands 6’2″, weighs in at 345 pounds and is still growing. “The love I have for this game called football is out of this world, words can’t explain it. I love all the other sports but football is at the top top top of the list.”
So why does he train and work so hard? He says he does it for his family. He wants to make sure he gives something back to them for the sacrifices they have made.
