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Tom Henderson's loyalties were torn between Burrell High School's football team, of which he is the coach, and his son Tyler, a talented athlete balancing several sports at once.

Henderson knew how important it was for Tyler, to attend the Metro Index football skills camp, but found that its two May sessions conflicted with the WPIAL and PIAA track and field championships.

Ultimately, they had to find a way to do both.

"As a coach, you're preaching teamwork all the time," said Tom Henderson, who noted that Tyler's 40-yard dash times suffered as a result of training for the 400-meter run. "Sometimes, I get so frustrated not as a coach but as a parent and want to throw my hands up and say, 'Where does the insanity stop?'

"And you become hypocritical. I scream and holler about team, team, team -- and I believe that, I really do -- but sometimes, you have to do what's best for the individual."

It's becoming a common dilemma for football stars trying to play a spring sport. They endure a tug-of-war for their services, trying to appease coaches in both sports while being careful not to serve two masters.

"You have to have both in your mind at all times," Greensburg Central Catholic sophomore Max Suter said. "When it's baseball season, you have to think baseball first, but you still have to train for football."

In this day of year-round training, multi-sport athletes have to weigh the demands of strength training and participating in high-exposure skill camps against the values of playing in a spring sport that requires a different strain of conditioning.

"Nowadays, it's a vicious circle," said Henderson, adding that a group of Burrell two-sport stars conduct daily 5:30 a.m. weightlifting workouts. "I'm as guilty of it as any other coach that you have pressure to lift and do other things to get people ready for the season. If you don't do it, your program's in trouble.

"If we really look at it, it's wrong to do. It shouldn't have to be that way."

Although there are numerous athletes willing to juggle two sports, some are forced to choose. South Park junior Connor Dixon opted to give up baseball and his starting shortstop job to concentrate on becoming a Division I quarterback prospect this spring.

"I knew I had to get in the weight room and get stronger," the 6-foot-5, 185-pound Dixon said. "I've spent time at whatever sport I'm playing, so I never got to concentrate on one."

His best friend, Tyler Scruggs, is a Division I linebacker prospect and a major-league catching prospect who splits time between baseball, weightlifting and attending a speed-training clinic.

"It's taxing," Scruggs said. "Training for baseball and football seems like two different things. It's difficult when you try to incorporate both sports into workouts."

That's a struggle Greensburg Central Catholic sophomore football/baseball players Cody Catalina and Suter are willing to endure. The training partners lift weights five days a week, often immediately before and after baseball practices.

They have been advised to tone down their workouts, for fear of suffering arm injuries, but Catalina also plans to attend a quarterback camp on Saturdays.

"When baseball starts, the kids want to pump heavy weights, but I want them to lighten up," GCC baseball coach Jack Korpas said. "I tell them, 'If you can't do your job, somebody else will. If you're too muscle-bound, too tight, we'll find somebody else to take your position.'

"Football is a year-round sport now, which is sad in a way. Kids are misled by people who make them think they have to put all their eggs in one basket to get a scholarship; if you're good, they'll find you. If I tell the kids, 'It's baseball or football,' all our sports are going to suffer."

High-enrollment schools have the depth to overcome defections. Upper St. Clair, for example, reached the WPIAL Class AAAA football semifinals even after all-conference lineman Rob Rankin quit to focus on the shot put, where he won a PIAA championship.

Such a loss at smaller-enrollment schools would be devastating, so coaches have no choice but to share their stars for the good of their athletic programs.

"There are guys that don't want to cooperate for whatever reason," South Park football coach Tom Loughran said. "We're a small school. The attitude we take helps when you're dealing with other coaches. I encourage those kids to be involved with other sports. I'd rather them be in a competitive game. It gets kind of long in the off-season.

"All I ask them is to remember you're still involved in the football program. You need time to prepare for football season. That takes a toll on your body, when you're involved in all those sports."

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