It’s a question that high school athletic administrators at 3A schools and smaller ask themselves on a daily basis: should student-athletes be steered toward specific sports to maximize their ability, or is it best to encourage those athletes to get involved in as many sports as possible to ensure the health of a wide variety of sports?

That’s according to first-year ADM athletic director Reece Satre, who is nearly five months into the job after eight years of teaching and coaching at bigger Linn-Mar, where athletic specialization is much more prevalent. But neither method guarantees success, and many schools the size of ADM thrive because of multi-sport athletes.

ADM is no stranger to that concept. The Tigers class of 2012 lead the charge in football, boys basketball and baseball, as a deep and versatile group of seniors vaulted all of those teams to state tournament appearances over the 2011-12 school year.

Satre said he sees the tendency for ADM to have mostly multi-sport athletes as a good thing. There’s also some cold math involved.

“Fortunately, one of our positives is that we do offer the opportunity as a 3A school that you can participate in multiple activities here and still be successful, and you don’t have to sell out at an early age just to one sport,” he said. “I think it’s a balancing act. That’s a decision that kids and their parents definitely have to sit down and talk about because it really is a time commitment for the parents as well.

“For us, where we’re at as far as student population, I’d say right now we absolutely have to have multi-sport athletes. “