What was once the norm for high school athletes, has become rare as the focus turned from being a varsity letterman in three sports to chasing scholarship opportunities.

It means a lot players stop playing additional sports, hire specialty coaches while focusing on one sport.

Three sport athletes in the high school is almost as rare as a newspaper subscription delivery service.

It still happens but the numbers are way down.

There was a time when letterman jackets listed a sport from all three seasons. With specialization taking over the prep landscape, someone like ALA-Gilbert North’s Chase Grohman has become a rarity.

This spring season, the three-start offensive lineman is playing volleyball for the Eagles a few months after qualifying for the state wrestling tournament in his first season in the sport.

“I feel like competing in all three sports lets me be more athletic,” said the 6-foot-4, 255-pounder. “My main sport is football now, but growing up it was volleyball. I never wanted to stop playing, and then a lot of my friends wrestle and they said they needed a heavyweight so I figured it would help me with being a lineman and hand fighting.”

Grohman has social media posts about playing club volleyball early on Saturday after starting on the offensive line Friday night.

“It’s tiring at times, but I don’t like sitting at home and doing nothing.” he said. “I like trying to get better and working with my teammates every day.”

There are other examples out there of players playing two sports, but third isn’t always the case unless you count cross country and track as different sports.

“There’s going to be a time when I can’t play more than one sport so I’m taking advantage of it now,” said Grohman, who has three Division I offers in football. “I’m going to do it as long as I can.”

Range of emotions

Red Mountain softball had some interesting games in recent weeks that went from giving up a lead late to a rival, knocking off an undefeated team via small ball while raising money for a great cause and then had a potential game-tying grand slam robbed at the fence.

It started with a 6-5 loss at Mountain View that saw the Toros scored four-runs with two outs in the bottom of the sixth to take round one of their region match ups.

A day later, Red Mountain hosted No. 1 and previously unbeaten Queen Creek on a Cancer Awareness Night.

The Mountain Lions used small ball – a few bunts – to plate runs to win 3-2, but more importantly the evening raised $5,942.80 for the cause.

Then this week, Red Mountain hosted Mountain View and lost 5-4.

Saige Peters connected in the bottom of the third with the Mountain Lions trailing 5-1 and it had enough to go out, but Mountain View junior Mykhel Dineyazhe raced back, jumped and made the catch.

The Mountain Lions closed within a run by scoring once in the fifth and twice in the bottom of the seventh but fell short against Mountain View, which won the 6A East Valley region title at 10-0.

Sent to voicemail

The Casteel baseball team spent time in Cary, N.C. for the National High School Invitational earlier this month.

The team made waves knocking off the then No. 1 team in the nation, St. John Bosco, and enjoyed team bonding away from the diamond.

When they head to dinner, the players stack their phones on the table and pay attention to each other, have conversations and instead staring into the small screen.

“I really like our tradition of phone tables,” junior Baylor Denny said. “Whenever we go out to eat we have to do phone stacks. We get to enjoy each other’s company because it goes fast. On a long trip like that you can get on each other’s nerves, but it’s a great group of guys and it’s important to take advantage of time we spend together.”

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