The sun had set on a Saturday in early October and Windsor senior Audrey Rupp’s body was aching.
Rupp had begun her day donning shoulder pads and a helmet, trotting out onto the Yellowjackets’ football field for an early afternoon clash with Poultney. As Windsor’s kicker, Rupp would boot a season-high six extra points through the uprights in a 48-27 victory.
When the game ended, Rupp traded in her football gear for shin guards and a captain’s armband and headed over to the school’s soccer pitch. The all-state forward then bagged a pair of goals in the girls soccer team’s 3-1 win over Springfield that evening. It was yet another multi-goal performance from Rupp and a ninth consecutive victory for the Yellowjackets just past the campaign’s midpoint.
“There’s not many people that can say they’ve done that and been successful in two different sports and two games in the same day,” Windsor football coach Jamie Richardson said. “So that was pretty special.”
In her final year of high school competition, Rupp decided to pick up football as a second sport. She joined a select group of Upper Valley high school athletes participating in two sports for their schools this autumn.
Amid a growing movement nationally surrounding youth specialization in sports — of the 60 million American youths participating in sports in 2019, 27% were playing just one sport, according to data collected by the National Federation of State High School Associations — these local athletes are bucking the trend.
The process for doing so is rather simple as well, at least on paper: Get the head coaches of the two sports on the same page, select a primary sport and let the scheduling circus begin.
“They select a primary and secondary sport, both coaches have to agree and the secondary sport can only happen if it does not conflict with the primary,” said Lebanon athletic director Ben Davis, who has three dual-sport athletes for the Raiders this fall.
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Smaller school populations in New Hampshire and Vermont can require increased roster flexibility from coaches, Richardson said, giving rise to the dual-sport, same-season athlete.
And as the options for high school athletes continue to balloon, evidenced by the surge in popularity and participation in sports like bass fishing and volleyball, the reality is that it can “spread your athletes thin,” Richardson said.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years, baseball anyway, and in the past, we didn’t look at two-sport athletes,” Richardson said of Windsor, which has an enrollment of about 260 students in grades 9-12, according to the Vermont Agency of Education. “We said, ‘No, you’re going to pick one or the other,’ because there wasn’t a number issue. … There were a ton of players (participating) and you didn’t have to look outside the box to generate a good team.”
Richardson said coaches, himself included, have had to evolve, but that it can be “a slippery slope.” Now a self-described “secondary guy,” Richardson has no qualms adding girls soccer players to the football team in the fall or track athletes to the baseball team in the spring.
The key to success among players and coaches is two-way communication.
“Over the years, I’ve spoken to all the kids and I said, ‘Listen, I’m not going to force you to pick one or the other. I want you guys to have the opportunity to play as many sports as you want,’ ” Mascoma bass fishing coach Eric Moulton said. “We try to build the program, we try to build practices and as much of the schedule as we can around those other sports.”
But conflicts are inevitable. Missing practices is inevitable. Missing games or meets is, sometimes, inevitable.
The Valley News interviewed several local athletes this fall about how they juggle two sports in the same season. One thing is for certain, though.
“It’s tiring,” Rupp said with a chuckle.
Mascoma angling duo hanging banners
This year, Peyton Sargent didn’t have to worry about leaving the NHIAA state bass fishing tournament early to make kickoff for a football game. And for that, he was grateful.
When Mascoma won the program’s first bass fishing state championship in 2023, Sargent departed Spofford Lake around 11 a.m. to make it to Raymond for an afternoon kickoff, he recalled. This fall, however, the angler and lineman lucked out. The NHIAA was hosting the state tournament at Lake Winnisquam on Oct. 5, a short drive from nearby Tilton where the Mascoma football team was playing Winnisquam High.
Sargent spent the full day on the water with his fellow senior, Tanner Moulton, as the pair defended the Royals’ state title, becoming the third team in the sport’s short history at the varsity level in New Hampshire to win back-to-back state championships. Sargent then bolted over to the football game to play in the second half.
“I got it all planned out a week ahead, and everybody was on board,” Sargent said. “(Eric Moulton) was really happy I was staying for the whole tournament; my football coach was really happy I was staying for the tournament, because it’s a state championship, and he was still happy I was coming for the second half. Everything just lined up perfectly.”
Sargent and Moulton, two of five dual-sport athletes at Mascoma, shared similar thoughts surrounding the challenges of balancing their schedules.
This year, though, Moulton, a second team all-state honoree for boys soccer in 2023, said he “lucked out.” With soccer practices starting around 4:15 p.m., he was often able to make the first 45 minutes or hour of bass fishing practice before heading over to the pitch. In years past, it might have been more of a struggle, but this fall, Moulton made it work.
Moulton and Sargent wanted to win back-to-back bass fishing state titles. They did that. Now, their attention turns toward helping their soccer and football teams, respectively, make deep postseason pushes.
Moulton and the Royals’ boys soccer team, under the tutelage of first-year coach Stuart Kinsman, are angling for an extended run in the NHIAA Division III state tournament after earning the No. 2 seed following an undefeated regular season.
“(Kinsman) is definitely cracking down on our discipline. We’re a lot more relaxed, calm and collected, instead of hot heads like we have been in the past,” Moulton said. “And also, everyone’s just bought in. We’re all playing for the same reason. We want to win this thing.”
After “constantly switching gears” from the slower, methodical pace of bass fishing to the gladiatorial nature of football throughout September and early October, Sargent is now in his fourth week playing just football. Mascoma is in quality form too, having rattled off five consecutive wins following a season-opening loss to Raymond.
Sargent has juggled both sports since he was a sophomore and as his senior fall season comes to a conclusion, he can’t help but reflect on his time with the two programs.
“Having friends in both sports, being able to do both of them in one season, winning state championships in fishing, and also knowing I can go to football, have fun and hit people,” Sargent said. “It’s been a great lesson over the years.”
Benefits and drawbacks
Hartford sophomore Kathryn Summarsell acknowledged she’s “kind of ready to take a break from everything” following the VPA Division II cross country state meet last Saturday.
Summarsell is the school’s lone multi-sport athlete this fall, playing for the girls soccer squad and running for the cross country team — her first season with the latter program.
Entering the season, Summarsell wanted to improve her endurance. A sprinter in track, she sometimes found herself getting winded while attempting longer runs, so — heeding the recommendation of a former track coach — she decided to join the Hurricanes’ cross country squad.
“I thought, ‘You know what, why not try to do both?’ ” Summarsell recalled. “So I talked to (Hartford athletic director Jeff) Moreno, and I worked it out with my coaches, who have been extremely flexible with everything and very helpful.”
After conversations with her parents, Summarsell decided to make soccer her primary sport and cross country her secondary. Initially, Summarsell said she discounted how difficult it would be to manage the scheduling for both sports, where meets, practices and games could often overlap.
A certain level of guilt began to arise because she had prioritized soccer, she said. It was a feeling she couldn’t shake as she reflected on the number of meets or practices she might have missed at the end of the week. And while Hurricanes first-year cross country coach Dan Talbot understood her situation, it was hard to avoid the sinking feeling that she could do more.
This fall has had its fair share of hiccups for Summarsell, especially in regards to scheduling. But that’s where she hopes to improve next year, noting that a day-by-day plan of how to effectively manage both sports’ schedules could prove successful.
In spite of the constant shuffle, she appreciated being exposed to a new environment and team dynamic on the cross country team. And while she occasionally questioned her participation in cross country, she’s hopeful the results she’s searching for will begin to be realized.
“It was a lot of fun,” Summarsell said. “It was also stressful a lot of times. But I don’t regret it, and I’m thinking I’ll probably do it again next year as well.”
Need a kicker?
What’s the worst that could happen?
Those six words ran through Rupp’s mind when people inquired about whether she might try her luck on the gridiron.
Her friends had pleaded with her to join the football team as a kicker in the offseason. Olivia MacLeay, a former dual-sport fall athlete at Windsor and now a women’s soccer player at Plymouth State University, had kicked for the football team the previous two seasons while starring on the girls soccer squad. There was a built-in model to follow.
But her girls soccer coach wrestled internally about the prospect of Rupp debuting on the gridiron. And for good reason.
Jen Rupp is also her mother.
“I was very nervous the first couple games watching her do the kickoffs. (I was like), ‘Get off the field, run off the field,’ ” Jen Rupp said. “I don’t know if there are teams that would be like, ‘Oh, let’s take out the girl.’ She’s still your child, so you don’t want her to get hit.”
Jason Stone, the boys soccer coach at Stevens, recalled a similar level of apprehension when his son, Oliver, was tasked with duties beyond his initial special teams assignments. The elder Stone joked that he was fearful “one play is going to ruin my soccer season.”
“But Coach (Josh) Duford has been great,” Jason Stone said of Stevens’ football coach. “He doesn’t want Oliver to get hurt because he respects that he’s a good soccer player, that I need him, and that we’re letting him do this. He also doesn’t want to get his kicker hurt either.”
It’s Rupp and Stone’s first years kicking for their respective schools, the arrival of each filling a glaring hole on special teams.
Stone, a sophomore at Stevens, has especially enjoyed learning the subtle nuances and intricacies of football.
“I had butterflies really bad,” Stone said, recalling his first kickoff this season. “It was cool because you have to count out your steps, you get the ball, you give it to the ref. It’s all these different things compared to just putting the ball in the middle of the soccer field, then the whistle blows and you start.”
How does the kicking itself translate from soccer to football?
For Rupp, who has scored 101 goals in her career, the ball striking similarities between the two sports is apparent. The aerial trajectory certainly differs, but Rupp said she’s “kicking the ball the exact same way.”
Stone leaned on his father, who had once attended kicking camps, to teach him how to strike the pigskin. The learning process was a struggle, the younger Stone said.
“At the beginning I was like, ‘I can do this. I can kick a soccer ball pretty far (so) I can kick a football pretty far,’” Stone said. “And then I actually did it and it was like, ‘Wow I suck at this.’ ”
Stone just needed reps, and as he grew more comfortable, his confidence surged. It all coalesced in a 25-7 win over Kearsarge on Sept. 21 when he buried a field goal and a couple extra points. Duford, the Stevens football coach, asked Stone to hang around the locker room upon the game’s conclusion before heading to his soccer match. He was being awarded a game ball for his performance.
“It was a very cool experience,” Stone said. “I took the ball home after and I put the score and date on it. I’ll keep that forever.”
‘Two different families’
Maybe the biggest benefit these athletes expressed about their constant shuffle this fall was being able to assimilate into two different team dynamics, and the relationships that burgeoned as a result.
Rupp, Stone and Summarsell, in particular, each said making a new group of friends in their secondary sports — separate from the extended relationships that had long been forged on their soccer teams — was one of the highlights this fall.
“With cross country, it was a mix of so many different people,” Summarsell said. “There were people I never thought I would talk to if it weren’t for sports, and there were people that I’d never met before. It was great.”
While Stone had known some football players for years, having grown up with them since preschool, there was a collection of others he didn’t know. Building relationships with them “was definitely a cool experience,” he said.
Rupp, who also had a rapport with some football players at her school like Stone, said the prospect of joining a football team might have proved daunting for some girls. But she was welcomed with open arms, making the transition and the seemingly never-ending two-sport balancing act less overwhelming.
“It’s kind of fun, though,” Rupp said. “Having two different teams, it’s kind of like two different families. It makes up for how tiring it is.”
Alex Cervantes can be reached at acervantes@vnews.com or 603-727-7302.
