This has become one of my favorite sections of the year.

For the third-consecutive year, The Farmville Herald is recognizing three-sport-athletes from around the coverage area.

The guideline is simple: Play three sports, with one being a varsity sport.

There are not many students that can play three – or in rare circumstances – four sports. Sports are becoming more and more specialized, and with off-season travel teams demanding a big chunk of time and money, it's almost impossible to play three sports well enough to consider it worthwhile.

The folks listed on Page 5A from Buckingham, Cumberland, Fuqua and Prince Edward have.

They balance their chosen sport with schoolwork, various academic clubs and other things like jobs that take up a considerable amount of downtime.

Where do they find the time to sleep?

Where do they find time to sit around and eat Doritos, while playing the newest generation of Playstation?

The reason they choose to play more than one sport varies. Maybe, they enjoy pushing their bodies and minds to the limits. Maybe, it's a means to stay out of trouble. Maybe, they have that much pride in their school.

Most people are built more for economy than performance. They may choose to play one sport, or in many cases, none. It makes them no less busy, but Odyssey of the Mind, of which I was a three-year participant in high school, doesn't come with an inherent risk of injury – though an Exacto knife scar from an unfortunate balsa wood accident on my right hand took a while to fade away.

The world is filled with stories of brave men and their OM experiences.

Some of the three-sport athletes from this year deserve special recognition.

There are a small number of Fuqua School football players that decided to play football at the last moment, so the school could field a varsity team.

They deserve a pat on the back, and they should be proud of their decision to take up a sport like football for a number of reasons.

One also ran cross country, which is also a fall sport. It's rare, but not unheard of, for an athlete to participate in two sports during one fall, winter or spring season, but they're usually not paired with football.

Once again, The Herald thanks the four area athletics directors for either getting a list of their three-sporters to the paper, or providing the rosters for us to do so. It's a lot of work, and they do it because they also recognize the sacrifices made by these special individuals.

By the time all the rosters are sifted through, the names of hundreds of athletes begin to run together. A student who was listed as William in the fall, may have been listed as Bill in the spring.

Invariably, some names were missed, and maybe even one or two that may not have fit the criterion exactly, found their way onto the list.

If a name was left off, just shoot me an email (sports@farmvilleherald.com), and we'll be sure to recognize them in a future edition.