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By random chance I recently had a flight seated next to a coach for a young player who was in the women's Future bracket. The coach had been a Future player onc

By random chance I recently had a flight seated next to a coach for a young player who was in the women's Future bracket. The coach had been a Future player once too. I've never really understood, at an emotional level, why pro sports exist. So after a while of conversation, during which he mentioned a few times how difficult life was for them, I finally felt like I could ask: "If it's like you've described, why do it at all?" He stared into space for a good few seconds, then responded: "Glory." I've wondered a few times since then whether the girl he was coaching would think that glory was enough; she had a look that, following the article, I'd describe as glassy-eyed loneliness. But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation. For myself... I still don't really get it.

piuantiderp 2y ago
What motivates you, comfort?
The_Colonel 2y ago
> But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation. Most of these people "burn" their youth chasing the dream and don't get a non-sport education/experience. A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job.
- barry-cotter 2y ago
  This seems very unlikely to me given the propensity of finance firm to hire even college athletes never mind people who got to be in the top one or 200 of their sport in the world. Anyone who is capable of pushing the work in day after day to get a good at some thing that doesn’t very well like sport is capable of putting enormous amount of work day after day to get good at something that does pay well. Most famously jocks are good at sales. Athletes are no fools. Often of the top of my head Michael Jordan has had a very successful career as an investor after the end of his sporting career. Michelle Debruin, and Irish Olympic gold medallist in swimming, went on to become a Barrister, a trial lawyer in the American parlance. The people who stay in Borsh are staying in sports because they really really love i,t not because they’re not capable of making more money in other ways.
  - rvba 2y ago
    You have the 1950s approach: we hire a hard working person amd after 5 years of internship they will become great. Most companies nowadays offer zero on the job training. You need 5 years of experience for your internship. You are supposed to make impact now. Maybe somoene can score some sales based on looks, but come on. You need to register your sales in SAP now, it's your problem nobody told you how (although with sales they still will, since it is a profit center).
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > Athletes are no fools A quick search will show you the shockingly high bankruptcy rates for former pro athletes. Plus, most of them do not finish uni and have few marketable skills after their short career ends.
    - spookie 2y ago
      You can have jobs without a degree. Important and fullfilling jobs too. Those bankruptcy statistics might be biased given how poorly paid athletes are, thus tgey might be a consequence of their past and not their present. They aren't fools, they pursue their dreams. Less foolish than some of us.
      - throwaway2037 2y ago
        > given how poorly paid athletes are To be clear, in the US, when people say pro-athlete, they mostly means NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB. (Yes, tennis counts also, but leave that aside for a moment.) I Googled for minimum contracts in those four leagues: NBA: 1.1m USD NFL: 660k USD NHL: 750k USD MLB: 60k USD MLB is shockingly low, but it might be explained by the farm leagues. (I don't know more details.) I doubt anyone who sees regular play in the MLB is making so little.
        brokenmachine 2y ago
        You're talking about maybe the top 1500 sportspeople in the country. The rest are poorly paid.
- codeulike 2y ago
  A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job So its like a slow-burning pyramid scheme powered by youthful optimism?
  - soneca 2y ago
    Nothing like pyramid scheme because what sustain the “scheme” overall is public interest, generate experiences that people pay money for and companies are willing to sponsor. It’s not the new young players that input all the money in the industry. Even in the case of very young players that are paying to play, it’s the parents money, so not exactly “youthful optimism” that powers it.
    - codeulike 2y ago
      Players pay for a trainer, no?
  - adr1an 2y ago
    No. Yet, if you're cynical enough everything is a pyramid scheme. And, then maybe you're able to see that the economic systems themselves are full on that unsustainable growth (if, for example, you start looking into how the 'natural resources' are exploited to be centralized in important cities/ countries yet the environmental costs are never paid by the latter and so on...)
dimator 2y ago
Nobody decides to pursue their pro sports dream out of pragmatism or a career. They do it because its their calling and they don't care about the odds. They know that a fractional percentage will achieve the highest highs, and they go forth anyway.
- eastbound 2y ago
  But Roger Federer was 18 when he first won Roland Garros (French Open). Shouldn’t they quit if they are not going to be at the top?
  - spookie 2y ago
    I too should stop programming given I'll never be at a FAANG at this point. /s
    - socksy 2y ago
      Programming is a non-scalable career (in the Talebian sense[1]), like being a lawyer or doctor. The relationship in earnings vs success is much closer to linear, with the most successful programmers getting only about 10x (100x if we'rereally generous, but probably more like 2-4x on average) more than the least. In contrast pro sports are a scalable career, where incomes can scale separately from effort, similar to movie stars, authors and musicians. The relationship is an exponential with the very best earning the lion share of the income of the entire industry, earning literally millions of times more than those at the bottom of the industry. Given a certain amount of effort invested in your career so far, if you know you're middle of the road of a scalable career, and it's becoming less and less likely that you'll hit the top 1 percentile, then I would think that the likelihood that you should perhaps look to change career should be much higher than if you were middle of the road in a non scalable career. [1] https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-careers.html https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-career...
      - j7ake 2y ago
        Starting your own company can make your skills more scalable. The top artists like Taylor Swift have scalable careers mostly because they operate like a corporation.
prawn 2y ago
I found this article about a young swimmer really interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/02/theres-a-lot-of-bullying-the-shocking-life-of-a-teenage-elite-swimmer https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/02... I know a family with a pre-teen son investing a huge amount of time in another individual sport. 4-5 hours every weeknight, putting pressure on schooling and on the family by limiting schedules and recreation. They all give a certain look when they talk about it, knowing that there is a cost to creating (potentially) an elite athlete. At least the kid himself doesn't look glass-eyed and lonely, but I do wonder how that life would compare in hindsight to regular family, time for socialising, regular holidays, etc. This is not really sport with NBA money at the end.
OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago
> "If it's like you've described, why do it at all?" > He stared into space for a good few seconds, then responded: "Glory." The coach was a Klingon?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

piuantiderp 2y ago

What motivates you, comfort?

The_Colonel 2y ago

> But maybe in a few years, she'll be the coach for someone in the next generation. Most of these people "burn" their youth chasing the dream and don't get a non-sport education/experience. A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job.

barry-cotter 2y ago
This seems very unlikely to me given the propensity of finance firm to hire even college athletes never mind people who got to be in the top one or 200 of their sport in the world. Anyone who is capable of pushing the work in day after day to get a good at some thing that doesn’t very well like sport is capable of putting enormous amount of work day after day to get good at something that does pay well. Most famously jocks are good at sales. Athletes are no fools. Often of the top of my head Michael Jordan has had a very successful career as an investor after the end of his sporting career. Michelle Debruin, and Irish Olympic gold medallist in swimming, went on to become a Barrister, a trial lawyer in the American parlance. The people who stay in Borsh are staying in sports because they really really love i,t not because they’re not capable of making more money in other ways.
- rvba 2y ago
  You have the 1950s approach: we hire a hard working person amd after 5 years of internship they will become great. Most companies nowadays offer zero on the job training. You need 5 years of experience for your internship. You are supposed to make impact now. Maybe somoene can score some sales based on looks, but come on. You need to register your sales in SAP now, it's your problem nobody told you how (although with sales they still will, since it is a profit center).
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > Athletes are no fools A quick search will show you the shockingly high bankruptcy rates for former pro athletes. Plus, most of them do not finish uni and have few marketable skills after their short career ends.
  - spookie 2y ago
    You can have jobs without a degree. Important and fullfilling jobs too. Those bankruptcy statistics might be biased given how poorly paid athletes are, thus tgey might be a consequence of their past and not their present. They aren't fools, they pursue their dreams. Less foolish than some of us.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      > given how poorly paid athletes are To be clear, in the US, when people say pro-athlete, they mostly means NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB. (Yes, tennis counts also, but leave that aside for a moment.) I Googled for minimum contracts in those four leagues: NBA: 1.1m USD NFL: 660k USD NHL: 750k USD MLB: 60k USD MLB is shockingly low, but it might be explained by the farm leagues. (I don't know more details.) I doubt anyone who sees regular play in the MLB is making so little.
      - brokenmachine 2y ago
        You're talking about maybe the top 1500 sportspeople in the country. The rest are poorly paid.
codeulike 2y ago
A career of a trainer is still likely more attractive than a menial unqualified job So its like a slow-burning pyramid scheme powered by youthful optimism?
- soneca 2y ago
  Nothing like pyramid scheme because what sustain the “scheme” overall is public interest, generate experiences that people pay money for and companies are willing to sponsor. It’s not the new young players that input all the money in the industry. Even in the case of very young players that are paying to play, it’s the parents money, so not exactly “youthful optimism” that powers it.
  - codeulike 2y ago
    Players pay for a trainer, no?
- adr1an 2y ago
  No. Yet, if you're cynical enough everything is a pyramid scheme. And, then maybe you're able to see that the economic systems themselves are full on that unsustainable growth (if, for example, you start looking into how the 'natural resources' are exploited to be centralized in important cities/ countries yet the environmental costs are never paid by the latter and so on...)

dimator 2y ago

Nobody decides to pursue their pro sports dream out of pragmatism or a career. They do it because its their calling and they don't care about the odds. They know that a fractional percentage will achieve the highest highs, and they go forth anyway.

eastbound 2y ago
But Roger Federer was 18 when he first won Roland Garros (French Open). Shouldn’t they quit if they are not going to be at the top?
- spookie 2y ago
  I too should stop programming given I'll never be at a FAANG at this point. /s
  - socksy 2y ago
    Programming is a non-scalable career (in the Talebian sense[1]), like being a lawyer or doctor. The relationship in earnings vs success is much closer to linear, with the most successful programmers getting only about 10x (100x if we'rereally generous, but probably more like 2-4x on average) more than the least. In contrast pro sports are a scalable career, where incomes can scale separately from effort, similar to movie stars, authors and musicians. The relationship is an exponential with the very best earning the lion share of the income of the entire industry, earning literally millions of times more than those at the bottom of the industry. Given a certain amount of effort invested in your career so far, if you know you're middle of the road of a scalable career, and it's becoming less and less likely that you'll hit the top 1 percentile, then I would think that the likelihood that you should perhaps look to change career should be much higher than if you were middle of the road in a non scalable career. [1] https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-careers.html https://casnocha.com/2009/03/scalable-vs-non-scalable-career...
    - j7ake 2y ago
      Starting your own company can make your skills more scalable. The top artists like Taylor Swift have scalable careers mostly because they operate like a corporation.

prawn 2y ago

I found this article about a young swimmer really interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/02/theres-a-lot-of-bullying-the-shocking-life-of-a-teenage-elite-swimmer https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/jun/02... I know a family with a pre-teen son investing a huge amount of time in another individual sport. 4-5 hours every weeknight, putting pressure on schooling and on the family by limiting schedules and recreation. They all give a certain look when they talk about it, knowing that there is a cost to creating (potentially) an elite athlete. At least the kid himself doesn't look glass-eyed and lonely, but I do wonder how that life would compare in hindsight to regular family, time for socialising, regular holidays, etc. This is not really sport with NBA money at the end.

OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago

> "If it's like you've described, why do it at all?" > He stared into space for a good few seconds, then responded: "Glory." The coach was a Klingon?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]