Did You Know That Most College Athletes Will Be Going Pro In Something Other Than Sports? Did You Know This?
This is a great reminder for people every year as March Madness gets underway. I feel like every year when the tournament starts, too many of us seem to focus solely on the “best” players. You turn on ESPN and all they’re talking about is which players in the tournament are going to be one of the top picks in the upcoming NBA Draft. They’ll usually highlight something like 10-15 players. If we want to get crazy, let’s just say the entire first round of picks and go with 30 players. Now take in the fact that there are 64 teams in the tournament. 68 if you count the play-in games. There are more teams in the tournament than players who will be selected in the 1st round of the NBA Draft. So obviously there are going to be plenty of players in this tournament who will be going professional in something other than sports. Why shouldn’t we highlight them as well?
Take this scrappy little guard from Davidson for example. You think his competitive basketball career goes any further than the NCAA Tournament? Frick no. He’ll probably end up with a fairly comfortable job with his roommate’s fathers’s insurance company. He won’t stay there his whole life, just long enough to get his feet wet and create a nice little network for himself. A few years down the road, he gets offered a job in Chattanooga. He doesn’t necessarily want to move to Chattanooga but he decided to get married a little younger than the rest of his friends (he’s always been a guy who isn’t afraid of commitment). But now he realizes that he has a wedding to pay for. He has a house to buy. He’s probably got a kid or two on the way before you know it. So he takes a job in Chattanooga anyway. He’s got a nice little life for himself set up. He still doesn’t love Chattanooga but he’s been working his way up the management ladder at this new job, his wife and kids love him, and he’s able to provide for his family. Can’t ask for much more, right? That is, of course, until this new promotion he got has him working like crazy. Plus it’s more travel than he thought it would be. He barely has time for his family anymore and he just missed his daughter’s dance recital after he promised he would be there. He can feel the ground under him starting to crack and now his resentment for Chattanooga grows deeper and deeper by the hour. Meanwhile, somebody else who was playing in that same March Madness tournament is winning multiple NBA championships and multiple NBA MVPs and living the greatest life ever.
Now you look me in the face right now and tell me who deserves more shine over these next few weeks. The kid who is going to live a baller life for the next decade or more in the NBA? Or the kid who is going to be staring down a bottle of Jack hating his life in Chattanooga? That’s what I thought.