“Almost All of Us Will be Going Pro in Something Other Than Sports.”
The NCAA commercial that caused a lot of conversation
Before student-athletes could get paid, there was an old commercial.
It made waves when it first launched. I’ll try to sum it up now in case you don’t want to watch it.
It shows a variety of student-athletes working out and playing their specific sports. They show swimming, basketball, football, softball and more. They show the athletes working out and performing in games.
While this is playing, the student-athletes are talking about how college athletes are more likely to graduate than non-college athletes. They also on average have a higher GPA.
“Still think we’re just dumb jocks?” says one of the athletes. The narrator then goes on to say the most famous line in the commercial.
“Almost all of us will be going pro in something other than sports.”
The point of the commercial is to remind high-level student-athletes that everyone doesn’t make it. 98% of them won’t make it. Hence, they will graduate and be professionals in their respective lines of work.
The NCAA guesses that 1% of D1 athletes ever go pro.
D1 athletes play at the bigger schools. Schools like Notre Dame, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Alabama.
These athletes were the best in the country. If you receive a scholarship to play at a major school like this, you are in an elite class.
At the college level, most aren’t nearly as dominant as they once were. At this level, only 1% make it to the pros. These are the best athletes at the collegiate level.
I am telling you this to let you know the odds you are up against. Most of us don’t want to go pro in sports, but there are plenty of people who want to do the same thing you want to do.
I’m sure if you are writing on Medium consistently, you would one day like to make enough money from writing to support yourself. Medium says there are 1,375,000 new posts every month on their website alone.
This doesn’t count all the other blog-style websites where anyone can post anything.
That’s a lot of competition. Medium has 20,000 new articles posted every day. I imagine the odds of going pro in sports are similar to going pro in writing.
This is probably relatable to any other form of art as well. We all know the cliché of the starving artist.
When you don’t feel like posting that day, someone else will. When you feel like you can slack a little bit today, someone else is working.
These are just the realities.
I remember something my high school basketball coach said to me one day. I think it is something I will remember for life.
He said that while we are sleeping, someone else is working. That other person is working to catch up to us if they are not as good. Or they are working to widen the gap between themselves and us.
So many people want to accomplish the same things in life. There is competition in all aspects of life.
You have to be ready to compete to succeed.
After all, almost all of us will go pro in something other than sports.
