Yet people are paid to take care of the track, administer stuff, and coach.
Football and basketball paying for other sports is overblown. It's not true for division II and III schools with football and a lot of division I schools. It's the big lie that lets a few schools mess around with something that's outside their mission.
Dairyland wrote:
beachbum wrote:
Candace Hill will likely be the relevant comparison.
She is so much worse than when she was 16. I figured she would be.
School, whether HS or university, is the optimal training and racing environment when young.
The young lack the personal discipline and social skills, so end up unchallenged in any path but running. This lack of balance creates the problems.
Would you want a 16 year old to forgo schooling to be paid as a professional singer or baseball player? Not in today's society and marketplace.
By analogy, there was an alarming statistic in 2019 that 70% of those who won the lottery or similar windfall go broke within a few years.
I disagree. Especially for a sprinter.
People always take a super long term look at running which makes sense if you’re a super talented kid that can run fast times in say the 1500 but are more of a 5/10k guy, because you’ll have plenty of time to move up later.
But would you rather have your competitive career end at 26 with a gold medal or end at 34 with a gold medal? Training at the highest level is extremely hard and that’s 8 more years of pushing your body to the limit.
Remember, Bolt broke the 200m world record at 25.
Why is it in the US that we spend so much time on “developing” athletes for longer careers yet our athletes at 10k and marathon are all mediocre except for Rupp? You have high school coaches saying wait till college, then college coaches saying wait until you go pro, then what happens?
It’s very rare for athletes to have careers stretch into their 40s or late 30s like Nick Willis, Lagat, and Abdi.
We need to start focusing on getting athletes faster at the age that they’re supposed to run fast, their mid-late 20s.
How to do that? Well that’s a whole different debate.
I would have agreed if he was 18; 16 is too young. Bolt and Sydney where running similar type times at 16 but waited until they were 18. Its not about talent or times; its maturity and the fact that there is nothing to be gained by rushing. There is a big difference between training like a H.S. kid and running 20x blowing away the competition and having to train like a pro and running 20x just to be competitive.
Not necessarily. Maturity in teens isn’t about age really. You get some 8th graders looking like high school seniors, and get high school seniors looking like 8th graders.
Kids that run fast times in high school for the most part reach puberty faster, it’s rare looking through past NXN champs that you see an extremely short and scrawny kid. They’re all developed, which means they need to start adding on the training more.
Chances are that Erriyon keeps training with his same coach for a couple years before switching to a pro coach. There’s no reason for a high schooler to be racing against kids who he is much faster than. If you don’t have competition in practice and in racing then you are going to lose the drive that makes you want to get faster.
Like another guy said, sprinting is a young mans sport. I’m not saying he should go balls to the wall at 16, but he needs a faster environment for the long term
Fewer mind it when a very bright person skips grades, young musican starts giving solo concerts, or chess prodigy goes to war against old men. But there's a culture of hazing and paying your dues in sport. Go to college and run all three seasons and multi-events in a single meet to help the team. All while taking a full course load. Then you're a real man or woman.
Dairyland wrote:
Not necessarily. Maturity in teens isn’t about age really. You get some 8th graders looking like high school seniors, and get high school seniors looking like 8th graders.
Kids that run fast times in high school for the most part reach puberty faster, it’s rare looking through past NXN champs that you see an extremely short and scrawny kid. They’re all developed, which means they need to start adding on the training more.
Chances are that Erriyon keeps training with his same coach for a couple years before switching to a pro coach. There’s no reason for a high schooler to be racing against kids who he is much faster than. If you don’t have competition in practice and in racing then you are going to lose the drive that makes you want to get faster.
Like another guy said, sprinting is a young mans sport. I’m not saying he should go balls to the wall at 16, but he needs a faster environment for the long term
Maturity isn't just physical!
The day you turn pro, you now have a job; you have an agent and a coach who are on your payroll and a sponsor that expects you to represent their brand. This is a reality you can't ignore.
Why are you guys all comparing him to distance runners?
makestoomuchsense wrote:
If a big sports company is paying a once in a generation high schooler good money to turn pro there's little opportunity cost. College can come later without the distraction of cross country, indoor, and outdoor seasons and championships. It's cynical to rationalize exploiting children from third world countries or from poor families by noting they have no other options. Anyway, the US is wealthy enough that people can take six years to graduate college, serve in the military for years to save for college, or start medical school in their 30s. In Europe they take gap years to just travel around.
Yeah, this dude is definitely running XC. LOL
Feel free.
I just read a dyestat article on the guy. He had football offers supposedly as a WR from Alabama, Florida, etc. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd pick track if I was him. Guy can play.
Like having babies early in marriage (when you're stupid but pliable and full of energy) and hitting 40 as an empty nester, when you still have energy and a whole lotta life ahead of you. Lots of exhausted 50-yr old parents out there ;-)
Success here will depend on a combo of 1) parental / family support; 2) a competent coach AND on who also is wise and mentoring; 3) a good agent; 4) some personal character / virtue.
TrackCoach wrote:
I would have agreed if he was 18; 16 is too young. Bolt and Sydney where running similar type times at 16 but waited until they were 18. Its not about talent or times; its maturity and the fact that there is nothing to be gained by rushing. There is a big difference between training like a H.S. kid and running 20x blowing away the competition and having to train like a pro and running 20x just to be competitive.
The gain is 2 years of earnings instead of waiting until 18.
douglas burke wrote:
How cool is that in 11th grade and knowing moneywise you are set for life
Assuming he lives to age 80, that is 64 years. If he signed a $3.2 million contract, that equals $50,000 per year for life. I don't think anyone is "set for life" making $50K, nor do I feel his contract was worth $3.2 million. I'm sure it is less.
If you take the $3.2 million and invest it, earning 7% annually, which is the long term average for the stock market, it will yield $224,000 per year without touching the principal. Far more than $50k per year.
Rupp started as a soccer player and got essential training that distance coaches don't prescribe. My experience with distance running training is that at no point are you really developing agility. The speed endurance training is there, but it's on tired legs and you're never really developing the power and coordination that a 100 meter sprint requires. Sure you can be Alberto Salazar and run a good marathon but you put that guy with that form on a soccer field and he's going to look silly. The 16 year old runner in the video wouldn't make a distance runner like rupp because he's 6 3 and likely to get heavier, but I have no doubt he could run a faster 800m than Nick the bison Symmonds. Power and form matter and without both you'll reach a platue as a distance runner. The way you're trained as an xc runner in America you actually lose power I remember our 16 minute 5k guy losing wrestling matches to girls. Probably could have been a pro runner though if he just had more speed. So that's why Rupp is an outlier, he's faster than he'd be if he started as a distance runner.
I assume you are joking as he may get a couple hundred-thousand at best
briswiss said,
"unless you run 800m or more..."
This is why T&F will never prosper, Everyone is only out for themselves. Let's all be selfish and only care about what we only care about.
Ever been to Penn relays?
Spectators want to see it all... and they are betting money in the stands on all events.
I know a man who made 5K just betting.
Fun stuff Maynard.
beachbum wrote:
Jonathan Gault wrote:
To my knowledge, this is the earliest a US male track & field athlete has ever turned pro. I know Candace Hill turned pro at 16 after her sophomore year in 2015. I can't remember anyone else turning pro before the end of their junior year.
Obviously there's a degree of risk here, but 20.33 is ridiculous for a 16-year-old./
Candace Hill will likely be the relevant comparison.
She is so much worse than when she was 16. I figured she would be.
School, whether HS or university, is the optimal training and racing environment when young.
The young lack the personal discipline and social skills, so end up unchallenged in any path but running. This lack of balance creates the problems.
Would you want a 16 year old to forgo schooling to be paid as a professional singer or baseball player? Not in today's society and marketplace.
By analogy, there was an alarming statistic in 2019 that 70% of those who won the lottery or similar windfall go broke within a few years.
Maybe Hill would have gotten slower during those years either way. We can't really know for sure. Webb tried it your way and it didn't work out, so he left the NCAA. Others thrive in college. I think it depends on the individual.
This kid is 16. Solving your issue about a windfall and lack of maturity, his parents can just put the money in a trust. Set it up so he can't touch the principal until he is 30. He can have the interest in the meantime if he wants, or he can choose to reinvest it. Make an exception for school: he can pull out actual costs of tuition while enrolled full time in school as long as his GPA is above 2.0 overall and no back to back quarters under 2.0, basically rules like being on an athletic scholarship.
It seems even more common for sprinters to not improve during college age than for distance runners. This kid can't tell the future. If a lucrative enough contract shows up, why not jump on it?
There, I solved all your concerns for you.
YARLY wrote:
The way you're trained as an xc runner in America you actually lose power.
This is an excellent point. When I watch the Olympics, I've noticed that the Americans all look like puny weaklings next to all of those powerful looking Ethiopians and Kenyans. Thats probably why the east Africans do so well in distance, its all the power they've built up over the years, while the Americans wasted their time running lots of miles. Its one of the things the East Africans are known for: low mileage to prevent losing power.
No doubt, at some point, he'll add himself to the long line of American sprinters who've served doping bans.
To be clear, I am not absolutely saying this is a bad move, I'm just giving my opinion and decision I would make having parented and coached kids his age. I was against the Lyles brothers turning pro. I felt they should have done the NCAA for at least a year. I was definitely wrong in Noah's case, albeit he was 18 at the time and there is nothing to say he would not have had the same success if he had run for a university for a year. The 2 biggest mistakes made in these situations are assuming progress will be linier and allowing a kid to make a decision they perhaps are not equipped to make. I feel that sometimes adults use the fact that this is what the kid wants to do as a copout when in fact it is also what they want. Perhaps the biggest thing to consider for a teen sprinter turning pro is being a U.S. citizen. The standards for sprinting in the U.S. are extremely high, some years, you can run a 10 flat 100m and a 20 flat 200 and not make the national team. It would have been nice to see him ran fast 400m or perhaps hurdles or long jump...just to have options.
With all of that said, this kid is super talented, he has a better than decent shot at success and I wish well.