What sport, if you had focused on instead of running, could you have had equal success as you did in running?

Well I am what some might consider a national class runner and I don't feel the same as you.

Here is the main and really only reason why I feel this way:

Talent pool for running is extremely small

Talent pool for basketball, baseball, football are extremely huge

If the number of people that played basketball, baseball, football were to instead run, I don't think you would see many if any of the national distance fields that you see now, barring the freaks.

What would you consider to be equal to a national caliber runner in the sports of baseball/football/basketball?

theOTHERwhitemeat wrote:

nordic skiing or wrestling

Same here. Have probably exceeded running performance in nordic skiing, but levels are fairly close.

never gave wrestling a try in a formal sense but my 6th, grade gym teacher, who also coached at our high school was a natl. champ wrestler (NCAA and AAU) who said many times the I coulda been good at it.

TPaine wrote:

golf.

so i have running and golf. sweet. i am sooooooooo cool.

I actually did both cross and golf in high school in the same (fall) season. One of the few high schoolers who was all-conference in two sports during the same season. I ran D3 so I'm pretty sure I could have been just as successful on the golf team. These two sports aren't exactly the best for attracting the ladies, however.

soccer baby!

Nice assumptions but way off.

I never said it is more of "more of an accomplishment to make a baseball team than it is to make nationals in cross country."

I did say "There are so many (college) basketball and baseball teams out there that if you are halfway decent at the highschool level you have a shot of making a team somewhere. Basketball and baseball are much more funded and sponsored by colleges than running programs. Meaning that there are more opportunities to make those teams."

Being half-way decent to me is one of the better kids on a bad team or an average kid on a good team. There is no doubt those kids would have chances to make the team at certain colleges. The only reason I brought all of that side of things into the conversation was because another poster mentioned he found it hard to believe a runner could have done another sport in college. Clearly it is not that hard to comprehend it happening if you have ever seen some of the teams at Div II, Div III and NAIA level.

I do think being an average national class runner is comparible to making a decent college baseball/football/basketball team (being a good div II, div III, NAIA or middle of the pack Division I baseball team).

What people like you obviously can't understand is that while those other sports don't directly or even indirectly relate with regard to athleticism or talent, they do take away an extremely large portion of people who might have ran and been damn good at it. Cause if you think we have the best talent on the track right now that we could have as a nation you are kidding yourself.

DISC GOLF

That is SUCH BullSh*t. Have you seen half of the football, baseball, and basketball players at your school, could you see any of them running. NO WAY. Its all about body-types dude. There may be lik 10% of baseketball and baseball players, 5% of football players, and maybe 70% of the soccer players who would even have a chance at long distance running by getting rid of any extra muscle. The rest dont have to bone structure or the determination for it. Team sports are easy because they are fun to play and practice. Running takes a different kind of mental capacity that only us runners even know about. Geez, have a little respect for your sport, its not something anybody can do.

There are a couple million kids that do compete in sports that are not running in the US. Some of those kids might actually have a different body weight if they actually ran. Have you seen some runners when they are laid off for awhile. It is safe to say that they high-level, major college sport teams do not have many runners types on their squads. It is also safe to say that all those hundreds of thousands of kids that gave up on those sports because they were not good enough physically whether it was due to small frame, not explosive enough, not strong enough and so on. Those are the kids that could would have been better off in running. To say there are not hundreds of thousands of kids that could be good runners that instead play these other major sports as kids is just foolish and bullshit.

I was a baseball player throughout college and was pretty damn good in fact. I didnt have anything like a typical distance runner body, but have been running a ton for the past two years. I now have a body type that is more similar to a distance runner build (Im 6'2 180) and in just two years of actual running (I had to jog before for baseball and run a sub 6:30 mile every year in fall workouts) I have run sub 15 in the 5k and got a hair under 4:10 in a street mile.

I wouldnt necessarily judge all those guys who dont look like they could run. If they put in the effort for a little while they can surprise some people.

boxing....I am white but I still laugh because most whites dont know now to throw a punch correctly. Latins seem to do it naturally but I could box just as good if not better. I always knew what to do in the ring without much instruction. The problem was I did cut pretty easy.

Dumbest post I've read all day. Ball players are not the best athletes, just the best ball players...big deal.

Besides, looks as though Xavier Carter just busted your weak ass premiss all to pieces.

Maybe you aspire to be like Brittany Spears, there's your big time stage.

David Wells has never be named as a great athlete anywhere else. Good pitcher (not great).

Definately freestyle (mogul) skiing.

SCIENCE OLYMPIAD!

nerdlinger wrote:

SCIENCE OLYMPIAD!

This isn’t a sport

Golf . If could go back to 16 years old . I would have focused on golf . Started golf at 6 years old .

As a former strength & power/field event guy in college (and slightly beyond), I think that my best potential in another sport would have been in Olympic Weightlifting. The weight classes would have favored my naturally solid strength-to-weight ratio. I was exposed to the Oly lifts during my track training and picked up the technique fairly easily. My lifts in training would have made me competitive at the collegiate weightlifting level and moving towards national level without ever having focused on putting up really heavy bars.

Another option would have been rock climbing? Actually, probably just high end bouldering as my enduro was weak due to the strength/power training focus.

Both would have been fun to try to cross over from track.

Golf. If I had spent the same amount of time and money as I do running on golf for the past 10 years I'm sure I'd have a single digit handicap. I was in the low 20's playing once a month the last time I was in a league. Would have preferred playing hockey, but the times that most leagues play in my area is insane, which is why I gave that up.

Archery. It was my first sport and as a kid I never lost a tournament (but then I didn't shoot at Nationals, either).

. . . Whereas in running I (almost) never won.