Runners = failed Soccer players. Sprinters = failed Football players

As a 4th grader I played little league baseball, biddy basketball, pee wee football and was in bowling league.

There was no organized track/xc, but we did have gym class and field day.

In college I ran xc & indoor/outdoor.

Does this mean I came to running from these other sports?

If there is no track til high school, everyone is coming to running from something.

I don’t know what it’s like in the US but here in the UK the level of obsession of parents desperate for their kids to be footballers is staggering.

So many now have their kids training at multiple teams, matches Saturday and Sunday, pushing them into ‘academies’ that are massively over recruited where their kids thinks they’ve made it, when actually they have no chance at all.

The really sad thing is people are blinded by the money. Actually it’s a terrible job, barely and time off to enjoy the money they make and they miss their own kids growing up.

Then when kids are cut from the team they end up not doing anything at all into their 20s and beyond.

If parents channeled all this energy into more niche sports, like athletics, not only to kids have a much better chance to excel, but they carry these habits into the rest of their lives. Fitter and healthier into middle age.

College football and track seasons don’t overlap and if there is a guy as fast as Bolt playing football, he will run track and he would have to a great football player to give up track after college.

Someone having great speed doesn’t mean they can run routes or actually catch the ball. Not everyone that can sprint, will get drafted by the NFL. The NFL might only be interested in just a fraction of the great sprinters.

Actually the logic is reversed. If you want your kid to become a good long distance runner, have him play soccer up until age 14 or so. Soccer develops both cardiovascular and neuromuscular system and is much more fun for kids. This is also why most good runners are ex-soccer players. Correlation between technique and athletic abilities is actually very low, and although good cardio is also beneficiary, it is not a decisive parameter. Sprinting abilities are more correlated with success in soccer, but also not the pure 100m dash type.

That’s OP’s point. Sprinters are failed football players.

It’s true for me. I was all baseball age 4-14. Broke my arm in recess in middle school so decided to run track for a year while I had to sit out of baseball. Winning came easy, so I transitioned over.

Thing was, I wasn’t even bad at baseball. I wasn’t a super star or anything, but I cared and tried hard. That goes a long way in youth sports. It’s hard to know what you’re really good at when you better than most at most just because you try harder.

But now that I’m 30 and am looking back on it, I peaked at running in HS. 4:13 mile and 1:54 800m in 11th grade are still pretty much PRs (ran 4:11 and 1:53 in college). Never had the aerobic ability. 25:11 XC and 15:35 5k TT for PRs when I was 21.

Sort of wish I just played ball as long as I could and then took up jogging in 20s. I hate that I still go to a trail race and have an ego once the gun goes off. Racing a 20k all out because “I used to be competitive in college” doesn’t seem nearly as fun as jogging a 20k then sprinting the last 200m because “I’m really a baseball player that took up jogging”.

If any youngster wants some free advice, I’d say don’t think you are some extreme talent just because you are head and shoulders above others. The cream rises to the top in high school; that’s the age where talent really shows you what you can be. Until then, don’t get caught up in it.

I think it depends on what you consider a "failure" at football...

For instance... Christian Coleman was a first team all state football player at his level in Georgia. But at 5'9" he decided to go track in college...

That's teamwork. We encourage that in the modern world, from the workplace to the battlefield it's all about teamwork.

Distance running is the most globally competitive sport in the entire world. Therefore, people in other sports are essentially failed distance runners. Pogba and Mbappe running a 10k would get lapped 4 or 5 times by Gressier if they managed to finish LOL.

It may be the case for boys but I'd say this definitely isn't the case for girls as not many are exposed to football (soccer) in terms of PE lessons or soccer practice outside of school, but it's interesting to read about the boys' experiences with this.

As a separate issue, the drop-out rate of girls from sport is horrendous when they reach high school. There should be way more in terms of public health policy and so on spent on this as once they drop out they tend not to return to sport, full stop. A lot of factors are involved in this, some of which could be so easily changed. It's sad.

I remember having to do cross country in gym knickers and an aertex T shirt in the snow in winter, not being allowed to wear leggings or trousers or a long sleeved T shirt or anything like that, being deeply uncomfortable and not being the only one feeling that way (and I was good at sport so it was probably way easier for me). Standing about in the bitter cold while inappropriately dressed isn't exactly a way to endear people to sport. Similar with being forced to do swimming which most people hated. I think at least if there was some element of choice people could maybe find a sport that suited them; the system needs a complete overhaul and it's so very important. PE was just treated as a bit of a joke, a doss about. Instead it could've established healthy habits for life or a lifelong love of a certain sport or hobby - the potential to change people's lives was there and just wasn't capitalised on at all, missed opportunities for sure.

As a result I'd say 98% of people utterly hated cross country/running in general and only ran as they were so freezing cold that it was better than walking. Even when it came to the 400m in the summer, most people were so unfit by that point that even by the age of 14-15 we had people walking (yes, walking in the 400m) to finish the race. It's shocking and sad that by the age of an early teen the level of fitness had already diminished so badly and was so poor.

The potential was there to do so much great stuff yet running was simply treated as a punishment basically instead of something like a walking program building up to jogging which would've been way more realistic. Something like the couch to 5k would've been ideal and I think people would've had a sense of accomplishment as well, and there's a goal with a race at the end too.

Opportunities really missed in my opinion with sport with girls in the UK. The opportunity is there yet it's just left and they become unfit and unmotivated by the time they're in their early teens. It could be so different and it's sad that it's just left like this for whatever reason. Patterns for a healthy lifestyle could be set and it's just missed.

Even a walking programme would be better than what's currently on offer and that can set up patterns for life as well - and all you need is a pair of shoes and can go from your front door so no travelling or huge expenses involved. Shame.

Should we add to the title " Shot putters = failed linemen?"

;)

I used to ask the guys at Cornell "How did you get into the sport?" A lot of them said, "I got cut from xx"

But I don't think that means the OP is correct. I think a lot of people just try track or xc - like Dan Michalski - to get in shape for something else and then realize "Wow I'm quite good at this."

Rupp wasn't a failed soccer player. He just realized he was one of the best in the world at running.

9/10. This was a pretty good troll post, I must admit.

Andreas Almgren was on the verge of going pro in one of Swedens top soccer academies before focusing fully on running.

Probably would've made more money as a pro in the Swedish football league, but it took like 10 years for his running career to finally live up to his potential.

Many sprinters never even tried out for football. This thread is to bash track, but 99% of football players aren’t fast enough to sprint at an elite level or good enough to play in a different sport.

With the same talent, and within a year, the kid with years of playing soccer behind him will have no advantage over the one that rolled off the couch at age 14.