Hobbs Should NOT have Turned Pro

it could be that the money was very important to him and that's understandable. An athletic career is a fleeting thing, and nothing is guaranteed. He could have regressed in college or gotten hurt and then instead of being a millionaire by 22 he'd be a former D1 athlete with an NAU degree. Drew Hunter made his choice for the same reason, despite knowing what he would be giving up.

How did going pro rather than college workout for Kipchoge, Bekele, Cheptegei, Barega, Kejelcha, Cheruiyot, and Ingebritsen? Them not "bonding with college teammates" really hurt them long term.

Whatever dude! He is living the dream of everyone on Let’s Run! He can have any number of professions in his life. At least, one of them is professional runner out of high school. It’s his life. Let him run!

itsStreak wrote:

it could be that the money was very important to him and that's understandable. An athletic career is a fleeting thing, and nothing is guaranteed. He could have regressed in college or gotten hurt and then instead of being a millionaire by 22 he'd be a former D1 athlete with an NAU degree. Drew Hunter made his choice for the same reason, despite knowing what he would be giving up.

Yeah it is all about how much cash. Imagine you get say 1 million over 4 years. Do you turn that down and in 2-3 years you will be in a better spot? What is the success rat of sub4 HS guys in the past 10 years turning into solid pros? 50/50

Everyone has their own values and preferences. You are trying to apply yours to someone else's situation. He made the decision that was right for himself. Perhaps you'd make a different decision if you were in the same position, but that doesn't make his decision wrong.

There is no simple answer for Hobbs K. If he were a 1:

46.xx/3:34.xx

800m/1500m guy now I would 100% disagree with you. If Hobbs K. were a 1:

49.xx/3:37.xx

800m/1500m guy now I would 100% agree with you.

> A friend of mine went to M.L.B. right out of h.s. Some said the same things you are saying: Play college baseball, the friends, the facilities, the experience ... .

> A guy I know of, same age as me at my rival high school, next school district over went to N.H.L. right out of high school. All serious hockey fans know his name. A long career. Some folks were saying the same thing: College experience ... . Herb Brooks had moved on so ... .

> A distant relative we all know went straight from h.s. to a NIKE T&F contract.

College is not for everyone.

this is a stupid opinion because america is the only place in the world where people have this weird college system. the rest of the world is fine in sports! better in some like running. this is just closedmindedness.

Michael Slagowski

German Fernandez

Lukas Verzbikas

Just some names of people who (hindsight being 20/20), if they had a chance to go pro out of high school, they should have. If they had, they would have had some money to show for their moment at the top. Instead, they tried the NCAA route, and it didn't pan out, for various reasons.

Meanwhile: Evan Jager. Does anybody think he made the wrong decision? He transitioned well from high school to pro. I'm not convinced going to NCAA would have been a better career choice for him.

Also meanwhile: Mary Cain. It went poorly for her. Is that because she was just done either way, or is it because she went pro? I'm not sure that is knowable. But what is knowable is that she cashed in, where going NCAA was no guarantee that she would have gone pro later. Certainly with her level of running at 4 years out of high school, she wasn't going to get much of an offer, if any.

Going pro out of high school is a gamble. Going to NCAAs when you had the chance to go pro is also a gamble. These youngsters need to weigh their options. If you could somehow know that you were going to peak at 18, going pro is definitely the right route.

We can certainly name lots of runners who developed well in the NCAAs and went from fast to truly elite. For them, it was the right route. I would say for most athletes it was the right route. But that isn't ever going to be universal.

no simple answer wrote:

> A friend of mine went to M.L.B. right out of h.s. Some said the same things you are saying: Play college baseball, the friends, the facilities, the experience ... .

Not a great comparison, college baseball is the last choice for baseball players. MLB has a great development system built in that the other major pro sports dont have and that T&F certainly doesn't have. The only reason to do college ball is if you either aren't good enough to go to MLB, or because you really want to go to college for the sake of college, and are willing to risk a potential baseball career for that (which is a perfectly reasonable personal value decision to make).

No troll. Cant open his Instagram for some reason. Why didn’t he race?

From a development aspect, I'm for athletes staying in college. That being said, this thread is crazy.

knowing howitgoes wrote:

He gains nothing by turning pro at 18, except some extra pocket change,

False. the rumor is he got north of 500k per year. Unless you come from big family money, getting a guarantee of a couple million bucks is not pocket change.

knowing howitgoes wrote:

He could have been at NAU (or anywhere on a good college team), maturing, growing his aerobic strength, bonding with his teammates, maturing as a racer, etc etc etc etc.

Didn't he live in Flagstaff and attend NAU in the fall? I'm assuming he runs with the guys on the team. Hell, he should work out with them.

Why do you act like he's not doing well? He had a big breakout last year and is already ahead of that. He just ran half a second faster yesterday than he did last year on the same weekend.

Improvement isn't always linear. When I was coaching, I said if you can stabilize and equal a big breakthoguh year the next year, that's nothing to sneeze about.

Financially, going pro was very smart for Mary Cain and would have been smart for German F, etc. This weekend showed you why you many go pro when it's there. Teare is a star, the Newbury Park guys etc.

holterskolter2 wrote:

no simple answer wrote:

> A friend of mine went to M.L.B. right out of h.s. Some said the same things you are saying: Play college baseball, the friends, the facilities, the experience ... .

Not a great comparison, college baseball is the last choice for baseball players. MLB has a great development system built in that the other major pro sports dont have and that T&F certainly doesn't have. The only reason to do college ball is if you either aren't good enough to go to MLB, or because you really want to go to college for the sake of college, and are willing to risk a potential baseball career for that (which is a perfectly reasonable personal value decision to make).

You don 't know what you're talking about. I have another friend who played four years college baseball and had a much longer M.L.B. career than my friend who went high school to M.L.B.

Most high school T&F athletes will not be Olympic and World Champion medalists. Most T&F athlete who participate 4 years of college do not become Olympic and W.C. athletes.

Most high school baseball players will not make it one year in M.L.B. Most baseball players who participate 4 years in college will not complete one season of M.L.B.

If an athlete is top of the world good, they will go pro out of high school except Am. football players.

Don 't get stuck in the weeds worrying about a short college baseball season.

In most of the world this amateur/pro distinction doesn't really exist. You're either elite and making $ or your not and you're working a job. Athletic scholarships for the most part are very rare or don't exist at all.

He'll be fine.

If he is truly making $500k a year as a runner, it's absolutely a no-brainer that he did the right thing.

Isn't one of, if not THE, biggest reason the vast majority of people go to college to increase their earning potential? But if you could skip the college process completely because you already had great earning potential, I think 99%+ would go straight to raking in the dough. You can always take college courses on the side, or take them later, if graduating from college is important to you.

Even if pro running doesn't work out for HK, he can still go to college in a couple of years' time as a relatively well-off young man, without having to worry about racking up huge student debt.

All got their college paid for. That can be worth over 120k. They also may have gotten much better degrees from better schools than they could get in without running, setting themselves up for a decent future. After a couple years of running probably they wouldn't have earned enough they wouldn't have to take out loans if they wanted to work a professional job when their careers ended.

Is this an SDSU Aztec thread? Where he expects everyone to run within a second of their PRs in every race? It's eff-ing January. You are welcome to bump this in June if he's running no faster then, but it's the off season now. That's the obvious reason.

*Feb