Why Do People Assume Distance Runners are Smarter than Other Athletes?

Distance running requires a different skill set and a heavy mental aspect. It takes meticulous dedication and consistency, which are traits best suited for smarter individuals. Patience is a key as well in running, and dumber people are generally void patience and instead seek instant gratification all the time.

Compare the GPAs and test scores of the members of each sport and see who wins.

It's not the football players.

Right - running doesn't require more brainpower than other sports, but it tends to attract people with characteristics that also correlate with studiousness.

Poor people play football and basketball. If they were smart, they wouldn't be poor.

an honest assessment wrote:

Compare the GPAs and test scores of the members of each sport and see who wins.

It's not the football players.

Average XC roster: 10 - 15

Average Football Roster: 40+

So there is going to be a wider distribution of individuals who play football. It just happens that the few who go out for distance running may have a higher GPA on average than the whole of those who go out for football but at the same time the GPA and test scores of the top 25% on the football team may be comparable to the XC team as a whole.

People who go out for football are often doing it as a means to pull themselves out of a bad situation one day, so you're going to attract those who are not so bright and a share of very bright ones. The not so bright ones know that they can at least get their feet in the door through brute force via football and get a chance at millions one day.

Someone going out for XC isn't of that mindset. They're doing it in most cases to train for another sport or general fitness. Desperate people don't run XC. If it were a possible ticket to being a millionaire and pulling yourself out of poverty, you'd have more less than bright people doing it.

The only people who assume that are distance runners...

Oh my innocence babe F in the 6ix wrote:

Distance running requires a different skill set and a heavy mental aspect. It takes meticulous dedication and consistency, which are traits best suited for smarter individuals . Patience is a key as well in running, and dumber people are generally void patience and instead seek instant gratification all the time.

So does football. Go and see their practices. It takes not only the physical aspect of making sure you don't get injured during the game, which requires meticulous build up during the off season and meticulous attention from the trainers assigned to evaluate the teams...but you also have a greater likelihood of being injured in football, catastrophically injured.

Football players also have playbooks to memorize and spend a lot of time watching the other teams' game footage in prep so they know who the key players are to be watchful for on the opposing team.

proof wrote:

Poor people play football and basketball. If they were smart, they wouldn't be poor.

Can't blame the kids who were born into a poor situation. It doesn't reflect on them. Just on their parents.

Or on simple lack of economic opportunity.

And divorces are a killer. They can throw kids from the most well-to-do families into a poor situation.

markschultz2018k wrote:

People who go out for football are often doing it as a means to pull themselves out of a bad situation one day, so you're going to attract those who are not so bright and a share of very bright ones.

Why are people who are pulling themselves out of bad situations likely to be dumber than people in other circumstances? I have friends who decided to go to med school to pull themselves out of a bad situation (they wanted financial stability either because they wanted to be fully independent from abusive/dysfunctional families or because they grew up in poverty and wanted to escape that life).

markschultz2018k wrote:

Someone going out for XC isn't of that mindset. They're doing it in most cases to train for another sport or general fitness.

Don't know where/if you ran in college, but that describes exactly zero percent of the XC runners I've ever known.

2 Olympic Trials Champs and a speedskating champ are doctors. I can't name d any doctors who came from the ball sports.

Mark I found a woman for you. A Canadian chick who won a gold medal in the Commonwealth games weightlifting. Maude Charron.

Dr Pele wrote:

2 Olympic Trials Champs and a speedskating champ are doctors. I can't name d any doctors who came from the ball sports.

Well most of the professional ball sport players make enough money so they don't need day jobs.

Don't know where/if you ran in college, but that describes exactly zero percent of the XC runners I've ever known.

They're not doing it in hopes of becoming wealthy off of running itself. Running to help them get into college is not the same as someone playing football with the hopes of making it pro as a football player one day.

Running is seen as a means to an end, not the end itself. While football is seen as the end, culminating in the NFl.

Not one collegiate XC athlete that I know said they hoped to be wealthy as a professional distance runner one day,

Even at the pro ranks, only the top 10% of the top 1% of distance runners are able to live wealthy just from running alone, without the aid of endorsements.

The same way people assume asperger's kids obsessed with trains are smarter than other kids. It's just a different part of the autistic spectrum.

Dr Pele wrote:

2 Olympic Trials Champs and a speedskating champ are doctors. I can't name d any doctors who came from the ball sports.

The former men’s AR in steeple is also a doc.

markschultz2018k wrote:

GPA and test scores of the top 25% on the football team may be comparable to the XC team as a whole.

If football players weren't dumb in the first place, they wouldn't go out for football and suffer even more brain damage then they've had already.

There is zero chance that football players have any intelligence whatsoever.

Think it through, man. wrote:

Dr Pele wrote:

2 Olympic Trials Champs and a speedskating champ are doctors. I can't name d any doctors who came from the ball sports.

Well most of the professional ball sport players make enough money so they don't need day jobs.

Haha. Good comeback.

The pro ball players who make an NFL or NBA roster make at minimum a salary twice the salary of a doctor. The league minimum in the NFL is $400K for those who make the roster in the end.

Without the debt of medical school or law schoool hanging over their heads...

John Urschel

If football players weren't dumb in the first place, they wouldn't go out for football and suffer even more brain damage then they've had already.

There is zero chance that football players have any intelligence whatsoever.

For many young boys, football is seen as a rite of passage into manhood. It has nothing to do with brain damage as that's very low likelihood at the high school level.

Football does help toughen you up in a way distance running don't. You may be able to run a bad 5k but it doesn't mean you'd know how to handle yourself if some meathead shoved and got up in your face. It is an adrenaline rush that you don't get in distance running but that you get in hard contact sports like football. You're better prepared for it because of football. You know how to handle the adrenaline correctly.