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

markschultz2018k wrote:

Let's use some actual data. . . . wrote:

In short, cross country, especially on the women's side of things, was disproportionately represented. Golf and tennis team GPAs were often as good or better than cross country team GPAs. The biggest surprise to me was the high representation of soccer and volleyball teams.

Soccer should not be a surprise. If you believe cross country are the smartest. Most of the kids at my high school who played soccer also ran cross country to condition them for soccer. It makes perfect sense.

Plus, soccer tends to favors more elite high schools and kids from wealthier parents who can take them to soccer camps throughout their childhood.

All of the best soccer players I know had an upbringing similar to that. They went to elite soccer camps for much of their childhood. = $$$.

thats funny. here in europe the soccer players are the stereotypical dumb kids from bad neighbourhoods

sp2 wrote:

I used to think distance-runners were smarter, on the whole,... till I started reading the LetsRun MB.

Seriously.

And now you’re assuming they’re not smarter as a whole based on the marginal number of distance runners who are letsrun posters? Strange logic.

Frank de Farmer wrote:

thats funny. here in europe the soccer players are the stereotypical dumb kids from bad neighbourhoods

Yes, and this is why the U. S. is not in the 2018 world cup. Imagine if Lebron James played soccer...

In Utah, there is an award called academic all-state. To qualify, your GPA must be top 10 in your sport and division. In the case of more than 10 4.0 students, all 4.0 students receive the award. Also, athletes must be a varsity contributor. This definition is a little vague. I'll just assume that if I can find a result for them or something that places them on a varsity roster, they're varsity. That's a bad assumption. For example, one of the runners I found was a 27:xx 5k runner and so some athletes that clearly aren't varsity level are being included. I figure in for both the football players and runners, the number of "varsity athletes" is generous.

https://www.uhsaa.org/academicallstate/

Consistently, XC has more academic all state athletes than football.

Consider the year 2017. I chose this year because it is the most recent one. I am also only considering 6A, just because I don't have the time to go through tons of data. The numbers below reflect seniors who attend a 6A school in Utah.

I'll just assume that if I can find a result for them or something that places them on a varsity roster, they're varsity. That's a bad assumption. For example, one of the runners I found was a 27:xx 5k runner and so some athletes that clearly aren't varsity level are being included. I figure in for both the football players and runners, the number of "varsity athletes" is generous.

Athletic.net reports results for 182 cross country runners. Of those 182, 18 earned academic all-state. That means that approximatly 9.9% of HS senior boys in Utah that run XC have a 4.0. Of course, the 182 number could be low, as not all websites use athletic.net.

Football, on the other hand, had only 10 athletes qualify for academic all state. I couldn't find a convenient list of how many football players there are in Utah. But for 9.9% to be academic all state, there'd have to be only 101 seniors playing football in Utah in the 6A division. maxprep.com provides rosters for the teams in Utah. I selected 2 6A schools, Kearns and Davis, at random. They had 37 and 31 seniors on their football teams, respectively. Lets say they were outliers and most schools have only 20. With 23 6A schools, that's 460 seniors- assuming each only has 20 seniors which is not a very good assumption. Rolling with that number though, 2.2% of football players are 4.0 students. That is a high estimate.

From this, it can be concluded that XC produces more 4.0 students. Of course, my conclusions are based on limited data and only reflect the athletes who are academically at the top. I do not think you can conclude anything about the average GPA of runners/football players from this.

I just don't see how Abdi Abdihraman or Mo Farah would get into medical school let lone earn a PhD in math or physics.

What about Dr. J?

Swimmers and distance runners lead the GPA at all schools, probably because what they do they have to do themselves and don't have teammates who throw the ball to them or to whom they can throw or pass a ball. Athletes in many sports work together as teammates and in distance running you have to do it yourself and they tend to function the same way in their studies.

Hog wrote:

Swimmers and distance runners lead the GPA at all schools, probably because what they do they have to do themselves and don't have teammates who throw the ball to them or to whom they can throw or pass a ball. Athletes in many sports work together as teammates and in distance running you have to do it yourself and they tend to function the same way in their studies.

I know people aren't stupid enough to actually think like this, but I fail to see the humor in these type of posts. I assume they are aimed at others to get a rise, but then again said person would have to be pretty stupid.

Before you come to that conclusion, you need to read the equivalent football mb.

NOBODY WHO HAS EVER MET JAKE HURYSZ THINKS THATT DISTANCE RUNNERS ARE SMART

Look at the Ivy Leagye to see the level of competition across events. Sprints are way behind power 5 schools but distance is always competitive.

Even more interesting is to take a look at the current and former All-American distance athletes. A striking number have STEM degrees. Successful endurance athletes simply know how to work harder/smarter and achieve results in a more timely manner than their peers. Just having the ability to a stay with a task a fraction longer than others helps place them ahead of the pack!

Swimmers and distance runners lead

I think that's exactly right at our school. Not much of a difference but swimming leads cross-country.

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

Because they don't read the message boards on letsrun...

markschultz2018k wrote:

Think it through, man. wrote:

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...

The average career in the NFL lasts 3.3 years.

Distance running is a very, very monotonous. There are 3 factors to being a good distance runner: High VO2 max, ability to operate at a high percentage of VO2 max without building lactate, and good running mechanics. All of those can be improve by running a long time, and running a long time but a little quicker.

That kind of bland, uninteresting, and repetitive training is very similar to academic success. Outside of math and medicine, school is just about reading the same sh*t over and over again to memorize it. Distance runners are not only good at repeating boring tasks that require no intelligence, they are exceptional at it. It is easy to get a high GPA in Buisness or Sociology where the only required task is to read the textbook a million times.

Honestly, the most intelligent athletes I've met in track tend to be hurdlers and multi-eventers. These are usually the kids trying to balance math or engineering/physics degrees while doing sport. They love problems with lots of variables like hurdles and multis.

Well, running doesn’t cause brain damage

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

Because the people doing distance running are, generally, white and middle to upper middle class. Other athletic endeavors not so much.