Max Kellerman is an idiot, but are we missing the point?

so which genuine top notch sprint talent has Track and Field lost to football in recent years?

Plenty of VERY fast footballers out there who have run excellent times, and all credit to them, but not one of them has been an absolute top tier talent. Guys like Jeff Demps and Trindon Holliday were excellent but both were exposed on the track as being just beneath the requisite level to compete for global medals.

Pretty much every fast NFL player out there has some experience on the track (easy to look up) and most were getting beaten quite easily by track guys who, in many cases, didn't amount to much themselves.

I've heard it mentioned that Adrian Peterson could have been an elite talent over 400m. Seeing as he often seems to gas out after about 60m on his longer runs, I'm not sure what that's based on. Yes, he ran a fast 100m in HS but even then he was a couple meters down on Ivory Williams who was an excellent athlete, but never one of the very best.

Track was a child's game that RG3 and Demps stopped taking seriously after high school. If they had not played football in college and did track only and then trained full-time track in their mid-20s, they would be winning global medals.

Here are the 4 names who are active players:

Tyreek Hill (200, world junior bronze), Jalen Ramsey (Long Jump, Decathlon), RG3 (400m hurdles), Marquise Goodwin (Long Jump).

Of the four, Goodwin was the most promising and has tried to compete while playing, but not with the success he had earlier. Hill got world junior bronze, though fair to notice that gold and silver haven't amounted to anything at the pro level (thought 6th placer was Xie). RG3's a projection, and Ramsey had some success in college.

Demps could have been really interesting if he’d focussed on track. Remember that when he was running quick he was carrying a lot of muscle mass unnecessary for track but needed if he was going to survive college football

Rather than viewing it as a lesser sport because the best track athletes are not simultaneously the most skilled at other activities, such as, in some cases, throwing, catching, or shooting, why not view it as the ultimate test of speed (sprints), strength (throws), endurance (middle and long distances), or skill (decathlon, field events)? No one in any other sport can beat the best in track at their events, or even come close.

The best and toughest athletes in the world are not football players, or basketball players. but Tour de France bike riders. Period. No one can do what they do.

I watch distance events. I would watch a 10k race on TV if they would ever allow one to run uninterrupted...

Maybe...but he hasn't played in the NFL since 2014 and has been competing in the 100m since. So, it's not like there wasn't motivation/effort to get to 9.8x range. He might just not have had that high of a ceiling after high school. Wouldn't be the first or the last guy...

Gggg wrote:

Demps could have been really interesting if he’d focussed on track. Remember that when he was running quick he was carrying a lot of muscle mass unnecessary for track but needed if he was going to survive college football

Sesamoiditis wrote:

First of all, the worlds best athletes are playing soccer.

Are you saying Messi is one of the best athletes in the world? Bah ha ha ha!

No, he's not saying that. He didn't mention Messi.

I wonder if Max actually thinks an NFL lineman who covers three yards and throws his body at someone is a better athlete than a 400-meter hurdler. I wonder if he thinks Tony Siragusa, to name the most obvious example, could have excelled in any sport except football.

I do believe that sports like football and basketball recruit away a large portion of talented athletes who would be successful in the professional ranks of track and field, however I think some discernment between the events is important talking about the issue with any specificity. As has been mentioned by previous posts, Christian Coleman is not the same type athlete as Matthew Centrowitz, just as LeBron James is not the same as Rafael Nadal.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to determining which athletic variables are central to success in the big 3 sports, and how many of the athletes who excel at those variables are being pulled into different arenas at developmental ages (lets say 12-18 YO). For example, a young athlete who exhibits excellence at explosive movements, who could potentially become a great long jumper/hurdler/sprinter, is very likely to be attracted to a more lucrative sport (even if the athlete doesn't eventually make the professional ranks, the immediate benefits of being on the HS football team like popularity, excitement, or possible scholarship offers would all contribute to the term "lucrative") at an age when sprint skill would ideally be developed. So, the pool of great sprinters, jumpers, and hurdlers is certainly being weakened.

That said, I am not convinced that this phenomenon is occurring across the board in Track and Field. It seems unlikely that such a large portion of the pool of potentially great distance runners are being lured into big sports, mostly because there is such little cross over between the primary athletic variables that determine endurance success, and success in the big 3 sports. The low body fat, long legs, and, most importantly, aerobic power that contribute to success in distance running simply don't offer an advantage in any other sport, other than maybe soccer (which is not a big 3 sport in the US), and I don't believe that the United States would be that much better in the 5000m if football were to become banned. The sprints/jumps/hurdles would, on the other hand, likely see a complete transformation, and it would be questionable if Christian Coleman and Noah Lyles would even have professional contracts if the entire NFL had been seriously pushed into track and field at a developmental age.

I will admit it is interesting that, despite the diluted pool of talent, the US still finds most of its international success in the sprints discipline. Nevertheless, I would still attribute this success to the incredible excess of explosive athletes born in the States, rather than it being any sort of reflection of Track and Field's ability to recruit top national talent.

There are plenty of distance talents who opt for football in high school and are thus wasted for the sport because they don't compete in it, even though they are unlikely to make D1 in football, let alone the pros. For instance, our best frosh-soph guy had been a football player.

It's ESPN. Of course, he's an idiot. That's what he's paid for, just like his partner, "Stephen A.".

But he is talking about money. If you're not good enough at track and field, you've got to try something else. There are thousands of baseball, basketball, and hockey players toiling in the minor leagues making more money than all but the top few t&f athletes in the world.

If you're not the absolute best sprinter or thrower, try football. If you were too small for football, you tried soccer, throwing, or sprinting. Etc., etc. We're all just looking for something at which we can succeed, for varying definitions of 'succeed'. For most of us, it's going to be working 9-to-5.

Max has found success that way, too.

Phil Fondacaro wrote:

ESPN’s Max Kellerman says track is not a sport and you only get into it because you’re a failure of an athlete and not tough enough.

-----

^^^^100% true.

Could a single person at the track world championships make the roster of any NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB team? Absolutely not.

Sure it is an exaggeration to say track athletes are failures of an athlete. The point is that competitors at the track world championships are decent athletes but are just dominating at a weak sport with weak competition. NFL rejects that are considered jokes like Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow are tougher and better athletes than Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps could ever hope to be.

Phil Fandacaro. You have lost your mind!

Just because football and basketball are the most popular sports in America in 2019 does not make those athletes in those sports better athletes! WTF? Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow are trash compared to Bolt and Phelps. First off they are overrated washouts in a sport only played in America, while Bolt and Phelps dominated the planet!

One of the best athletes ever...Jackie Joyner Kersee would dominate in several sports at the highest level. Dominating the Hep for over a decade proves that. Thinking of Jackie. Jackie Robinson dominated baseball and baseball was his worst sport! It just happened to be the most popular at the time.

Most NBA players are in the NBA for one reason....they are tall, very tall. Height doesn't make you more athletic. There are plenty of guys with better vertical jumps and more athletic that are under 6ft tall than guys in the NBA.

Most offensive linemen in FBS and the NFL are just huge guys. Most aren't athletic at all.

The guys who are the least athletic in track and field are long distance guys. Most suck at any sport...including golf, tennis or bowling.

very few great athletes pick track. but there are some pretty good ones that take it up.

the superstars in track simply did not fit into the other sports. for a variety of reasons.

the question he is answering is who is the most 'electric' athlete in history i have no idea how an athlete is electric but assume he talking about best surely the best athlete would be the one with the most depth of competitors therefore there is no way it can be american football because its played in one country lets say youre a talented athlete in a country not the us there is a negligible chance of becoming a nfl player

Yep! Walsh wanted a fast burner to go with Freddie Solomon and Dwight Clark in the pre-Rice 49ers offense. But it didn't work. He did get Taylor and Rice later on that decade.

Don't forget Eric Metcalf. Basically a mix of LeSean McCoy and Tyreek Hill. He was an electric, small RB for the Browns in the late '80s and early '90s. He was the long-jump champion at Texas as well.

Going by Max's logic of saying track only tests fast twitch muscles, can't you say the same thing about Tom Brady? Besides having an elite arm , he is barely athletic. Almost anybody decently athletic off the streets could match his 5.28 40 time or a 24 inch vertical.