Millions of kids grow up with dreams of becoming a professional athlete. But many of those same kids change their minds after high school.
There are many high school athletes who attend college, but don’t participate in college sports.
The demands of sports teams in college and the professional level are much higher than those of high school. The competition gets much tougher, as the most talented athletes in the world showcase their talent.
In college, the roster is filled with high school all-Americans and athletes who were the best at their high school, and some of them do not get much of a chance to play. The same thing can be said about the NFL or the NBA.
We all know about athletes who were superstars in college, but couldn’t make the same impact at the professional level.
It takes a tremendous amount of talent and dedication to be a pro athlete. A well-known saying is that people have a better chance getting struck by lightning than becoming a professional athlete, which shows how difficult it could be to become a pro-athlete.
“I think we’d all like to make it to the pros,” said senior information systems and services major Jeremy Gray. “As a pro-athlete, you’re the best at what you do and that really means something.”
The nature of sports in America has a huge impact on the ambitions of young athletes.
Millions of youth play sports, but only a few thousand individuals are fortunate enough to play professionally.
Unless you’re scouted as a high school student, there’s only a small chance an athlete will play in college. More often than not, only superstars from big name colleges make it to the professional teams.
At the collegiate level, the life of a student athlete is a very busy one. Most athletes receive full scholarships but they pay for it working hard in early morning practices and summer workouts.
George Parker, a sophomore management major, said he loved running track in high school, but didn’t run in college because it would take up too much time.
“I played football in high school, but I didn’t play in college, because I joined NAVY ROTC,” said David Byfield, a freshman business management major. “I saw ROTC as a better opportunity because I would be guaranteed a good job outside of college.” .
A student athlete may give up on sports because of an injury or because they were not offered a scholarship.
“I saw myself playing baseball at the college level,” Gray said. “I would have liked to keep playing, but Howard didn’t have a baseball team.”
At Howard, there are many students who were star athletes at their respective high school.
For one reason or another, a former student athlete’s desire to pursue their academic goals in college outweigh their love for the sports they once played.
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