Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:02:09 GMT -5
However, a lot of parents push their kids to excel in these activities. (What 12yo wants to wake up at 5am every day and train 40 hours a week?) It's not really fair to push your kid into doing something and then declare a right to share in the rewards.
Not sure I agree with that. Most of these kids want it bad. You can't FORCE a child to excel in anything, and why would you want to try? I've read dozens of biographies of Olympic gymnasts and pretty much without exception they all say that gymnastics was what THEY wanted and their parents were behind them. Even Dominique said that she always loved the sport itself and cherished the time she spent in the gym, and her parents WERE pushing her.
So, while I'm sure there are parents who push their kids to some extent, I guess it's hard for me to believe that a parent can push their kids to elite levels if it's not what the child really wants.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:02:27 GMT -5
You are also assuming that they would be able to make something of themselves by going to college. A lot them don't have a self-identity outside of their olympic sport. Going to school to become a Pharmacist or a Desktop Support analyst is just outside of their ability to think of themselves.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:05:39 GMT -5
You are also assuming that they would be able to make something of themselves by going to college. A lot them don't have a self-identity outside of their olympic sport. Going to school to become a Pharmacist or a Desktop Support analyst is just outside of their ability to think of themselves.
Again, I don't necessarily agree with this. Sure, a lot of kids define themselves by their sport but think about it - if they have the self discipline and drive to make themselves champion athletes, it's highly probable that they're pretty mature for their age. Most of them realize they're going to age out of their sport by (in the case of gymnastics) age 25 or so TOPS. I think a lot of them put a lot of time and effort into academics because they know sports won't last forever.
Although many of them do coach. I suppose you don't need a degree for that if you're a former Olympian. I believe four out of the seven young ladies in that picture now run their own gyms and/or coach gymnastics. Kerri Strug works for the Arizona Department of Justice, Shannon Miller is a lawyer (I think) and Amy Chow is a doctor.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:05:53 GMT -5
I agree. As the parent of elementary aged children, I watch parents try and push their kids in some pre-determined dream direction and it fails. That kind of success has to come from within.
I just had a chat with a friend who was a college athlete. Now that she is beyond the athletic stage of her life, she is blaming her parents because she always wanted to be an actress, not an athlete. Then went on to tell me a story about how she was in one play, and she hated it and she was terrible at it, and she couldn't wait until the play was over so she could get back to whatever sport she was playing next. Ummm - I don't think you not becoming an actress was your parents' fault.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:07:19 GMT -5
So, 60% of them couldn't think of anything to do except stay in gymnastics. I think that bolsters my point, not disproves it.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:08:31 GMT -5
So, 60% of them couldn't think of anything to do except stay in gymnastics. I think that bolsters my point, not disproves it.
There's a difference between not being able to THINK of anything else to do, and not WANTING to do anything else. If you love something, why shouldn't you spend your life doing it? Just because a lot of them coach or own gyms doesn't mean they weren't smart enough to come up with anything else they wanted to do. I think that's too simplistic.
Also, I'm not sure the Magnificent Seven are a great sampling. They're pretty unique in what they were able to accomplish. Most young elite athletes never see the Olympics.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2012 12:08:33 GMT -5
However, a lot of parents push their kids to excel in these activities. (What 12yo wants to wake up at 5am every day and train 40 hours a week?) It's not really fair to push your kid into doing something and then declare a right to share in the rewards.Not sure I agree with that. Most of these kids want it bad. You can't FORCE a child to excel in anything, and why would you want to try? I've read dozens of biographies of Olympic gymnasts and pretty much without exception they all say that gymnastics was what THEY wanted and their parents were behind them. Even Dominique said that she always loved the sport itself and cherished the time she spent in the gym, and her parents WERE pushing her. So, while I'm sure there are parents who push their kids to some extent, I guess it's hard for me to believe that a parent can push their kids to elite levels if it's not what the child really wants. That is what happened with Andre Agassi.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jul 16, 2012 12:10:07 GMT -5
I'm just basing it on what I've seen, which I'll admit is highly anecdotal.
But at a certain point, everyone wants to quit. Especially around junior high age - they want a social life, to be able to go out to the movies on a Friday night with their friends instead of at the gym from 5-10pm. They tell their parents they want to quit. Parents say, "No, just stick with it until [end of the year, end of the competition season, etc.]
Eventually most of these girls DID quit - but not until their parents had pulled out all the stops to prevent it. I can understand - investing that much money in something and having them quit before they get to scholarship-qualifying age has to be a blow.
Thyme - the cost is probably regional. We have an elite gym in Indianapolis (Bridget Sloan and Samantha Pezcek train there) so there isn't the "we have to move to Houston" issue. The training itself isn't THAT expensive, it's mostly the travel costs that get you.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:13:21 GMT -5
I agree and I never said that EVERY SINGLE ONE is a total idiot who can't do anything buy throw a discus or walk on a balance beam. I just said that there are many people who greatly excel as teenagers who cannot translate that into viable income stream for the rest of their lives.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Jul 16, 2012 12:13:42 GMT -5
A girl I grew up with graduated from high school at the Olympic Village in Colorado. She was an alternate for the 1996 US Archery team. She went on to get a degree and have a job she really liked. Then with her second pregnancy (twins) there were some major complications and one of her girls is deaf. She's now a stay at home mom. If you asked her, her identity has a whole lot more to do with her life after 1996 than anything before it. She did, during the winter Olympics mention she thought it would be fun to train for Biathalon and get back to the Olympics, but that's pretty much the only comment I can think of her making that even referenced her past.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:14:20 GMT -5
I can't wait until my girl quits! I keep asking her "Are you sure you want to do this? Wouldn't you like to learn to play the piano?"
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:15:59 GMT -5
Frankly, I'm sick of hearing about how awesome athletes are, and that they all turn out to be better people than non-athletes. It isn't true. I suspect the bell curve is remarkably the same.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jul 16, 2012 12:17:28 GMT -5
I'm a non-athlete, and I turned out pretty awesome ;D I know what you mean, though... I was the only non-athletic person in my family. Nobody ever gets as excited about Spellbowl or academic decathlon as they do about a baseball game...
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:18:09 GMT -5
But at a certain point, everyone wants to quit. Especially around junior high age - they want a social life, to be able to go out to the movies on a Friday night with their friends instead of at the gym from 5-10pm. They tell their parents they want to quit. Parents say, "No, just stick with it until [end of the year, end of the competition season, etc.]
Okay, that makes more sense. I thought you were saying that a lot of parents push their kids to Olympic levels. I have to admit that if I'd been supporting my thirteen year old in her chosen sport for the past eight years and she was reaching elite levels but wanted to quit, I would really resist that because at that point, I would absolutely be hoping that she could play her sport in college and hopefully get a full ride somewhere. That would somewhat offset the cost of her training for the past eight years.
But if she truly wanted to quit, I wouldn't stop her. That would be tough, though.
I agree and I never said that EVERY SINGLE ONE is a total idiot who can't do anything buy throw a discus or walk on a balance beam. I just said that there are many people who greatly excel as teenagers who cannot translate that into viable income stream for the rest of their lives.
Well, I'm not sure what your argument is then because at first you were saying they couldn't think of anything else to do, and now you seem to be saying that a lot of them can't make money doing the same thing haha. But either way - I agree that success as a teenager doesn't guarantee success as an adult. I do, however, think that anyone who has the drive and discipline to become an elite athlete in their prime years is a good candidate for having the focus and determination to make a great career for themselves as adults - whether in their chosen sport or in some other capacity.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:20:43 GMT -5
Frankly, I'm sick of hearing about how awesome athletes are, and that they all turn out to be better people than non-athletes. It isn't true. I suspect the bell curve is remarkably the same.
I don't think they're "better," but I do think that elite athletes (not talking about run of the mill high school football stars) probably have more drive and discipline than your average teenager. I'd be stunned if that wasn't true. Most teenagers don't do much with their free time. I certainly didn't. And I was one of the "good" kids with an A average and lots of extracurriculars who went straight to college. I can tell you that I never worked half as hard in high school as elite high school age athletes probably worked in an average week.
And of course, it's not just athletes. Concert pianists, kids performing on Broadway... anyone who does anything that takes an extraordinary amount of time and dedication above and beyond what's demanded of the average teenager is probably going to have proportional amounts of drive and discipline compared to the average teenager.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:22:08 GMT -5
I said that "a lot" of them couldn't think of anything else to do. And you came back with 3 examples of people doing outside the sport and 6 that stayed in the sport. So, look "a lot" of them didn't translate their perfect hard work and success into something completely different. Your 3 examples out of the million or so kids that train to be professional athletes isn't really enough for me to say that every one of them will go off to college and become nobel prize winner.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:23:03 GMT -5
Your 3 examples out of the million or so kids that train to be professional athletes isn't really enough for me to say that every one of them will go off to college and become nobel prize winner.
Which wasn't my argument.
And you came back with 3 examples of people doing outside the sport and 6 that stayed in the sport.
Also, it was 3 out of 7 that left the sport for other things, and 4 out of 7 that stayed. That's nearly 50-50 odds.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:24:29 GMT -5
60% of professional athletes are in bankruptcy within a decade of ending their career. I don't think most elite athletes translate their skills into other lucrative careers.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:24:54 GMT -5
I said elite, not professional. There's a big difference. Many, many elite-level athletes never go pro.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jul 16, 2012 12:26:36 GMT -5
Setting natural athletic ability aside for the moment... Is it that elite athletes have more drive and discipline than the average teenager, or that kids with more drive and discipline give the effort required to become an elite athlete?
In my sister's case, she was born organized. She has had the same personality since emerging from the womb. It is what made her well-suited for elite sports - she was conscientious enough to be able to maintain good grades even while having almost no free time.
My brother was the exact opposite - just as good at sports as my sister, but didn't have the drive/organization to be able to operate at that elite level.
So I think some of it is natural selection - the kids who end up in elite sports aren't the ones who would've been sitting on the couch otherwise. If they weren't an elite athlete, they would've been getting 1600s on their SATs, or inventing a new kind of semiconductor, etc.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:26:52 GMT -5
So, who are we actually talking about here. We are limiting ourselves to Olympians. You are right - they all turn out to be perfect, awesome people who can do anything they want.
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swamp
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Post by swamp on Jul 16, 2012 12:32:40 GMT -5
I'm a non-athlete, and I turned out pretty awesome ;D I know what you mean, though... I was the only non-athletic person in my family. Nobody ever gets as excited about Spellbowl or academic decathlon as they do about a baseball game... I am an athlete, and I'm more awesomer than you.
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:32:48 GMT -5
So, who are we actually talking about here. We are limiting ourselves to Olympians. You are right - they all turn out to be perfect, awesome people who can do anything they want. That's not what I said! And again, you can be an elite athlete - even an Olympian - without being a professional athlete. Plenty of Olympians retain amateur status so they can play their sport in college. So *I* am talking about ELITE athletes (not necessarily professional) when I say that I think they do have more drive and discipline than the average teenager and can go on to do very well for themselves. Maybe not all of them, but many or most of them. I don't know what you think I'm trying to say... I must not be making myself very clear
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:35:25 GMT -5
So I think some of it is natural selection - the kids who end up in elite sports aren't the ones who would've been sitting on the couch otherwise. If they weren't an elite athlete, they would've been getting 1600s on their SATs, or inventing a new kind of semiconductor, etc.
I think there's a lot to that, Mid. I didn't particularly excel in anything when I was in high school, and pretty much never challenged myself. (I regret that today.) If I had been one of those kids who naturally pushed myself, that trait would have appeared in whatever I chose to do with myself - drama, sports, academics, whatever.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Jul 16, 2012 12:47:36 GMT -5
Ben Johnson was an elite athlete - and a cheat, and now lives in his mother's basement.
Didn't Marion Jones go to Prison?
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Jul 16, 2012 12:48:18 GMT -5
Can we go back to discussing the parents who sacrifice for their kids then steal their money from them if they make it? That's always been more interesting to me than what happens to washed up Olympians.
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midjd
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Post by midjd on Jul 16, 2012 12:51:17 GMT -5
I would think YM would be pro-stealing-kids'-money - since we're always telling people to have multiple streams of income. What better method than birthing one of those little streams of income?
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Firebird
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Post by Firebird on Jul 16, 2012 12:53:55 GMT -5
Why do you think I'm procreating? I'd say that was at least 80% of our motivation
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Sum Dum Gai
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Post by Sum Dum Gai on Jul 16, 2012 12:54:30 GMT -5
LOL! If only it were that easy. You also have to spend the tens of thousands to get them expert coaching, pay for travel so they can compete and get noticed in the first place, etc., etc. There's a big ass up front investment in money and time hoping for a payoff on the back end. It's more like starting a business than it is like winning the lottery.
Consequently that's part of what makes me shake my head at some of the overzealous sports parents. If your husband is 5'6", you're 5'2", nobody in either family is taller than 5'8", and your daughter is short for her age, it's really not going to matter how much you spend on private lessons the chances of her making the Olympic team or getting a scholarship playing volleyball is pretty much non-existent. However, there are plenty of short girls on the local select team. Just being on the team costs over a grand a year, all travel is extra, and it's "highly recommended" that every member of the team has private coaching in addition to the club coaching.
Volleyball is easy to pick on but you see the same thing in a lot of sports. Tall kids in gymnastics. Skinny kids in football. Short kids playing basketball. Parents be crazy.
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happyhoix
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Post by happyhoix on Jul 16, 2012 12:56:23 GMT -5
Ben Johnson was an elite athlete - and a cheat, and now lives in his mother's basement. Didn't Marion Jones go to Prison? Unfortunately, the drive to be the best sometimes pushes athletes to use performance enhancing drums, and unfortunately a lot of coaches and parents either encourage that or look the other way. Atheletes can be damaged for life because of this. I remember reading about one gymnast who had undiagnosed diabetes and her coach and parents guessed what was going on but didn't want her to get treatment for it because it helped her stay thin....
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