Barnett: We’ve all got big dreams to remember, manage

Published 12:01 am Saturday, September 19, 2015

So you want to go pro? Everybody does. Or at least a lot of us do at one point or another.

I remember the first time I wanted to. It was baseball, and I had been practicing pitching over the summer. Not a fastball slinger, I was fairly consistent in keeping the ball in the strike zone when my father caught for me in practice at the diamond near our home. It was really more about father-son bonding time than about playing ball. But there is something about practicing sports with your dad, mom or siblings that makes you want to do better than what you think you can do on your own. It is a driving force. And in that summer I felt I had transcended my true ability.

It wasn’t until a couple of months in that I got to test my new skill. We had a game in which the other team forfeited after not enough of their players showed up. So we decided to play a pickup game instead, and I got on the mound for the first time to save our pitcher’s arm for future contests. And, as a surprise to me as well as to everyone on our team who knew me, I pitched three scoreless innings before we called the game.

For days after that I would practice my wind-up in the mirror imagining myself in a Major League uniform. Being a native Missourian, my uniform changed from the St. Louis Cardinals, who have always been good, to the Kansas City Royals, who have almost always been bad, with the reasonable consideration that by starting pitching in my early teens I was a little behind the game and the Royals were probably a good starting off point before making my way up. And then my first real game came about a week later in which I walked in three runs in the first inning before being yanked and never pitching again.

I was ashamed at having indulged that fantasy and soon strayed away from baseball altogether. It wasn’t until later that I discovered I wasn’t alone. I just gave up before I really got started. Maybe, that was for the best.

It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I thought about it again. Having made 2nd team All-District at a small school I thought I’d have colleges contacting me.

None did.

It wasn’t that big a deal like I thought it was. And it was a few years later after a sole season in the British Collegiate American Football League at 23, older, slower and fatter that the idea went away altogether. I was just a regular guy and a bit lazy at that. Wanting things to change in my life but not willing to work for them to change. And I decided I better to do something and started my path towards writing for a living, which it turns out is much easier than making a tackle.

Now writing well, that is a different story.

I’ve met some good athletes in my time, and the vast majority of them have a few things in common: never giving up and the willingness to expend maximum effort to achieve their goals.

And even that is not enough most of the time, as only the very rare few of us also possess the physical attributes necessary to be considered for the first level of sports, not to mention the next and the next.

While I’ve not known a pro athlete until during or after their professional career, the coaches I know who have met them and helped them along the way have all spoken of a preternatural ability.

So if you are one of those who wants to go pro, you undoubtedly have a lot of work ahead of you to say the least and have to rely on some luck as well.

According to the NCAA, of more than 1 million high school football players each year, only 6.5 percent, or around 70,000, will ever play in college. Of those, 1.6 percent will go on to the NFL.

This is not to discourage athletes but to promote reality.

A football coach I spoke to a few years ago said the delusion of becoming a pro football player was a useful tool in incentivizing kids to better themselves in high school ball.

“They all think they are going to the NFL,” the coach said.

In his estimation, the want to continue to play, and play for a living at that, incentivized kids to pursue college for the purpose of playing rather than education. However, the players ended up with an education anyway.

Kyle Barnett can be reached by phone at 985-652-9545 or email at kyle.barnett@lobservateur.com.