A very poignant and well-written piece, which only gets sadder as you realize the scale and extent of these systemic issues landing people in such places, and it’s only getting worse.
This touches on the "everybody else in the discipline" aspect I have been thinking about lately; my conclusion is that we have a spectrum of inclusive to exclusive sports.
Think about snooker: to live off it you need to be really good, as in train for 8+ hours a day, every day. The top player will earn multiples of 250k GBP a year, but already a 3rd ranker will at best do a "decent office job". Everybody else pays to play. This is an exclusive sport.
But look at UTMB[1]: A guy having a day job and training a couple of hours before and after work... was able to finish it under 100 hours, which is jaw-dropping. This is an inclusive sport.
Now pro boxing: you can't have a ranking without enough contenders, and by definition there can only be one champion at a time. So you have the champion, contenders, gatekeepers, journeyman and... everybody else is the filler. It's an inclusive sport, but by pure statistics most players will be filler.
I don’t follow your argument. Snooker is exclusive because few people can make a good living of it, and trial running is inclusive because some people can get good results in it?
I bet there are people training their snooker an hour a day who have scored 147s, and I also expect very few people can make a good living doing trail running.
Isn’t this more a matter of a sport being popular/having money available? If there were millions of $ available in trail running, that sub 100 hour might start looking “goo but not spectacular”
The main point is "can you compete while not being fully dedicated to the sport (i.e. it being your literal day job)".
And my examples along the spectrum: running - boxing - snooker, are just an example. Shared because I think it's an interesting _aspect_ of looking at sports (one of many aspects!).
> The main point is "can you compete while not being fully dedicated to the sport (i.e. it being your literal day job)".
Taking that as “compete at top level world-wide”, that’s a matter of number of number of competitors.
To do that, you need to have a good combination of physical abilities, mental abilities, and opportunity (growing up in a rich country or in a rich family helps even in cheap sports such as athletics) and dedication to the sport.
If you’re playing soccer, that means that, world-wide, you’re in the top quarter million or so (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_player: “It has been estimated that there are 250 million association football players in the world, and many play other forms of football.”), so chances are you won’t be well-known, world-wide. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1283927/number-pro-socce... says *“FIFA estimated that there were 123,694 professional soccer players worldwide.”, so half of those that are three sigma above average will play professionally, I expect most of them for, at best, middle class salaries)
Numbers are hard to come by, but in snooker, that probably gets you into the top 100 or so. In trail running, I suspect it gets you in the top 10.
I think the difference between running and snooker is that snooker is a skill you can train for 8 hours a day (with lots of dedication) whereas running for 8 hours a day instead of a bit before and a bit after work would yield more negative than positive results due to exhaustion and injuries
There's a few "things" that you can only make a living off of if you're either really good, really dedicated, or really lucky; art, music, sports, e-sports, pidgeoning, acting, social media, etc.
Hopefully it's not taken in poor taste to compare the situation to a video game, but I can't help but think of Cyberpunk 2077's Dogtown. This zone that's become a den of all sorts of sad behavior, ruled by martial law.
That being said, I get the impression the author has a flair for the dramatic. On a whim I clicked on a random restaurant there on Google Maps (Red Rooster Overtown) and it was described as an "Artful restaurant offering Southern comfort food with a twist, plus craft cocktails, and happy hours." Doesn't exactly sound like a hellhole to me, though I guess it has been 15 years and a lot can change.
A very poignant and well-written piece, which only gets sadder as you realize the scale and extent of these systemic issues landing people in such places, and it’s only getting worse.
This touches on the "everybody else in the discipline" aspect I have been thinking about lately; my conclusion is that we have a spectrum of inclusive to exclusive sports.
Think about snooker: to live off it you need to be really good, as in train for 8+ hours a day, every day. The top player will earn multiples of 250k GBP a year, but already a 3rd ranker will at best do a "decent office job". Everybody else pays to play. This is an exclusive sport.
But look at UTMB[1]: A guy having a day job and training a couple of hours before and after work... was able to finish it under 100 hours, which is jaw-dropping. This is an inclusive sport.
Now pro boxing: you can't have a ranking without enough contenders, and by definition there can only be one champion at a time. So you have the champion, contenders, gatekeepers, journeyman and... everybody else is the filler. It's an inclusive sport, but by pure statistics most players will be filler.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-Blanc
I don’t follow your argument. Snooker is exclusive because few people can make a good living of it, and trial running is inclusive because some people can get good results in it?
I bet there are people training their snooker an hour a day who have scored 147s, and I also expect very few people can make a good living doing trail running.
Isn’t this more a matter of a sport being popular/having money available? If there were millions of $ available in trail running, that sub 100 hour might start looking “goo but not spectacular”
The focus is not "making money of off it".
The main point is "can you compete while not being fully dedicated to the sport (i.e. it being your literal day job)".
And my examples along the spectrum: running - boxing - snooker, are just an example. Shared because I think it's an interesting _aspect_ of looking at sports (one of many aspects!).
> The main point is "can you compete while not being fully dedicated to the sport (i.e. it being your literal day job)".
Taking that as “compete at top level world-wide”, that’s a matter of number of number of competitors.
To do that, you need to have a good combination of physical abilities, mental abilities, and opportunity (growing up in a rich country or in a rich family helps even in cheap sports such as athletics) and dedication to the sport.
If you are three sigma above the mean from that, you’re (about) in the top 1/1000 of competitors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68–95–99.7_rule#Three-sigma_ru...)
If you’re playing soccer, that means that, world-wide, you’re in the top quarter million or so (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_player: “It has been estimated that there are 250 million association football players in the world, and many play other forms of football.”), so chances are you won’t be well-known, world-wide. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1283927/number-pro-socce... says *“FIFA estimated that there were 123,694 professional soccer players worldwide.”, so half of those that are three sigma above average will play professionally, I expect most of them for, at best, middle class salaries)
Numbers are hard to come by, but in snooker, that probably gets you into the top 100 or so. In trail running, I suspect it gets you in the top 10.
Alex Poatan, double UFC champion, was a tire repairman and alcoholic before/while becoming multimillionaire fighting.
Joe Lauzon was a network admin. He decided that being punched in the face was a better job.
I think the difference between running and snooker is that snooker is a skill you can train for 8 hours a day (with lots of dedication) whereas running for 8 hours a day instead of a bit before and a bit after work would yield more negative than positive results due to exhaustion and injuries
There's a few "things" that you can only make a living off of if you're either really good, really dedicated, or really lucky; art, music, sports, e-sports, pidgeoning, acting, social media, etc.
Hopefully it's not taken in poor taste to compare the situation to a video game, but I can't help but think of Cyberpunk 2077's Dogtown. This zone that's become a den of all sorts of sad behavior, ruled by martial law.
That being said, I get the impression the author has a flair for the dramatic. On a whim I clicked on a random restaurant there on Google Maps (Red Rooster Overtown) and it was described as an "Artful restaurant offering Southern comfort food with a twist, plus craft cocktails, and happy hours." Doesn't exactly sound like a hellhole to me, though I guess it has been 15 years and a lot can change.
What a fantastic piece of writing. Gripping. Thanks for posting it.
> He points up at the perfect blue sky. "I'll see him again."
By the time I got to this line, I could not stop the tears.
Just got done reading it, it’s a sad but beautiful piece.
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