High school athletes turning pro
Imagine playing in front of three thousand screaming fans just waiting for you to do something spectacular. Imagine being swarmed by the media after stepping out of your thirty two thousand dollar car, leaving practice to go to a photo shoot for the cover of Sports Illustrated. This must be the life of a veteran athlete finally getting his “big break” right? Wrong! This is the life of eighteen-year-old LeBron James, a high school basketball phenom from Ohio. As the projected first pick in the NBA draft, James is probably going to turn pro out of high school. True, on the outside this 6’7” 225 pound guard has the physical capabilities to play with men, but what about his mental state? It has been proven that high school kids can handle a “man’s” game, but are they ready for a man’s life. If we continue to let our high school athletes turn professional not seeing the big picture, we are setting them up for failure. Not failure in their craft, but failure to learn the foundation of life and depriving them of their teen years. As a child, every athlete dreams of that day when they can step out of their “field of dreams” and lead the game winning drive with two minutes left or hit a game winni
What if one day you could wake up at nineteen years of age and have one million dollars in the bank? Most people would do whatever they wanted; buy anything and everything their hearts desired. That is usually what young, successful athletes do, which is a real problem. At eighteen or nineteen years old, you haven’t learned the value of money that most adults have been taught. This is a drastic change in responsibility that many kids aren’t ready to handle. At such a young age, kids are vulnerable to being taken advantage of. Not knowing how to invest or save your money intelligently could be like giving your money away. Another change in responsibility that young athletes face is the sudden changes in self-care. They go from being taken care of by their mothers to being independent. It’s like taking a hatchling out of its nest and expecting it to fly immediately. They still need guidance and life experience. As Brian Shaw said of a nineteen year old Kobe Bryant in Sports Illustrated magazine, “nobody was going to listen to him when he was eighteen, nineteen years old. He didn’t have enough NBA experience, or even life experience…” (Pg. 35). In addition to a change in responsibility, there are adult situations these kids are exposed to. Many of these situations reported in various sports, involve drugs, women and alcohol. Whether it’s steroids in major league baseball or bar fights and women in hockey and basketball respectively. Just imagine a night out with the team. You’re the youngest one there but you don’t want to be left out. For ev
Some topics in this essay:
World Series,
Sports Illustrated,
LeBron James,
United America,
NBADL It’s,
,
professional ranks,
school athletes,
Brian Shaw,
eighteen nineteen,
game winning,
change responsibility,
major league baseball,
sports illustrated,
athletes professional,
fame professionals,
league baseball,
student athletes,
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Approximate Word count = 1069
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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