Should you spur your baby to play dangerous sports activities to become a professional athlete and make a shipload of cash? De la chanson depends on the kid, figure, talent, motive, and opportunity. The solution is a convincing “no” if you ask this parent of four. I will explain more of my rationale later. For a starter, caveat emptor: sports activities, like different organizations, have exploitative under-bellies few see or want to see. Being proactive is prudent because advice is given after harm, equivalent to medicine after demise.
Obesity is a worldwide fitness trouble with recognized outcomes. Some consequences are excessive blood stress, Type II diabetes, heart disorder, sleep apnea, joint ailment, numerous cancers, and call. But do not tell that to many Nigerians (particularly Africans in fashionable) who agree that being fat is a wonderful element, a standing image, evidence of appropriate dwelling, and wealth. Engaging in physical activities for the duration of one’s existence is a worthwhile habit that promotes the quantity and the greatness of fact, in step with health specialists.
However, a huge divide exists between playing sports recreationally and gambling them professionally. No recreation is danger-unfastened, but a few are more dangerous than others. The expert athletes’ club admission expenses may be excessive; frankly, they may not be well worth it.
In my 20s, I favored looking at boxing. Sugar Ray and Thomas “Hitman” Hearns II fight comes to thoughts. My favorites were Marvin Hagler, Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks, Mike Tyson, and George Foreman’s 2nd coming. I watched the ones fight every risk I was given. At one Pay-View occasion in 1987 in Oakland, California, I was seated near a former boxer.
After the interesting combat, as we walked out of the venue, he made statements that caught my thought when a spectator begrudged the hundreds of thousands the warring parties earned. He stated, “These combatants will pay dearly for the rest of their lives for the hits they have taken nowadays.” He continued, announcing, “All of the millions they made these days will no longer be sufficient to heal the lifestyles of ache and struggling.”
Looking back, his utterances have been prophetic because little was known then about the effects of concussions, hits to the head, overall performance enhancement tablets, Parkinson’s disease, memory loss, and slurred speech troubles. Some sports we ship our kids to play nowadays are equally risky; don’t allow the hype, money, reputation, and medical development to fool us. Remember that pork came from a cow or because the Igbos say, “Suya ahu si n’s name”!
Seeing the massive money and repute in these sports activities turned into only a count of time earlier than Nigerian mothers and fathers. Our youngsters themselves started pursuing the trappings of those sports activities. Some may additionally need to obtain the apparent blessings without seeing the latent pitfalls. These parents and kids need to adhere to this Einstein quote: “Study the regulations of the sport [first]. And then you have to play it higher [on and off the court] than anyone else”.
I must devote a paragraph and pay homage to Nigerian, and indeed international, athletic heroes. Dick Tiger, Christian Okoye, Hakeem Olajuwon, and cutting-edge professional players have shown sparkling examples on and off the level. They continue to be the beacon of everything brilliant, approximately Nigeria and Nigerians. When became the ultimate time you heard whatever bad about these heroes? They hold to varnish the photo of our Motherland while corrupt politicians and 419ers are bent on tarnishing her global picture through their movements. Like grateful Nigerians anywhere, I salute those evergreen heroes.
I want Nigerian parents at home and abroad to push their youngsters into these sports activities to cash in. Often, we’re humans with all-out dispositions to make cash at all value. Some can also want to dispel a fable accessible and expose themselves and their youngsters to hidden dangers. According to one sportswriter, “Humans are skeptical about Nigerian gamers; they are gentle, not hard enough, and too educated”.
That’s a loaded statement! Trying to “show a terrible” might cost one dearly. You may consider Loyola Marymount basketball star Eric “Hank” Gathers, who died on the court in 1990 at some point in a televised sport. The younger guy had an acknowledged coronary heart situation; however, he continued to play without taking the medicines that made him too tired to carry out up to his big-name caliber.
All sports activities have inherent risks. As Italians say, “ogni rosa ha le sue spine,” or “Every rose has its thorns.” I want to ride bicycles. Many cyclists get hurt or even killed at the same time as bicycling. Just three weeks ago, in Austin, Texas, a bicycle owner pushing his disabled motorbike was killed by an inattentive driving force less than 10 miles from my house. Do you realize that women soccer gamers preserve the second maximum number of concussions after American soccer gamers? To determine that one.
However, some sports activities are like cigarettes: they’re risky when played as prescribed. Some injuries are cumulative from very young ages (primary and middle faculties), and the ill results aren’t fully felt until after one’s playing days.
The odds of creating it for professionals are quite tiny. A friend who played one of those sports activities professionally tells me, “Human beings simplest see the only a few who correctly jumped over to the other aspect of the ridge. But look down in the abyss to peer the multitude that did now not make it.” The few that make it to the professionals grow to be dwelling painful lives after their injuries occur and when their coverage benefits are no more.
They quickly squander their income due to negative economic management skills. Just like too many Nigerians refuse to plan for retirement, these athletes assume they’ll continually be in the money. Those who help you waste your assets will no longer be there for you while you need them. Wake-retaining can only bury one after one has died; it won’t sustain the residing.
Why don’t group proprietors, coaches, and crew medical doctors use their sizable clouts to play their youngsters in these rewarding sports? Other companies, which include preachers, educate their youngsters in the family organization, so why not as risky sports activities gamers? Could it be because they are the reality or, to paraphrase Ben Franklin, society writes injuries in dust and benefits in marble?
Are sports activities the most effective way to earn university scholarships? Academic scholarships are better than most sports activities scholarships—the graduates are more students than the latter. Reading will now not come up with the injuries mentioned earlier.
If you don’t know any ex-expert gamers in your baby’s sport, you are probably interested in a Google or Facebook search to discover one to speak with. They are surprisingly clean to learn; you would find them inclined to help you. Listen with open thoughts to what they tell you; don’t take their feedback as sour ex-players comments.
That is what I did years ago before my youngsters had been of age to play popular American sports. As a proactive step, I started discouraging my sons from gambling on soccer. I was stunned when my middle schooler informed me he had been asked to try out for his school crew.
My spouse and our kids have been first jubilant at the information. I went into excessive equipment to speak him out of gambling football. When he refused to back off, I blessed him. However, I informed him I might not visit any video games. They stated he turned into suitable at it. He encouraged his mother to visit one of the video games. I ought to inject right here that she’s within the scientific area after watching the game live and listening to the sounds of struggle.
I suggested she hit the sector that day; she was again domestic to join me to dissuade our son from gambling that sport. The sounds of the blows were now not like whatever she heard from football video games on TV. I responded that if she thought that middle college gamers hit hard, she would believe how hard the high schoolers and college players hit and no longer speak of professional gamers. I couldn’t stand looking at my toddler playing soccer; I just could not. Call me fowl!
After that first year of football, our son was introduced, to our delight, that he had given up the sport. I asked why, and he said none of his group had been in his Advance Placement lessons; in truth, most of them had been no longer doing nicely in school, partly because of ignored classes because of injuries and sports activities distractions. This is the case in Africa and elsewhere. Some excel in each sport and teachers.
