The dream to be like Mike and the odds of achieving it

Ebony, Nov, 1998 by Walter Leavy

LIKE millions of little boys -- from one generation to another -- I grew up with the dream of becoming a professional athlete, specifically a baseball player. I loved the game (still do) and exhibited some talent at an early age. As far back as I can remember, I was always among the first to be selected when teams were chosen for sandlot games. And by the time I was 16, I could look into the stands and see major league scouts who had come to Northside High School in Memphis to see if I could play shortstop well enough to one day wear one of their team uniforms.

One of those teams represented was the New York Yankees, a team that I began to follow as a 7-year-old. I was so captivated by the 1961 world champions that I could, without hesitation, recite personal and professional statistics about each member of the team. How much better could it get? Not only was I being evaluated by major-league scouts, but by those from my favorite team! This was a magical time in my life. But by the time I graduated from high school -- even with the real possibility of realizing my lifelong dream -- incredibly and inexplicably, I changed course. Not because of an injury or some other situation I couldn't control. I simply lost interest in that pursuit and began to chart a career in journalism.

To this day, I still haven't come up with a specific reason for making such a drastic change. Fortunately, I had been a pretty good student in high school and was able to successfully shift gears when I got to college. I have my parents and grandparents to thank for that. I could be negligent in some areas, but not when it came to my education. When I was in the ninth grade, I remember getting a "D" in algebra (I still say it wasn't deserved) and my parents wouldn't allow me to rejoin the baseball team until I improved. That was the longest six-week period of my life, but I did get an "A" on my next report card.

Only on a couple of occasions have I seriously wondered what would have happened had I continued to pursue that original dream. I'll never know what the outcome would have been, but I do know that -- even though things looked promising -- the odds were against me. And they are against anyone else who has hopes of accomplishing that same dream.

Just as it was for me years ago, today there's a group of young, starry-eyed Brothers in elementary school, junior high school, senior high school and college who dream about a career in sports -- to be like Mike, Deion and Jr. Too many are so totally convinced that they are "the one" who has the talent and enough of the intangibles to make it to the professional level that they have, in essence, bet their lives on what can be described as a rifle shot in the dark. With most of their attention focused on making that dream come true, far too many of them won't have a safety net when they can't complete that high-wire act and come crashing back to reality.

Art Young, director of Urban Youth Sports at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sports in Society, came up with some staggering figures concerning the possibility of realizing a dream to become a pro athlete. Based on some extensive studies, he says that only I out of every 50,000 high school athletes will ever become a part of a professional team. To put those astronomical odds in perspective, that's like filling each seat at Denver's Coors Field (the home of the Colorado Rockies), then placing each name in a huge barrel. If yours isn't the one, single name drawn, then -- just like that -- your lifelong dream is dead!

Amazingly, even with those huge odds, Taylor (also education director for the award-winning movie, Hoop Dreams) says 66 percent of 7th- and 8th-grade African-American boys still strongly believe they can make a living in pro sports. That's 2 out of 3 youngsters who ignore these odds and continue the pursuit even though they clearly would be better served if the incredible determination, dedication and time to prepare that's necessary to become an athlete were directed in areas where the odds to achieve are much less.

Not unlike many of those who preceded them, a great number of young, aspiring athletes not only seek the adoration and celebrity that come with stardom but they see professional sports as the most expedient (and, for some, the only) way to boost their economic situation.

There's nothing wrong with trying to be like Mike, as long as you don't allow that dream to turn into a nightmare. The problem is so many don't prepare for life in case the original plan doesn't come to fruition. In the pursuit of the dream to play pro sports, all it takes is one injury and it's over! Then what? We know of too many cases where a blown-out knee suddenly and drastically wiped out a lifetime of hope. Just as sad, there are far too many athletes who complete their four years of college eligibility, leave the campus as functional illiterates, fail to make it with a pro team and are cast aside with little or no ability to provide for themselves.