High School Athletes Should Not Turn Pro

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Recommended: Negative effects of competitive youth sports

High School Athletes Should Not Turn Pro

Lebron James and Freddy Adu are both young athletes and with millions in their pockets with a countless number of endorsement contracts. Whether it is high school athletes skipping college and discontinuing the development of their education for millions of dollars, or teenagers signing contracts with businesses for massive amounts of money, youth sports programs are changing rapidly. However, American high school athletes are not financially, physically, or mentally prepared to tackle and endure the pressures of professional sports.

Society today allows fourteen to eighteen-year-old athletes to make millions of dollars and eventually become stars. From Lebron James, signing with Nike for ninety million dollars before even stepping on the court, to Freddy Adu, signing with Major League Soccer to be the youngest professional to ever sign a contract in United States history, teenagers of today are changing. Freddy Adu is the youngest player on a major league team since Fred Chapman was fourteen years old and played baseball for Philadelphia in 1887. Adu, born in Ghana, signed with the MLS to play for D.C. United in 2003. He and his family moved to Potomac, Maryland in 1997 and he eventually became a United States citizen in 2002. He signed with Nike for one million dollars in 2000, becoming the youngest professional to sign an endorsement deal with Nike. Greg Couch, a writer for the Sun Times states, ?Are we ready for this? Because if Freddy Adu makes it big, then the battle to save little things like fun and imagination in youth sports is gone.? He is absolutely right. What happened to the main reason to play sports- have fun? These young children won?t understand fun after being demanded, day in and day out, from the most rigorous coaches to perform to a level they have not been exposed to yet. They haven?t been exposed to that level because they skipped the most important part of their life and career, and that is college.

In rare cases, there?s one athlete that comes along and is very special. Sappenfield of The Christian Science Monitor says, ?In some instances, they are truly unique athletes. In others, they are simply the products of a new and hyper-competitive youth-sports system, lured to big-time athletics by bad advice and the prospect of outlandish wealth and rock star glory? (Sappenfield 1). Ki...

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...n education and should get one before stepping out into the real world and being thrown into an atmosphere of fame, glory, and money. An atmosphere a teenager is not ready for.

Works Cited

Bae, Isamu. High School Athletes Should Go To College, Not The Pro Level. 1 June 2004. Silver Chips Online. 22 April 2005 .

Carter, A. CinQue. Athletes Should Stay In School Before Relying On False Dreams. 29 Oct 1998. Daily Bruin. 22 April 2005 .

Couch, Greg. And The No. 1 Reason Not To Turn Pro At 14?. 20 Nov. 2003. Chicago Sun-Times. 10 Apr. 2005 .

Keller, Mandy. Bylaw Article 12: Amateurism. July 2003. The National Collegiate Athletic Association. 9 Apr. 2005 .

Ryan, Joan. Little Girls in Pretty Boxes. New York. Warner Books. 1 Aug 2000.

Sappenfield, Mark. Young, Gifted, and Rich- Behind the Sudden Rise of Teen Sports Superstars. 1 Dec. 2003. The Christian Science Monitor. 9 Apr. 2005 .

Satterfield, Kathryn R. Ready For The Big League. Vol. 9 No. 8. 7 Nov. 2003. Time For Kids. 9 Apr. 2005 .

Going Pro Early. A Game-Official Website of Smart Athletics. 9 Apr. 2005 .

Head to Head. 9 Apr. 2005 .

Your Take: Freddy Adu. 20 Nov. 2003. ESPN Soccernet. 10 Apr. 2005 .

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