What does it take to be a pro footballer?

I have been receiving many phone calls and e-mails over the last 6 weeks from parents and teachers trying to get the message to their children and students about what it will take to be a professional football player. Their young people have been disregarding the need for school and discipline and feel that as long as they have the skills for the game — then that’s all that matters. So, I am sure you would agree that this should be the focus in this week’s column. 

 For all my parents out there that have young people that feels they just need to play the game well enough and they will make it as a professional, please take the time to read this week’s column to them.

My young people let me take you on a reality ride about playing professional and the need to focus on your school, your character and attitude.

This message is for all my young people who feel that nothing else matters but having skills for the game to be a professional football player.

Education

1. Education is key. Why is education needed?  

If you can not read then you can not follow the basic and simple plays in the play book, or can not retain information given to you by the coaches. 

Not paying attention in math and science class will not help you figure out speed, angles and distance between attacking and defensive spaces and players. 

As the game has gotten more complex you will have to be able to keep up with sports education for 21st century critical thinking, which means you would have to be up to standard with your reading and basic core classes. 

As a professional one of the requirements is to understand business and be able to build some security for when you finish the game. 

There are very few players that make it to the pros so having something to fall back on is important. I have seen many of my friends from NFL, NBA and other major professional sports end up broke four years after they finish playing, so if you do not have any sort of strong education background many things could go wrong. 

Now I am not saying that you have to be the smartest in the class, what I am saying is that it would be smart to balance your professional sports careers with non-athlete careers. 

Attitude

2. Good Attitude and character is needed – I am shocked that you feel that your attitude will have no effect on your journey in being a professional athlete. 

This is one area you need to closely pay attention too. 

Attitude will be one of the deciding factors in landing the final contract. 

If you can not control yourself in tough situations then you will not be able to succeed on a team. You will not be accepted with a pro club that has strong discipline guidelines and rules (that is most clubs). 

The only way to learn how to control your attitude and character you have to make sure you are able to learn more about your personality traits and how it affects your learning. 

To do this you would need some sort of basic education platform.

I only touch on two areas that are needed outside just having skills for the game to be a professional. 

The one other reason why you need to focus and keep a good balance on your grades, attitude, non-athlete career with athlete career is because, out of 398,351 high school soccer players in America – only 15, 934.04 (only .04 %) have a chance to go professional and out of 22,573 college players — only 2,257 have a chance to go professional. 

My question to you is what you think will happen to the high school and college players that does not make it and does not focus on some sort of career outside being a professional. 

Yes, I want you to dream big and hope to be the best player you could with the skills you have, just keep in mind that you must balance your professional career goals with your non-athlete career goals. 

Until Next time!