% of HS Runners That run professionally

[dbirds]

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/par ... rates.html

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/pub ... +Going+Pro

I those this was pretty interesting. Anyone ever computed the number of high school runners that compete professionally using similar data?

[18.99s]

What do you mean? Athletes who went straight to professional after high school? Or athletes who eventually run professionally after high school, whether or not they ran in college before going pro?

[Marlow]

Hmmm

High School to Pro

Men's Basketball - 0.03%
Women's Basketball - 0.02%
Football - 0.08%
Baseball - 0.51%
Men's Hockey - 0.10%
Men's Soccer 0.03%

T&F must be less than 0.01%

[sprintdoc]

Run professional in track? lol, less than 1% who run track in HS ever make ANY money in track now in track and road running very few ever make money in it beyond pocket change.

You look at the US Olympic team and figure a third are on virtually on food stamps once out of college if they don't have another job. USATF provides assistance of $7k to about a 100 or so athletes ranked high enough in the world rankings and another 100 or so get a little less and then you have prize money which is hard to come by in Europe unless you are among the top 10 in the world per event.

In the last decade or so we have seen many of the old meets die off - Athens, Cologne, Turin, etc. Many more that don't come to mind. Essentially no new ones replace them and the money at non-DL meets is crap IF you ever get paid. I know athletes who "earned" prize money 2 years ago from meets that still haven't paid out and probably won't and some of these are IAAF World Challenge series meets! Average time to get paid is about 3 months after the event! Getting into meets is a challenge even for Olympic level athletes as its quite political and meets want to limit fields to say 2-3 Americans in some events so you can be for example a 44.7 400 guy and not get a lane or get lane 1 in a b heat and make $500 if you manage to get 4th place. When travel costs are included most professional athletes find it a losing proposition.

Trindan Holliday was an elite US sprinter and he is making $390k as a returner for the Broncos and has all his travel and medical costs covered by the team plus is paid per diem when he travels. Plus if the Broncos make the playoffs he will get a nice bonus based on that as well. In track he would have been lucky to ever make more than what he will make this year alone in the NFL and would have to pay for med costs and much of his travel.

Nick Symmonds left Europe after one post-Olympic race because there were not enough meet opportunities to justify staying and racing. Many others were in the same boat but when you see a 5th in the Olympics athlete in this predicament it just shows the trouble our sport is in. Sure he cost himself a race or 2 for his efforts to improve the sport by meet directors who exert their influence by shutting him out.

I have often said the best thing the shoe companies could do to boost the sport would be to provide great support at the various meets in terms of prize money and athlete support costs and instead of giving each athlete so much money in sponsorship reduce that to enough for living costs and then there is money for performance and you wouldn't have busts like Xavier Carter or Allan Webb earning huge deals and not performing. By having decent prize money meets would be more attractive to sell to fans in stands and on TV and athletes are incentivized to show up and race and the money would be good enough to grow the sport if packaged properly.

[kuha]

Run professional in track? lol, less than 1% who run track in HS ever make ANY money in track

Even that WILDLY inflates the facts. If it was even 1% of 1%, I'd be surprised.

[Conor Dary]

1/googol is probably the right percentage.

[br]

I can't believe football is 0.08%. I came across 1 player. NFL rules say that a player cannot be drafted until his high school class has been out of high school for three years. However, there is a skeleton in the NFL's closet with Andy Livingston. He never graduated from high school.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/sport ... -play.html

In his first game, Livingston returned a kickoff 86 yards for a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings.

Livingston was born in Eufaula, Okla. His family moved to Arizona, where he attended Mesa High School. He was a phenomenal athlete: he was an all-American tailback in 1961, when he was the Arizona high school player of the year. He won the 100-yard dash in 9.7 seconds and anchored the winning 880-yard relay team to help Mesa win the state track championship in 1962.

Livingston never completed high school. He married during his senior year after a casual sexual relationship resulted in pregnancy. They had a daughter. ''Between trying to raise a family and carry 16 hours, it was too stressful and too difficult. The word got out that I was trying to make a move to the N.F.L.''

After a conversation with Livingston, Wilford White, who played at Arizona State and for the Bears, spoke to the Bears' owner, George Halas, who spoke to Commissioner Pete Rozelle about granting Livingston a hardship exemption. Livingston didn't realize that the hardship was just beginning.

[kuha]

Hmmm

High School to Pro
Baseball - 0.51%

One in every 200 HS baseball players go pro? That's very hard to believe.

[Marlow]

I can't believe football is 0.08%. I came across 1 player. NFL rules say that a player cannot be drafted until his high school class has been out of high school for three years.

The figure is not for 'straight from HS to the Pros'; it's for how many EVENTUALLY get there.

[Marlow]

Hmmm
High School to Pro
Baseball - 0.51%

One in every 200 HS baseball players go pro? That's very hard to believe.

That includes all the minor leagues.

[TN1965]

One in every 200 HS baseball players go pro? That's very hard to believe.

That includes all the minor leagues.

And many of them have second jobs during the off season.

So who exactly are "professional runners"?

Anyone who has won prize money? (I have... but you wouldn't call me a "professional" runner, would you?)

Anyone who has sponsorship? (But many runners only get free shoes.)

Or anyone who does not hold any job unrelated to running? What if you are one of the Hanson-Brooks runners and work part time at one of their running stores? That's "running related" job, but certainly different from Kara or Galen signing autographs at expo...

[Conor Dary]

Hmmm
High School to Pro
Baseball - 0.51%

One in every 200 HS baseball players go pro? That's very hard to believe.

That includes all the minor leagues.

The problem with this is comparing in two completely different ways.

There are approximately 500,000 high school baseball players in each year.

http://www.nfhs.org/content.aspx?id=5752

And let us suppose there are 200 major/minor league teams, at about 25 per team. So that is 5000 'pro' players. 5000/500,000 = 1/100. This 1/200 works, but only if we count 2 years of high school graduation years. So yea, this 1 out of 200 is way out of line.

[kuha]

So, the question is really about the average length of "pro" employment. There certainly isn't a complete turnover every 1 or 2 years.

[Conor Dary]

So, the question is really about the average length of "pro" employment. There certainly isn't a complete turnover every 1 or 2 years.

That is about right. This 1/200 works if there is a complete turnover in the pros every 2 years. Needless to say, that doesn't happen.

[TN1965]

And let us suppose there are 200 major/minor league teams, at about 25 per team...

There are way more than 200 teams, and this list does not include Independent Leagues, which I think still qualify as "professional" teams.

http://www.milb.com/milb/info/affiliations.jsp

[Conor Dary]

Ok, double, triple the number of 'pros'. The idea of 1 out 200 of all high school players who ever played turned pro is really far-fetched. My high school has had baseball for decades and I never heard of any that turned professional and they have had some really good players. And I am sure that is true for most schools.

[TN1965]

But I also think that the average turnover rate of two years is not that far off.

Most players probably sign 2-3 yr minor league contracts which are not renewed. And then there are some who are signed into 1 yr contract or even shorter. I assume there are only a handful of players who stay more than the initial contract period.

[18.99s]

Ok, double, triple the number of 'pros'. The idea of 1 out 200 of all high school players who ever played turned pro is really far-fetched. My high school has had baseball for decades and I never heard of any that turned professional and they have had some really good players.

Or maybe you simply didn't hear about those who made it to the minor leagues, as that's not a particularly newsworthy event.

[26mi235]

1/googol is probably the right percentage.

If I had not had a foot problem and grad school inturd, I think that I would have gotten just a tiny bit of money and I did get a little bit of bicycling money (four digits). Why is this relevant -- because I was just barely 7th man on our JV team my senior year (my best year). [And, I worked reasonably diligently, it seemed, although not nearly as much as six years later.]