32 The Sports Scholarships Insider’s Guide
- Over 280,000 seniors will play high-school football in that
same year. 225 3 280,000 = .00080 - A professional football player can expect an average pro
career of about 3.5 years. - Professional football players sometimes end their careers
financially broke, live on average less than 60 years, and have
many more personal problems than the general public.
Basketball has equally disturbing statistics:
- Over 150,000 high-school seniors play boy’s basketball
each year. - Approximately 1 in 30 high-school seniors playing basket-
ball will play in the NCAA. 1 3 30 = .0333 - About 50 rookies make pro teams each year. 50 3 150,000
= .00033 - While basketball players appear to live longer, their personal
problems seem to be even greater than football players.
And baseball:
- Approximately 1 in 20 high-school baseball players will
play in the NCAA. - Approximately 1 in 200 high-school baseball players will
be drafted by (notice that no one said “play on”) a major
league team. - Baseball players seem to enjoy lives more similar to nor-
mal Americans.
I’m not advocating that young athletes not aspire to be pro-
fessional athletes, it’s a worthy goal. But the following chart
of sobering statistics concerning opportunities to compete in
athletics after high school is worth very serious study.