the thing about elite athletes is that you generally need to be an elite youth athlete to get there. and the thing about being an elite youth athlete is that there are a million of them and very few actually see returns on the insane investment of time and resources it takes to support an elite youth athlete. no one is owed a career in elite sports. frankly elite youth sports fries the minds of most children who come into contact with them, why wouldn’t a parent watching out for their child’s mental wellbeing seriously question if moving their child to boarding school half a world away for the remote chance of a lucrative career in a very expensive dangerous sport is the right move. (and why wouldn’t a mother still feel rage if that decision was taken away from her completely)(this post is about oscar piastri)
we hear stories of the sacrifices that athletes and their families made during their youth career and think oh, well it was all worth it. but we don’t think about the families who made the same sacrifices and it wasn’t worth it. the families drowning in debt for a child who was never going to make it and feels the entire weight of that burden. we don’t think about the people these athletes could have been were they normal people without the career, the money, the recognition. we don’t value the fulfillment of normal, average lives as highly as that of high-profile lives. when in fact the satisfaction i get sharing saltines and peanut butter with my roommate on a saturday afternoon as we watch bad reality TV is a satisfaction more psychologically healthy than what an athlete feels upon winning the championship he’s dreamed of his whole life
