Life Beyond the Sport
Let me ask you a question that I genuinely want you to think about.
When you’re forty years old, what percentage of your daily life will involve the sport you’re competing in right now?
For most of you, the honest answer is: none. Or nearly none. The sport will be something you did, not something you do. And the education you’re getting right now will still be something you have.
Read this passage slowly.
Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get understanding.
Proverbs 4:5–7 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Whatever else you get, get understanding. The wisdom tradition in Proverbs places understanding — the developed capacity to think clearly about the world and your place in it — above any other acquisition. Not money, not status, not even athletic achievement. Understanding. The developed mind that can navigate the complexity of a full life.
The education you’re receiving right now, even imperfectly engaged with, is developing that capacity. The writing that forces you to organize your thinking. The analysis that requires you to evaluate evidence. The exposure to ideas and disciplines that builds a more complete picture of the world than sport alone provides. Those capacities don’t expire when the eligibility does.
The athlete who leaves their sport with only athletic achievement has a narrower foundation for the forty years of career ahead of them than the one who also developed their intellectual capacity. The sport contributed enormously. The education contributed something else that is equally necessary for the long game.
Get wisdom. Get understanding. Whatever else you get in this season — wins, stats, development — get those too.
Whatever else you get in this season, get wisdom and understanding. The sport ends. The education stays.
What specific thing are you learning in school right now — not a subject, a capacity or understanding — that you think you’ll still be using at forty?
Connecting present academic work to future life utility. The specific answer is more useful than a general appreciation for education.
Get wisdom. Get understanding. Whatever else you get. Those stay.
Works well with athletes who are disengaged from academics. The forty-year question provides perspective that the eligibility conversation doesn’t.