What makes a great athlete npr

Interviews were conducted by SSRS of Media PA via telephone including both landline and cell phone using random-digit dialing, January 29 — March 8, , among a nationally representative probability sample of 2, respondents age 18 and older. The interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. In the overall results, these two groups were weighted to their actual proportion of adults nationwide.

Possible sources of non-sampling error include non-response bias, as well as question wording and ordering effects. Non-response in telephone surveys produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population. Other techniques, including random-digit dialing, replicate subsamples, and systematic respondent selection within households, are used to ensure that the sample is representative.

Todd Datz Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health tdatz hsph. Chan School of Public Health brings together dedicated experts from many disciplines to educate new generations of global health leaders and produce powerful ideas that improve the lives and health of people everywhere.

Each year, more than faculty members at Harvard Chan teach 1,plus full-time students from around the world and train thousands more through online and executive education courses. For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are striving to build a national Culture of Health that will enable all to live longer, healthier lives now and for generations to come. Any final bill would have to clear the Senate and House before going to Democratic Gov.

Roy Cooper's desk. A committee vote could come as early as Wednesday on the bill, which also would prevent private schools from participating in commission sports and championships, as they can now. Johnson said it's unfair for private schools, which have more control over recruiting athletes to become students, to compete against schools that largely rely on students in their attendance districts.

Home-schooled students could participate in public school athletics at the community school they would otherwise be attending. The state education board would set rules. The bill says the commission, which would be independent but sit in the state Department of Administration, would be funded solely by fees and state postseason receipts.

Annual fees by member schools would be reduced once its account exceeds a certain level. The commission would be subject to state audits. Search Query Show Search. Special Coverage. As Harris narrates, it shifts, becoming magical—full of movement and wonder. Sean Elliott catches the ball, tiptoeing near the three-point line.

He turns, hand in his face. He fires the three. And he hits it! Announcer: From old tape, over more crowd sounds. He fires the three! What a shot! We beat the Knicks in the finals. Me and my family get in the car. We drive downtown. Like, folks were in the street, just chanting and cheering. Harris: In mock indignation, after a pause.

New music enters: One piano chord precedes a collage of intermittent almost-industrial synthetic sounds. Longoria: For as long as he can remember, Adam dreamed of being a part of the sport that he loved. And the way to go pro in the U. You play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. You become a scholar athlete. You get to go to this great university for free!

Longoria: The idea of the scholar athlete who plays for the love of the game is at the heart of this bombshell Supreme Court decision that came down just a few weeks ago. Harris: This case was the first time in decades that the Court considered athlete compensation. Longoria: Specifically, the case was about whether colleges could give scholar athletes things like laptops or books for school—whether that is an excessive payment.

Which seems like kind of a small thing to make such a fuss over. Harris: Yeah. So, on its face, yes, it does seem small, right? The almost-industrial beats are suddenly awash in the synthesized melody of an electronic organ, windy and open. Harris: I mean, the love of the game is such a powerful force! But I think, over time, I realized that can blind you to a lot of the injustice lying just beneath the surface.

Longoria: And he explains how this seemingly small Supreme Court decision is about something much bigger. The music quiets as the beat leaves, then the melody.

Harris: So, in the spring of , when I was 15 years old, I went to one of these tournaments where college coaches can come to watch players in person. Longoria: Adam was first told the story of what it meant to be a scholar athlete when he was in high school and colleges started recruiting him.

NCAA-certification-video host 1: Over funky, dramatic sports-commercial music. NCAA basketball. Harris: But, as part of that certification, they have to play this video. NCAA is, of course, the nonprofit organization that runs college sports in America.

Host 1: Funky, more sparse bass-driven music plays. Host 1: More bass-driven music. Fades under. Harris: And they tell you all the things you absolutely cannot do if you want to keep that amateur status.

Host 1: Do not take money for play or accept prize money, even from a simple three-on-three tournament. Stay away from agents, and do not take any type of gift. Host 1: Each sentence layered over the other in a montage. Stay away from gambling and agents. Stay away from it at all costs. NCAA-certification-video host 2: Being an amateur is a huge bonus at this stage because you can develop your game and receive the biggest advantage of all: a college education. Harris: I went to college on a basketball scholarship, and I totally held on to this romantic story the NCAA told me: I was going to be an amateur, in it for the love of the game.

Longoria: And, like, I guess my question is: Where did this sort of romanticism of the amateur [ Chuckles. Like, how did we get there? Do you know the answer to that question? Harris: I do. Um, and I learned most of it from reading [ Laughs. Andy Thomason: My name is Andy Thomason. Harris: Andy has spent his career reporting on colleges and college sports.

He was a big college-sports fan at the University of North Carolina. And for a book he wrote, titled Discredited , he found himself wondering the same questions that we are. Thomason: Amateurism as we know it has its first roots in England.

And what amateurism in England meant was, essentially, an affirmation of the gentleman life of leisure. Harris: Because to be good at a single thing would be not amateur.

It would be professional. The Ivy League literally refers to that leisurely sports league they played in. The classical music ends on one held string note. Harris: But as the country changed, so did college sports. Thomason: After the Civil War, you had urbanization. A bunch of people moved to cities. You have the birth of mass media in the form of newspapers.

And meanwhile, of course, more colleges are popping up across the country, thanks to land-grant colleges. It sent colleges to places that were heretofore remote: to Auburn, to Ames. Imagine you were living in a remote part of America, and imagine that there is a college that sprung up, and now there is a thing to do!

And it is to go to the field and watch the kids play football. A tonal shift: The lightly plucked string melodies become a little darker, more slurred. Thomason: Players are getting enticed to come to colleges—to play football, to play baseball—um, by under-the-table gifts, by outright payments, by jobs.

It was really unregulated and everybody knew that money changed hands under the table. There was this very seedy landscape. Harris: College sports—this earnest, pure thing played by amateurs—was now flooded with corrupt, moneyed interests. The whole idea of sports is an even playing field: That on any given day, any team could win. But with more money at stake, gamblers and boosters would pay for the best players.

Colleges would bring in fake students as ringers. Teams would intentionally injure opposing players. It was a mess. Enter the NCAA. It had been around for a while, and was started to keep players safe. And in the s, it declared amateurs can make no money at all. Not one penny. Not even academic scholarships. Thomason: One of the problems was people love sports.

And they love their alma mater. Why should I be prohibited from enticing a good kid to come play football at the campus that I love?

Harris: On top of that, by this point, colleges across the country were making a lot of money off of sports. And they wanted to recruit the best athletes to their school. Host 2: Take advantage of your opportunity to become a professional in something other than basketball, and you will have a truly amazing game ….

There are over , NCAA student athletes. And just about all of us will be going pro in something other than sports. NCAA Commercial 2: … a path to go pro in something other than sports. You can become a lawyer; you can become a doctor. A wispy horn-like keyboard line plays. The ambience is dreamy, reflective, quiet. Harris: But not every athlete is as naive. This is Ramogi Huma. He played big-time college football. Huma: I was being recruited by the University of Arizona.

And one of my high-school alumni was playing football there. And he came back and told a disturbing story about how a player collapsed during workouts and died. So I kind of came in the system [with] eyes a little bit more wide open than maybe the average player because of that. Huma: I was just happy to be in Division I on scholarship. So I was pretty focused on school.