‘Slippery slope’ of addiction of Fil-foreign athlete
(Last part)
ONE hundred athletes have asked me for advice about “pursuing a professional athlete life” or using their education to start their working life.
I always started with assessing potential. Can they REALLY win an Olympic medal? If not, I always encouraged people to MAYBE try for a year or two, set a firm deadline, and then move on to building a professional work life.
Why? Because the data is clear — If a college graduate “wastes” their 20’s and doesn’t set a clear career foundation over this decade, they will NEVER RECOVER. They will be hopelessly behind their peers who got started at age 21 or 22, and they will consistently underearn for the rest of their lives.
This is fact, and now being a professional across the globe for the past 39 years, it is absolutely true. A retiring athlete without enough athletic honors to carry a life, tries to enter the workforce, they are maybe 10-15 years behind their peers.
I started in P&G Marketing at 22, right out of school. By 30 I was a CMO and earning a large 6-figure salary (in $). By 34 I was CEO. This is the age just when some athletes finish and then want to get started! They will never catch up.
The data is clear — waste your 20’s and you never recover. It sets people up for a lifetime of 40 or 50 years of frustration and bitterness.
Only one athlete of the 100’s who I counseled; did I encourage to TRY. And that was EJ Obiena in 2017. I felt he had all the tools to go all the way — and he has. But I also told him to give it “two years” to chase the dream; and if it didn’t work, to go back to school.
Even to this day, now 7 years on and despite his huge success, I still spend a great deal of time helping EJ plan for his future. I care about him for life, not just during his competitive years.
There are situations today I know of, where young athletes are being misled, being sold a dream that is not realistic, and they are putting off getting on with life. And in doing so, they are falling behind.
They are frankly being set up to underearn for the rest of their lives, to be deprived of reaching their full professional potential. If I take athletics as an example, there is NO ENDORSEMENT MONEY of any consequence if you are not top 10 in the world. And even then, you need lots of intangibles beyond athleticism to land decent endorsement agreements. So, if you aren’t even top 10 in your home country, do you really think you have a shot at top 10 globally?
Think about it! I see young people of already 25 and 28 and 30 wasting precious years they will never get back, being sold on a dream rooted in folly, chasing something that won’t happen. Like I once had to confront reality, so should today’s young athletes.
Life is a long race; it is not until “just 35.” In fact, this is when life starts! To be poorly set up for this is asking for a lifetime of angst. It’s simply not ethical to mislead people. Tell them the truth. So, they can make good choices for themselves. Life is not a dress rehearsal. We get one shot at it.
The list of star Filipino athletes is long and honorable. Paeng Nepomuceno. Manny Pacquiao. Hidilyn Diaz. EJ Obiena. All won on the highest levels of the world stage. Not just the SEA Games but far beyond. World Championships. Olympics. World titles.
They share one thing in common. They were all homegrown. All of them. The talent and potential to win 10 Olympic golds by 2028 or 2032 is already in the Philippines.
Scattered from Laoag to Davao and everywhere inbetween. We just must find it, invest in it, and develop it. Yes, it takes time and effort. But so does anything in life that is worthwhile.
Chasing the quick wins and taking in some other country’s number 10 or 15 athletes will never deliver the same results. We spend more, we win less. And we don’t do anyone any favors including the athletes themselves.
That’s the truth. And as they say, “The truth is not always pretty; and pretty words are not always the truth.”