Athletes

What are athletes? Are athletes just overpayed cry babies? In order to find the answer one would have to travel to the farthest reaches of the planet. To the tiny farmhouse, where a 10 year old boy practices his jumpshot for 10 hours. To the desolate fields in a third world country where a 12 year old girl kicks around a soccer ball. You see athletes are not best defined by their professional "role models". To find a true athlete is to find one that plays for the love of the game. The ten year old boy doesnt have a incentive-laden contract giving him bonuses for every hour he puts in. Eternal optimists will say that children are the brightest part of our future, and in the sports world all we can do is agree. Children are the purest forms of athlete. Sports is nothing more than a joy, a game. If we were all true to ourselves we could realize that our happiest times somehow involve being an innocent child. On the other hand some of the "grown up" pros seem very childish when it comes to being payed for playing a game. Many football players holdout and refuse to play for their teams in order to get a bigger contract. They must have had a deep love for the game that has somewhere dissapeared in a mountain of doller signs, and i am one to bet that the 10 year old version of these selfish pros would definitly be giving their "adult" counterparts a serious noogie for being such babies.