Sports, Education, and Opportunity

I had a great discussion today on sports, education, and opportunity in
the United States. Here are some of the better thoughts:

- Getting to a comfortable "middle class lifestyle" is attainable by
almost everyone; however, the issue is that many people don't realize
this possibility.

- More people in the lower income brackets overestimate the chances of
becoming a professional athlete; consensus was because of lack of
education, lack of role models, and lack of forseeable options.

- Some questioned value of sports in US but others added that when
realistic about sports as a career then sports add value by teaching
teamwork, perseverance, leadership, work ethic, etc

- Debated econ value of sports... Must be in billions!

- Wondered what is worse: lottery/gambling or sports?

- Debated allowing kids to be professional (football, bball, MLB,
golf, etc players). Some were wary but most said whatever makes the
kid happy.

The results of the debate weren't groundbreaking but the debate itself
was a great mental exercise (and completely unrelated to anything else
I did today).