Never Let Your Schooling…

Hopefully you know the other end of that quote in the headline from my favorite author (no fair scrolling down).  I thought of it today because I had lunch with a colleague who is about to teach a graduate course in sports leadership.  He and I probably have 60 or so years combined experience in sports and business (and occasionally they’re one and the same!) and we had an ironic laugh about something we see a lot.Young people often walk into our offices for interviews and talk about how they learned all about the sports business in school and, therefore, are very prepared to take on substantial responsibilities right away.  Uh huh.  Hopefully they stayed at a Holiday Inn too.

The Mrs. and I, both of us former teachers, were discussing a young woman we know who graduated from a prestigious drama school and how she got cast immediately in an important production.  That job has now ended and the discussion was about how we were sure the school had prepped her voice, her acting, and her dance skills to the highest standards.  We agreed, however, that in all likelihood she never had a class in how to manage your money when you’re not working in between roles nor, probably, any of the other real world skills she’ll need to survive off the stage.

Can anyone enlighten me as to any Division 1 school that teaches its elite athletes how to survive as a pro?  Think the aforementioned young people with shiny new business degrees know much about office politics or any of the other critical interpersonal skills that will get them farther than a paper on why the Mets keep missing the post-season?  If all these great programs really want to educate young people who want a career in sports, teach them to be go-fers and production runners and drivers for talent.  Teach them to sell tickets.  Teach them to think and to write and to have the humility to accept that careers aren’t built in a day.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, they can’t let their schooling interfere with their education.  That’s what they get after their schooling is over and, unlike that schooling, it doesn’t end!