Emma Gardner not going to college to train at CompTrain

[grace4nan]

So Emma is a young talent who decided to skip college to focus on CrossFit at CompTrain. What do we think of her (If I recall correctly, she had an ankle injury recently?)

"So yeah, you’re hearing me right. I’m not going to college & I feel incredibly passionate in that decision. Allllll right @karirose*.co* @cisk777 @solomnpromise let’s do this thing"

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

EDIT: to be clear, I'm not judging her for it, just that it's an even more interesting situation at CompTrain now.

 

[dawn16]

@grace4nan You can always go back to college. You can't always go back to pro sports.

 

[grace4nan]

@dawn16 Especially if Ben is paying her, if not before, from now on.

 

[gourmetcandy]

@dawn16 Agree with this. I’m generally a fan of people taking a year or two after high school to figure out what their long term goals are before college (if college is even right for them)

Plus if she really wants to I’m sure she could start knocking out some gen ed’s online.

 

[little_sparrow]

@dawn16 this is true, but also in some sense not true.

IMO, American colleges are basically like, institutionalized mistake-making zones for 18-21 year olds to do fuck all and have very little consequences (I am a product of this). Unlike higher Ed in the rest of the world, US colleges more like "social experiences," rather than actual learning, + branding (the quality of teaching at most courses like top 1-1000 school, I would reckon, are by and large fairly uniform; indeed, it's even possible that someone at harvard teaching the intro course would be a worse teacher than someone at a lower ranked school given the lack of teaching emphasis in the former)

But also, I think when you're 18-21, you should take advantage of the fact that you basically have zero responsibilities to anyone but yourself. you can only "train" for so much with so much intensity throughout the week. and going to college is the easiest way, I think, to discover what works for you and what doesn't, and that includes people, teachers, friends, potential partners, subjects that interest you and don't interest you, etc

If I were in a position to advise Emma, I would say ultimately the money in CF right now is not worth the squeeze of just a singular focus on it, nor do you need to. College and CF I don't think need to be mutually exclusive, or doing both means half-assing both; they can, I think, for a young athlete be really complementary if done right. Especially all the personal stuff concerning development of a self-concept and self-identity is super important for an athlete. Suppose Emma decides to do this, and then Day 1 she gets an injury; what then? (definitely not wishing for that - just entertaining counterfactuals). Don't know what else she has her in life, but I think thinking about these support structures are important.

anyway - good luck to her

 

[georgesblog]

@little_sparrow To your point, I believe Haley Adams is in class at TTU in Cookeville. And even Froning has the opinion “study something that isn’t exercise science, you’ll learn that here. learn something else”

 

[bynet]

@georgesblog Froning was going to school and doing crossfit. Matt was working full time as an engineer and doing crossfit. Most athletes coach/ own a gym. There are moments in the day that won't be filled with clean and jerks I don't see why you can't fill it with even some classes if not a full course load.

 

[kbay]

@bynet Mat never worked full time at anything besides CrossFit afaik. He got an undergrad engineering degree but has trained full time his entire career

 

[flagirl712]

@bynet I'd argue that the five to ten years ago that they were doing that was a very different competitive landscape than today. For the obvious example in 2009 Annie Thorisdottir learned to do ring muscleups on the competition floor, but still finished 11th overall.
These days I don't think you can hope to be in the top tier in the games without being a fulltime athlete, simply because enough people who have the potential are devoting all their time to it these days.

 

[dawn16]

@flagirl712 What about Justin medeiros? He took last year off but he is currently going to school at Boise and also just won rogue.

 

[georgesblog]

@dawn16 He and I will have had VERY different college experiences. I "competed" in beer pong and got fat. He did not.

 

[sfanacogdoches]

@flagirl712 Plenty of Olympians including medal winners are studying or taking at least some courses. It's not healthy in any sport to train full-time and do nothing else apart from it even if that's just one or two classes.

 

[johankarroe1122]

@little_sparrow Nice post
I wish a lot of others would look outwards from now and not just at tomorrow’s program

It’s said below regarding Matt, Rich, Vellner
School and training can be done

IMHO to dump school for CF? Head scratcher here….
I am a school proponent and would push that

Just me though

 

[termikile]

@little_sparrow College now is very expensive way to gain “social experiences”. Just because you aren’t in college doesn’t mean you can’t explore hobbies or even professions.

If she gets an injury day one, she could still go to school or develop her identity with all the options she has available now if she had started college now instead of a semester or even years later.

 

[thespeedboy]

@dawn16 This.

 

[dawn16]

@grace4nan I think that taking a year off instead of diving into thousands of dollars in debt it is good.
However, it depends how she does it: I feel like you can still train but knock a few credits out, maybe the easy ones.
You may train twice a day, but there's plenty of people who train and work/study.

My problem is when people think crossfit is a lucrative career like football and they out aside an education to pursue that without any results. If she can get a profit by taking some time off and eventually avoid college debt, even better!

 

[orthodoxlady1994]

@grace4nan First of all she every right to make whatever choice she wants to make.

If it was my child, I’d point out that even at the most elite levels, CrossFit as a sport isn’t very lucrative. Only the elitist of the elite (top 5 in the world, MAYBE top 10) currently make enough to be considered “highly paid” from winnings alone. And getting to that level takes an immense amount of effort, and also a huge amount of luck in not getting injured.

Sure, some athletes have parlayed athletic success into business success (Khalipa, Froning, etc), but that required a second incredibly difficult journey after the first journey to become elite enough for the business to take off.

So is she making a poor decision? That’s not for any of us to say, only she can define her metrics of success and what she should base a decision on. But I hope she’s doing it for reasons other than financial, because the likelihood of it paying off is not huge.

 

[dawn16]

@orthodoxlady1994 If she’s not a media darling or top talent, than it’s a lot of toe spacer selling on Instagram. Not judging, I work a regular job but it just depends on how she wants to go about making additional income when CF winnings either aren’t there or enough.

 

[dawn16]

@orthodoxlady1994 Plenty of people make poor financial decisions in their twenties and then go on to have a more secure footing later in life. For sure, it’s not what you’d call the easy path though.

She’s chasing a dream that has a remote chance of paying off financially. It’s better than doing nothing with your life. It’s up to her to decide if it’s worth it as time goes on.

 

[orthodoxlady1994]

@webbotpredicts Valid point. But at least an underpaid college grad is building marketable skills which increases their earning potential later in life. For instance an Accounting major who takes a $35k Big 4 job may not be earning much. But that experience puts them on a path towards an accounting partner or corporate executive.

I’m not sure being a pro CrossFitter is setting her up for any similar paths. This isn’t football or soccer where former pro athletes can parlay that experience into 6-figure jobs in coaching, scouting, broadcasting, etc.

Again, I’m not faulting her for making the choice. It’s her life and she should love it as she wants. But she just needs to realize it’s most likely w net negative financially (but maybe to her it’s a net positive in other ways, like happiness.)