A Requiem for the Last True Amateurs

Some parting thoughts on sports and the future of the “Student-Athlete”

Barring something unforeseen, this will be my last piece for The Harbus. And while the work I’ve done here certainly hasn’t been as intellectually thought-provoking as that of my counterparts, my hope is that it served a valuable purpose—further humanizing our friends and classmates by highlighting their individual journeys in and around the sports they love. On a personal level, this role gave me an excuse to ask people for 45 uninterrupted minutes of their time to not only talk sports but also learn more about their backgrounds, passions, and goals. I’m certain that I enjoyed it more than they did, and I’m grateful to have had this platform over the last couple of years.  

On a more fundamental level, though, the reason I did this is because I believe that participation in athletics develops unique skills in people that extend far beyond the field, court, track, or pool. This belief is almost axiomatic in our culture, and former athletes (myself included) are afforded benefits based on the presumption of diligence and mental toughness among those who’ve competed at a certain level. And while each of my interview subjects has these traits in spades, I learned over time that there’s something simultaneously less obvious and more universal that connects all of them.

While first acknowledging that there’s an obvious selection bias, given that the premise of every interview was that each subject had found success beyond sports, another set of qualities revealed themselves in each of the individuals I profiled. Through these conversations, I found that the thread that tied each story together—whether it be Lee Martin’s journey from the concrete courts of Chicago to the forests of Vermont, Jess Williams’ path from the fields of South Dakota to the Marine Corps, or any of the others—was foundationally one of selflessness and personal reinvention. 

Though each came to it in their own way, I believe that this is at least in part due to the unspoken but always-present ephemerality central to one’s life as an athlete. While transitions are a part of life across domains, sports are uniquely blunt in their assessment of your present and future value (or lack thereof). Through injuries, personal mistakes, or the simple but inevitable realization that you just aren’t good enough, athletes learn early that in sports as in life, the scoreboard—real or metaphorical—is never wrong. In Moneyball, the protagonist is coming to grips with the fact that he’ll never be the baseball player he’d hoped to be when a scout confides in him that: 

“We're all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children's game, we just don't know when that's gonna be. Some of us are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty, but we're all told.” 

And while this anecdote refers specifically to the end of his playing career, interactions like this define most athletes’ experience as they progress. For the vast majority of talented athletes, this reinvention occurs at each successive level—your talent and dedication allow you to ascend the ladder, but at each rung you find other, increasingly gifted and motivated people attempting to do the same thing that you are. It’s an early introduction to the Peter Principle, except your incompetence unambiguously reveals itself to you every time you compete. When this happens, you’re faced with a choice—work harder and find a way to contribute, or find something else to do. The ability and desire to take this first path time and time again is what underpins every positive assumption about current and former athletes. Inevitably, though, the day comes that it’s over, and whether you’re eighteen, twenty-two, or forty, you’re forced to find something else. Navigating this transition successfully is challenging; for many, their sport represented a component of their identity that couldn’t simply be replaced overnight. 

Historically, though, the beauty of this was that the system was on some level self-reinforcing. Sure, your playing days might be coming to an end, but the assumptions I’d identified above were in most cases true—the selflessness, toughness, and fortitude that you’d developed as an athlete would in fact translate into tangible benefits in your post-athletic life. This virtuous cycle was enabled by the American system, where athletics and academics have historically been intertwined at least until legal adulthood. This system is a unique one, and as such the concept of the “Student-Athlete” is itself uniquely American. With a few limited exceptions, a fundamental component of participation in sports has been both perfunctory academic performance and the privilege (or burden) of representation of one’s school and community.

Representing one’s school, and as a function of that being at least nominally expected to uphold standards of behavior and performance in the classroom and in the community, has long been a part of the implicit compact that we as a society have made with amateur athletics. In exchange for society’s resources, time, and attention, the expectation is that this institution plays a necessary part in the broader educational mission of our schools and universities. This isn’t a novel idea of mine; those who were instrumental in building this structure were explicit in their justification for doing so. One need only walk across the Anderson bridge between Cambridge and Allston, where Harvard Street becomes JFK Avenue, to see this—on the northeast corner, near the boathouse, an inscription reads:

“May this bridge, built in memory of a scholar and soldier, connecting the college yard and playing fields of Harvard, be an ever present reminder…of loyalty to country and alma mater and a lasting suggestion that they should devote their manhood, developed by study and play on the banks of this river, to the nation and its needs.” 

And while the incentive structure that this created could at times be problematic—read Friday Night Lights if you haven’t already—the bargain was in total a positive one. Future Presidents, astronauts, and CEOs alike developed themselves not just in the classroom, but on the field and in the community. This filtering function separated those with unique talent and repeatedly placed them in situations that would challenge them physically and mentally, forcing them to learn to persevere and work with others to overcome adversity. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked pretty well, as the success of the American experiment over the last century demonstrates. 

I guess it’s fitting, then, that the forces that are now straining this compact are themselves uniquely American. Today, it seems increasingly clear that—as is true in many other areas of society—that the governing structures around both youth and collegiate athletics are increasingly motivated by profit and are driving a wedge between the signs of athletic achievement and the things they’re supposed to signify. A world where middle-class families increasingly feel compelled to spend thousands on private coaches and cross-country travel for 10-year-olds to play in for-profit tournaments is not a world where our youth are learning the values of teamwork, persistence, and delayed gratification. A world where college athletes can transfer schools every year in search of a larger payday is not a world that can claim to be serious about holistic personal development in service of the NCAA’s stated goal of “lifelong well-being.” 

And no, donning a new uniform because another school was willing to pay more for you to wear it does not constitute “reinvention” in any meaningful sense. Perverting the fundamental tenets of a system while maintaining its external identifiers doesn’t obscure the fact that what was once the domain of professionals—direct compensation for services performed, with a fully free and open exchange for said services—is now a reality for individuals who five years ago were ostensibly amateurs. The very concept of a “Student-Athlete,” once a cornerstone of a uniquely American tradition, is in danger—not only because the kids are now legally getting paid, but also because many of the schools they attend soon will no longer be able to afford them. 

The absurdity only compounds upon further analysis of the numbers. In a world where we’re increasingly atomized and alone, we’ve increasingly financialized the unifying force that is athletics. Those select few college athletes receiving seven-figure paydays might not receive degrees, but they often make more than their professional counterparts while their athletic departments and universities raise tuition and still bleed cash. Conversely, parents stop at nothing to put their kids in position for athletic scholarships in sports with virtually no professional upside, often spending several time-adjusted multiples of the value of those scholarships on training and sports-related travel. It’s an irrational market that predictably is attracting the sort of people more interested in exploiting irrational markets than developing or genuinely investing in young people. I’ll let you make your own guesses as to the eventual consequences of this—hopefully they’re more optimistic than mine. 

All this aside, those of us who aren’t directly involved are still losing something as this transition occurs. Professional sports are by nature unemotional and thus less romantic, and as such the stories they produce rarely captivate or stand the test of time. As exciting as the US’ gold medal hockey game was this February, the amateurs responsible for 1980’s Miracle on Ice still stand alone as the pinnacle of achievement in American hockey. Our society is starved for unity and shared experience, but something like Remember the Titans is now functionally impossible when the path to athletic success requires optimization of coaches, schools, and sports themselves earlier and earlier in an athlete’s career. When the going rate for a reserve offensive lineman or power forward is well into the six figures, there’s no place for someone like Rudy on anyone’s roster. Sure, it’s Hollywood, but that’s beside the point. So much of how we live and define ourselves and our aspirations is downstream of the culture we inhabit, and it’s not clear to me what fills the gap when stories like these are unattainable. 

Unfortunately, the incentive to make material changes doesn’t currently exist. Viewership and revenues are higher than ever and every indication is that, in the absence of federal legislative action, the unregulated arms race for talent and media attention and revenue will only intensify in the years to come. Don’t get me wrong—the Joe Critchlows and Camille Dawsons of the next generation will always be fine. Even as the institutions change around them, those with the talent and drive to be successful in whatever they choose to pursue will always find a way to do so. However, the changing winds have revealed that there are existential questions about our society and what we want it to look like that sports may no longer be able to answer. Institutions that at minimum aspired to uphold and reproduce ideals that most of us have tacitly agreed are valuable and worth aspiring to—commitment, self-sacrifice, and the value of being a part of something greater than oneself—are no longer doing so. To be sure, something will fill this gap, but it’s not clear to me what that will be, or if the bargain we’ve all made in allowing this to occur will ultimately prove to be a prudent one.

John Mahoney (MBA ’26) is a native of West Des Moines, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2021 with a degree in Finance. While in college, he was a walk-on defensive back for the Fighting Irish and wrote a book about his experience, titled History Through The Headsets. Prior to coming to HBS, John worked in consulting and strategy in Minneapolis and Chicago.