Tony Altimore@TJAltimore
Haha... was trying to make the gender point. 😜
Its part of a confidential strategy deck for somebody, and their board hasn't published it... I can describe some takeaways below....
The data part, though, is really interesting, and I've thought about revamping the public parts into something I could put out to help somebody.
It inspired a grizzled, classically old school SEC guy listening to a focus group and looking at data to astoundingly realize that it's SUCH an overdone boogeyman that doesn't really have much of a REAL problem.
(BUT... We do have real and fair concerns warranting thoughtful debate and needing guardrails somewhere, but when we've done workshops on the issue, people are stunned to realize that 90% of people agree on 90% of common sense)
The crazy thing is that, if you go through the litany of practical realities, the odds of it being relevant at the highest levels (with common sense guardrails... of some sort) is MINISCULE.
For a miniscule 0% of the population already, the vast majority get written off by:
- Age of transition (takes out ~80% alone)
- Process of transition
- Impact of hormones, which users talk about how they cripple athletic ability on elite level
- % of suicide, homelessness, and forced dropouts (heartbreaking!!!)
- Impact on body coordination
- The lifelong, steady commitment needed for elite competition, and the enormous financial investment generally involved from families
- The combined support structure making it possible...
- Desire to be be in a fixed, traditional gender "box" (quite low among relevant population, btw)
- Sense of team with teammates sustained over time and through process
- OTHER genetic things needed for elite sports success (size, body, dysfunctional but beneficial wingspan proportions freakishly low latic acid production, odd lung capacity, etc.)
- etc. etc.
Think about how that chops down the sliver of a sliver of a sliver...
When we did the study in 2017, we walked through all of that, for how one-in-a-zilion it takes for all of this to come together, like:
- All of that to be great, with a surreally amazing (and rare) support network and family and family resourcs
- From family of championship athletes (genetics)
- Star athlete at one of the nation's most sports-crazed high schools, with insane training and support
- Flukishly hits the age range at transition perfectly, and must have approached with an epic degree of dedication and commitment
- Epic support of school, that just happens to groundbreaking Top-5 med school to help
- Heart and and steadfast guts in the face of national hate that -- quite literally -- is matched in history only by Jackie Robinson
- School so elite and cocky and powerful and arrogant and committed to its values to tell haters to kiss its ass*
- In one of only 4 (now 3) conferences so elite and cocky and powerful and arrogant and committed to its values to tell haters to kiss its ass
- Vast majority of team supportive
That would be one-in-a-zillion... but that's not technically zero....
...and we happened to find that one, and for better or for worse, right before we figured out whatever our guardrails should be (and there's good debate on both sides).
HERE'S THE CATCH: (and this is the part hard for folks to understand) If you took those same genetics and upbringing and scenario, and were born female (as opposed to born male, but with all the hormones and everything that cripple athletic ability), in that environment... she'd be up on that podium, too. Doesn't the eldest brother still hold Ivy League records today? Heck.. Katie L. could beat the pants off most college men, because other things (lungs, lactic acid, wingspan proportions, etc.) matter a ton at that level.
Anyway... it's such a rare scenario of being a problem... in the broader population, it's just NOT the boogeyman people fear...
...yet, there's a ton of kids who were are treated like shit and tried suicide and parents are desperately trying to help them figure shit out and get through life...
...who probably didn't need half a billion dollars spent to shit on them in the middle of every football game... all because of a non-issue that reasonable folks could sort some guardrails on anyway.
BUT... A BIGGER ISSUE:
Sports aren't really about sports. (Shhhh) They're about teaching kids life and leadership.
So we need to make sure that we don't have anti-competitive silliness... yet also make sure that we're teaching them to be good people who respect others, and develop into supportive leaders in our schools, businesses, and communities.
It's all doable, but we have to stop making folks afraid of the statistical boogeyman that isn't the problem they are being told to fear it is.
We have issues to sort out, for sure... but this ain't the crisis people fear it is. South Park isn't real... hahahaha.
