Manly men pick sports like swimming over group sports.

This thread comes up once a year with the same predictable statements - some big football player joins one or two swim workouts and proclaims it harder than football. Never hear about some skinny swimmer donning full gear and doing full contact scrimmages against 200-300 pound lineman in 90+ degree weather. No thanks, I'll stick to swimming. Both sports present unique challenges and develop their athletes in different ways. One of my best friends played high school football and swam. He was a good enough football player to receive small school scholarship offers. Today he is a master’s swimmer with the abilities to be a top ten in the nation in distance events. He would tell you that football is way harder and mention the getting laid out, head rung, throwing up, constantly getting yelled at by coaches. Football players also are far more likely to become injured playing there sport, including injuries that keep them out of the game forever and alter there life’s course. He ultimately declined to play in college. FYI - When I was in High School in the 70’s, multiple members of the swim team played or participated in other high school sports. If Michel Phelps had been a teenager in the 60’s or 70’s, he might have played football, basketball and swum in High School. In today’s world proponents of there sport tend to push specialization, they have to keep the fiefdom going.

This thread comes up once a year with the same predictable statements - some big football player joins one or two swim workouts and proclaims it harder than football. Never hear about some skinny swimmer donning full gear and doing full contact scrimmages against 200-300 pound lineman in 90+ degree weather. No thanks, I'll stick to swimming. Both sports present unique challenges and develop their athletes in different ways. One of my best friends played high school football and swam. He was a good enough football player to receive small school scholarship offers. Today he is a master’s swimmer with the abilities to be a top ten in the nation in distance events. He would tell you that football is way harder and mention the getting laid out, head rung, throwing up, constantly getting yelled at by coaches. Football players also are far more likely to become injured playing there sport, including injuries that keep them out of the game forever and alter there life’s course. He ultimately declined to play in college. FYI - When I was in High School in the 70’s, multiple members of the swim team played or participated in other high school sports. If Michel Phelps had been a teenager in the 60’s or 70’s, he might have played football, basketball and swum in High School. In today’s world proponents of there sport tend to push specialization, they have to keep the fiefdom going.