What Sport is Your Kid Suited For?

An excerpt from a New York Times article today (found at this link)

"In health-conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect the DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.

The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities."

Hmm, maybe I can charge $100 to watch your kid do a variety of things like, run, kick, throw, hit a ball, jump, and so on. Cmon people, it doesn't take much to figure out a kid's natural athletic ability. I know, I had none.....the result would have been 'nerd'.......it would be $149 down the drain.

Heck, when I struck out in tee ball, I knew I was not going to be Derek Jeter (actually, those days I aspired to be Rocky Colavito, but it was not to be and the embarrassment of striking out at T-ball clearly has damaged me for life such that I deserve some sort of recompense from the government, the Fairview Park Little League, Major League Baseball, the manufacturers of the bat, the ball and the tee, and the umpire who should have given me another swing....sue them all). And when I couldn't do chin ups I knew I was not going to be a weight lifter.

The nice thing about endurance sports is one can make up somewhat in talent through obstinacy, persnickitiness, longevity, and good eating habit. If that superb genetic athlete of my youth has failed to eat well or maintain fitness, I'll crush him in a 5k any day.