One of the great failings of sports journalism is that we don’t do a good enough job of explaining to fans how hard it to be a pro athlete.

Whomever is the worst player in any league is likely the best athlete his community has ever seen. Obviously there’s certain schools and areas that produce more talent than others. But, it’s more likely that he or she is best player that high school ever saw.

That will be the person who every kid who go that high school will hear about for the next 40 years.

It’s not much different for the major colleges. Outside of the sports factories. It’s still a damn big deal that your high school sent a kid to the State U.

None of this is to say that we can’t critique athletes. But. We need to do a better job of realizing how rare it is to ever see a moment playing pro sports.