Contact Info: Alex Krupp 133 Lantern Ridge Road New Canaan, CT 06840 home: 203-972-3917 cell: 607-351-2671 alex.krupp@gmail.com
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Would an Infinitely Rational Pirate Play Soccer?# A Geek's Guide to Gaming the College Admissions ProcessPublished 2/23/05 Seventh grade was the year I didn't sleep. For months I don't think I ever saw natural sunlight as I wasted away playing Ultima Online in my parents' basement. To this day I still squint whenever I go outside. My parents would make me go to bed, and then once they were asleep I'd sneak back downstairs to play a few more hours. I figured that if I slept during my classes then I'd have more time to level up at night. Well after a few months of this my parents caught on and handed down their ultimatum: if I wanted to continue playing UO then I would have to take up a sport. Rowing. I just chose it at random from a list of sports without knowing what it was. In hindsight I guess I got lucky, which I will explain later. So a year and a half later I sold my UO account for 600 bucks, but I stuck with rowing anyway. Then came high school. The first semester of my freshman year I worked my ass off in school. I didn't sleep at night because I wanted the best grades I could possibly get. After school at practice I was just going through the motions without really excelling. Second semester I had an epiphany.
An honest graft Let's think about this logically. To get into an Ivy as just a student you basically need straight A's, 1400 SATs, and lots of extracurriculars. This meant I'd have to go to school eight hours a day, do two or three hours of extracurriculars, and then go home to six or so hours of homework. As an athlete A's and B's are fine as long as you don't have any C's, and you don't need any major extracurriculars other than your sport. That's what the coaches will tell you when you're being recruited at least, but in reality a couple C's are usually fine if you just want to go to an Ivy but you don't much care which. This would require going through the motions of being a student, and then practicing a couple hours a day year-round. Same result, less work, more fun! The only problem with this plan was that you needed to be good at sports.
An unlearning process If you are a geek you will naturally care about stuff like this. The hardest thing to understand as you transition from geek to athlete is that none of it really matters. Being an edge junky might put you over the top, but you can't buy your way into a sport no matter how much money you spend. Right now you may be saying to yourself, "But pHatidic, shouldn't I be training smarter, not harder?" Shut the fuck up and go for a run.
Be all you can be
Watson, there's a crick in my DNA Until recently, the only way to determine your muscle types has been to have a biopsy. From what I've heard, this involves an expensive trip to your local sports physiology lab and a lot of pain. In fact, the procedure is usually recommended only for dead people. In the most recent issue of Rowing News, there was an article about a new company, genetic technologies which is offer genetic testing to determine your muscle types. All you have to do is swab your cheek and mail in the sample, and it is only $100. I haven't done any research into this yet, so caveat emptor. Once you know what your muscle fiber ratios are, you can consult a list of sports and what muscle types they require. The book Lactate Threshold Training by Peter Janssen has a table with this info in it, and if you are going to take up an endurance sport then you should buy it anyway. Of course, you can always ask about a specific sport in the appropriate Usenet group.
Pick your battles There are less than one hundred male high school field hockey players, and there are eleven spots on the Olympic men's field hockey team. The problem though is that colleges don't recruit male field hockey players. Do your due diligence on which sports are the easiest to get recruited for. For example, if you are a lacrosse player then you have to go to camps where scouts rate you. There are hundreds of kids for every available slot. If you are a rower then you just call up the coach and say you want to row. At many schools there are more slots than there are rowers, so the coaches end up recruiting some kids who have never even rowed before but who are interested; many ran track and blew out their knees or swam but aggravated their shoulders or became allergic to chlorine. Most sports are somewhere in between, so know what you are getting into. Alternatively, I know of one school where the former rowing coach is on the board of admissions.
The Olympian stands alone
Smoke a fatty for Rebagliati
Peaches and Penumbras There are three different energy systems: The phosphate system, the anaerobic system, and the aerobic system. The foods you are required to eat during training and before races largely depend on what systems your body will be drawing its energy from. Don't take up weight lifting if you are a vegetarian unless you really like tofu and protein shakes. Don't take up running if you require a large breakfast before your morning workout. Don't take up lightweight rowing ever. Also, no matter which sport you take up, you will be eating a lot of bananas.
Trapped under ice, comfortably cold
How will this get me laid? Many schools have an "old boys network" that will hook you up with a high paying job after you graduate. Sometimes these programs are for all athletes in the school, and other times they are sport specific. Ask your potential coaches if they can hook you up with a job after you graduate with your 1.6 GPA; it'll make a good first impression.
And is there honey still for tea? Ultimately it worked out and I got into an Ivy with significantly less effort than would normally be required. There is risk involved, but no more than trying to go the academic route. Of course, you can still be a good athlete and get good grades at the same time. But then again, if you do superfluous work then you're probably not really a geek; laziness is the mother of invention. Read the comments on this piece at Kuro5hin. |