Other countries do not have college sports!

                                                  As an athlete in America there are some advantages that many do not even begin to think about. In many places other than the U.S, the luxury of competition between colleges is not heard of over there. They may have an occasional rowing competition or something else but most of the matches are within the colleges or school themself. For many Americans high school is also a big part of continuingan athletic career and progressing to the colligate level or even professional level, but in Europe high school games are not even that serious. For example “Oli Templeton signed to play soccer for the Huddersfield Town Club when he was 12 years old.” This is the professional club in his hometown and he did not pursue further school (Patriot News). To many of these athletes in other countries all they do is play one particular sport to try and get a offer by a club team because inmost countries like this “Athletic scholarships are virtually unheard of, and young athletes try to attract the attention of professional sports clubs, not universities" (Patriot News). This may seem extremely strange to many considering that they are with one club but the “club is also bound to provide some sort of education to the young athlete, possibly through an agreement with a vocation or high school” which is why many of the countries in other countries do not have colligate level games with other colleges.

                                     For another example, in Spain college sports do not exist and the rivalry between their club and professional teams can be very violent. In Spain the younger players on club teams are likely to go to professional and get paid whereas in America our college level players do not get paid. One of the biggest stars in the soccer world is Lionel Messi who was traded from Argentina to FC Barcelona when he was only 11 (Differences between USA and Spain in sports).

                                     Sometimes in the U.S we do not realize how lucky we are to have college sports along with a chance to get an education while playing because many other places in the world you would not be able to. Imagine if we only had professional sports. It would not be the same. I understand that colleges bring in a lot of money but the athletes are lucky to be able to get an education at the same time.  Even in other countries if they end up not making it to the pros they have to go back to school when they could have instead of wasting time playing a sport.