Using Sports to Come Together and Overcome

I tend to use the New York Times home page as a way to spur ideas for blog posts often if you've read some of my posts.  I enjoy the small videos posted at the bottom of the page that are like a quick column in video form.  One of them posted recently on the home page was a video about an increasingly popular form of wrestling in Senegal called Laamb.  The short film discusses not only what Laamb is, but who is doing it and why.  The wrestling form has gained humongous popularity in Senegal reminiscent of sports in the U.S. such as football and basketball.  Like with these sports in America, in Senegal many young boys try to follow in their wrestler-idol's footsteps so as to escape the poverty-stricken villages in which they are born.  The young boys emulate the wrestlers and sign up for clinics in droves to try and reach stardom.

A Senegalese man who works at a local television station that covers laamb said that of 60 young men at any wrestling school, only 3-5 of them have the chance to earn a living wrestling when they get older, and those who get rich, he said, "you can count them on your fingers."

I find this situation somewhat similar to the mythology surrounding sports like football and basketball in the U.S.  For instance, the redemptive arc or "rags to riches" story is one often thrown around with basketball.  To quote a peer of mine's blog, Casey Baer wrote in his post "Economic Factors vs. Physical Factor for JT", "Poor African-Americans have a larger opportunity to play basketball as they have narrower options for sports, and in many cases use playing on the court as a means to escape gang violence, drugs, or poverty at home."  Baer mentions LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Carmelo Anthony as a few superstar NBA players who rose above their poor circumstances to get to the pros.

There is some controversy surrounding poverty backgrounds in the NBA, however.  An ESPN article said that even though 45 percent of black male kids in the U.S. grow up in "households earning no more than 150 percent of the poverty line", or $22,050 for a four-person family in 2010, only "34 percent of black athletes in the NBA grew up in that financial situation."  It is important to not stereotype the situation, but nevertheless, 34 percent is still a large amount, and many more could have lived only slightly above that marker.

No matter what the background of the athlete, people come together over wrestling in Senegal and people come together over sports in America, so the natural decision for many underprivileged in both countries is to join the thing that has gained so much popularity and is synonymous with wealth.  Do you feel that education towards a more regular job is the better option for people in poorer situations?  What (if anything) do you think that a society is lacking for its population if the best way for someone avoid poverty or worse is to hope to be one of the minutia in professional sports?  Or do you think that sports are a phenomenal way to bring a country together for a common goal and a viable success option for many who have few?