As an occupation this is akin to catching lightning in a bottle. To make it to the top level in any professional sport takes a "perfect storm" of talent, timing, determination, work ethic and luck.

But having got there, it is getting paid (a lot) to do what you've loved all your life.

Im not very althletic but i like sports :]

Many pro athletes are overpaid and greedy and should be knocked down a notch.

Show me the money!

Depends on the sport

i love sports

prefect job

Go college football! Not really into pro though.

eh. again, not easy to get and also the travelling tihng

Not my thing.

just good i guess.

Not fit enough.

Like Sports

Double edged sword...prestigue, money, fame......but...pressure to constantly stay on top, learning to handle the money, staying out of trouble, and the risk of injury can put a damper on the good.

Bowling or Archery..maybe >_>

First, the likeliness of ever making it big (of all players in the world) is slim to none so I'd sooner be more realistic. Second, sports don't entertain me: either in person or on tv so I don't care either way if sporting events ceased to exist. Third, why give such high praise to people who run around on a field or court? I don't see, as Trench mentioned, how these people get such high pay and praise when there are much useful occupations and people in our society.

I just dont get the whole idea of people paying to watch other people do things with balls and bits of wood etc. In Western society, why have pro sportsmen got such high kudos and high earnings when people in really useful professions like engineering dont? We really are f**ked up arent we?

Well Moossaakaaf or whatever his name is, has a good point, but only for a few athletes, others like NBA's Eric Snow, have started Community projects and charities, others sponsor kid's clubs and scholarship programs, some do end up in trailers but others keep ahead of the game and invest wisely or keep some in the bank and whatnot, some are bad but others do Extremely well. If I made 22 million a year I'd keep some around, a 12 year carreer thats around over $160 million, if you manage to lose that much by the time you die, you should have been killed the second you lost it all.

How is this not a 5 star? The athletes love what they do and get paid extraordinarily well. The majority of these guys would barely be able to graduate high school if they didn't excel in their sport.

Not all it's cracked up to be. Although these overpaid, overpraised freaks of nature are coddled and given endless latitude, which is in keeping with their identity as Overgrown Children, the life they lead is often pretty scummy. They live out of suitcases for a significant amount of time, and anyone who's had to travel a great deal for the sake of his/her job knows this gets old real quickly. If you have a family, you're not going to see much of them for months at a time: this is very trying on marriages and not particularly condusive to child-rearing. Pro athletes are generally a very bored lot, given the amount of dead time they have on their hands, and as most of them are not particularly intellectually enterprising, they're not too good at keeping themselves occupied in a positive sense most of the time. That's a reason why some of them drink so much and spend alot of time and money out at the titty bar. They also tend to get too much attention, whether from parasites who long to be hangeroners, sharpies who want to separate them from their money, or golddigging hos who want a quick payoff and 15 minutes of notoriety. Pro athletes also get injured, which is painful, depressing, and not very good for your health in the long run. Since they operate under a good deal of pressure, many of them are total nervous wrecks. The worst part of this, however, is how the athlete copes with life once the cheering stops. So many of these guys either balloon up to 550 pounds once their playing days are over, or go through bouts of depression because they're not Saturday's Hero anymore, or get into drugs and alcohol, or end up making bad investments that lead to them living in trailer parks when they're 60 years old. So, this is a mixed bag, and I think one would do better pursuing a more enduring career in a field that pays much better than average: in the final analysis, you'd have a better life than these guys who make a pile of money in a handful of years and then don't know what to do with themselves over the last 3 or 4 decades of their lives.

Of course I'd love to get paid for doing something that I love (in this case, baseball), but for Lord's sake, aren't these people just a tad bit overpaid?

See my response for Actor/Actress.

Too overpaid to be an overly respectable profession.

This has got to be the greatest profession. You get a salary of gargontuon proportions for playing a GAME and you have countless fans as well as countless critics. You are always in the spotlight and most professional athletes love what they're doing.

Must have spartan physique. Its the dream of every kid. to play profesional_____ . Who wouldnt want to? its the one job that you have fun doing. getting payed large sums of money to lay a game! just tell me where to sign and im in.

Talk about OVERPAID!!!

Like show business, this profession has the potential to be both extremely exciting and heartbreaking at the same time. Difficult to achieve, increasingly hard to maintain and a very short life span. It wouldn't be my choice.

I believe proffesional athletes are the most hard working people on this planet. Also, you get paid for playing and doing something you love. I play softball, and I know how hard it is to stay focused without losing your mind. It takes sacrifice to do it, and I respect all who do. I hope that I can do this for as long as I can, and not go crazy! Sometimes, we athletes get so much pressure, that we can't take it. It isn't as glamorous as it seems. I support all P.A.s! (proffesional athletes)

What could be better? I know that when I am good at something, I love doing it. I love getting even better at it. I love learning more about how to do it better. Training becomes this sort of way of life because of the love of the sport. I would love to train all day. That is a job? Granted it is exhausting and tiring. I know that the lifestyle would be hard but competing and the challenges would keep you so alive. Okay, I don't know if I could handle the pressure but when you train so hard physically, you train hard mentally making you able to deal. Bottom line to this drivle I am speaking is that I think it would be a pretty sweet (yes, I used the word sweet) job.

Unless you're a superstar, being a professional athlete is the best job you can have. You make great money, have good rap, and have sweet hours. But, I'm not sure how great it is to be Michael Jordan of Tiger Woods. Sure, you're rich beyond belief and the best at what you do, but you can't do anything without having tons of people bugging you to death.

The only reason that this job doesn't get a "5" is because certain sports can take a real toll on your body. Pro football for example would be great and all, but it probably not worth an average career length of 2.3 years, a drastically shortened life expectancy, and the probability that you won't be able to walk normally when you are 55. However, if you mix in some cushy, overpaid sports like Golf and Baseball, this is a job that I could probably deal with.