Well, I beg to differ, but then again, I wasn't that good of a player anyway. :) Of course, if you could point out the book, I'd like to read it in my spare time (like I'd have any in the next month). Obviously I don't think we can all lump valedictorians, salutatorians, etc. into one general description. The people that I know who were tops in their class did have very broad interests and, as their GPA showed, have good knowledge of a lot of different areas inside and outside being "book smart." Been to enough summer "precocious youth" camps to know that. I think that where the "equalizer" is in qb and GPA is one simple item: a buzzer system. Knowledge is not taught in class as recall since it is a lower level of learning in the standard Bloom's taxonomy. Most educators want to emphasize "higher-level" thinking rather than straight recall. QB is more recall than application/synthesis of material, which I think is more a common factor among #1's and #2's (etc) in a typical high school class. Academic Decathlon prides itself on being more "higher-order thinking"... though I tend to disagree with what they mean by that implication about qb. (I've had a couple of friendly arguments with coaches and administrators about qb being a game of "trivia recall" and how that's somehow not "worthy" of their program's participation.) I will note that there is one point you make: committment seems to be a very important factor in anything. If you make a valedictorian participate in training camps in the spring and fall in football, he may be a good football player. Of course, he may not enjoy it. Basically, I have found that the people who excel at qb really enjoy it, whatever their GPA. At least I have.
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