What college sports require the most natural ability? How does softball rank?

[Sweet Lou]

Beer pong.

Are you kidding, it takes YEARS of practice to build up that kind of tolerance.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

^ I bet that i could have lettered in that. I haven't tried it, though.

 

[RetiredCoach]

I think that track and field would need that most natural ability.

I ran track in college. No doubt it takes a lot of natural ability and hard work to succeed in sprints or distance, etc. at the college level. However, a lot of athletes did not have the hand-eye coordination and/or mental ability to track a fast moving object and hit it with a bat.

As for great hitters, their eye sight is often tested at 20-10 and their reflexes are must faster than average. I know that this was true of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth.

 

[Softball scholar]

To play at the college level, I would agree with some of the other comments about basketball and volleyball being limited to fewer players do to height requirements. Also would put Gymnasts in that group also due to a need for a smaller athletic body. Sluggers is right about sprinters, as thats something you have to have the genetic pre-disposition.

I disagree with Sluggers about wrestling (now a womens college sport) as being the most selective. As a former college wrestler, wrestling is the sport that any body type can be successful at. The really short small lightweights can excel and the biggest heavyweights both can be successful. Ive seen 5' college wrestlers and 7' college wrestlers both kick butt. I've seen guys with slow foot speed, get on a mat and have great mat speed. No doubt that athletism helps just like any sport. Just a side note: Wrestling has the fewest college scholarships in relation to the number of HS participants.

Sports like softball, swimming, golf, field hockey, soccer, tennis and even wrestling are more skill centric and lend them selves to the more average sized person can excel if the skills are learned and trained. Of course athletism, physical size still help and are needed in these sports, but they dont totally exclude you from playing at the college level.

 

[MsDinosaur]

I've always thought pole vaulting had a very limited pool of athletes. You have to have a sprinter's speed, great strength, superb body control, athleticism and timing.

A lot of those same attributes are required for gymnastics too, but in a short package.

 

[3'sDad]

Softball players certainly don't have to be the best in-shape athletes; in fact some can earn a varsityletter in eating.

DD's other sport is field hockey; those players are in shape since they sprint up and down a field the size of a soccer pitch dribbling or passing the ball like a game of very fast soccer. DD's field hockey team is always in the best shape of any team at school; outside of perhaps the XC team, though the field hockey girls would give the XC team a good meet and may get outkicked at the finish line.

 

[starsnuffer]

Hockey. Not everyone can be born with an IQ under 30.

-W

 

[sluggers]

I disagree with Sluggers about wrestling (now a womens college sport) as being the most selective. As a former college wrestler, wrestling is the sport that any body type can be successful at.

I guess what I was trying to say is that in wrestling, there are only perhaps two or three kids in the country at any weight class who have a shot at winning it all. Everyone else is cannon fodder.

 

[WARRIORMIKE]

Curling.........

Water Polo.......

Diving..........

Swimming...........

Golf........

Pole Vault.........

Soccer........

lacrosse??

 

[Softball scholar]

Sluggers,

Wrestling can be predictable as lot of times the top ranked guys dominate. But in one of the NCAA final matches this year, they had a 5 seed beat an 11 Seed. I guess you have less variablity/upsets in results when its indidually one on one. Look at the mens tennis tour, its also kind of like that.