[stboz]

Tell me how a gold medal in swimming makes it possible to produce a record soybean crop or an affordable automobile.

???

[Alberta's Child]

For a true amateur athlete, their athletic performance is part of the whole package. The discipline and focus of their training helps them to succeed in other life pursuits, too.

Eric Heiden, for example, was one of the greatest Olympic athletes of all time (his performance at the 1980 Winter Olympics was THE greatest Olympic accomplishment of all time, in my humble opinion). He followed this by pursuing a short career in cycling, and is now a successful orthopedic surgeon in Utah. He'd probably be the first one to tell you that his speed skating was critical to his future medical career.