Consider soccer, or as the world refers to it, "football."
A typical American kid who wants to excel in soccer will play for a number of teams during the course of a year, and will attend some clinics. His parents will seek out the best coaches and try to get the kid onto their teams. They will travel hundreds of miles for tournaments and other competitions. They will encourage the kid to do individual skills drills to supplement all that.
And for what, exactly? To possibly get a college scholarship? WGAS?
Take the same amount of time and effort to study math and science, and the kid would be much, much further ahead.
But to your point, showing a kid that intensive effort can pay off on the playing field is a good lesson to be known. I played on one very successful team in my yoot and I carry the lessons within me to this day. We didn't have any great athletes, no one who played professionally, or even in Div I, but we had success because we played harder than our opponents, and we were better disciplined. Crazy coach, of course, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
