Are they testing for gender?

I wonder if a test on Balotelli would actually read "utter f*ckass"

"It may be really unfair to have a child who likes football, who may be told he will never make it because he has the wrong set of genes,"

Yet no one hesitated to tell my 5' 8" ass that I'd never make it in basketball. Life's not fair, Sparky. Deal with it.

/I sound short

The article does raise a frightening possibility, that this kind of testing will lead to sports clubs selecting players based on their genetics rather than on athletic ability.

It would be one thing to screen out people with congenital heart problems and other conditions that can be fatal. It is quite another if it leads to "genetic testing tells us this player can increase his peak strength 10% more than the other guy, so we will select him instead of the guy who is actually good at his role."

Goodfella: [i54.tinypic.com image 640x622]

Came here for this. Left satisfied.

Loreweaver: The article does raise a frightening possibility, that this kind of testing will lead to sports clubs selecting players based on their genetics rather than on athletic ability.

It would be one thing to screen out people with congenital heart problems and other conditions that can be fatal. It is quite another if it leads to "genetic testing tells us this player can increase his peak strength 10% more than the other guy, so we will select him instead of the guy who is actually good at his role."

But that's what the "free market" is all about right? The club that makes the right decision will be emulated by the other clubs. So if this is the right way to go, they'll all do it, and if it isn't, the people picking based on actual athletic ability will win out.

Gattaca all over again.

/oh and Priapetic, you totally beat me to exactly what I was going to say almost word for word.

You know who else loved eugenics, don't you?

You'd think naming their club would be a more pressing concern than testing the genes of their members.

Priapetic: "It may be really unfair to have a child who likes football, who may be told he will never make it because he has the wrong set of genes,"

Yet no one hesitated to tell my 5' 8" ass that I'd never make it in basketball. Life's not fair, Sparky. Deal with it.

/I sound short

One of the things that I like about soccer (dont worry I also hate planty about it), is that it is a sport which almost anyone in shape can play. And you can continue to play it throughout your life.

Some sports have a problem 'scaling'. We tend to try and professionalize our pasttimes and some rulebooks and games weren't made to withstand the extreme level of limit pushing that occurs in professional sports.

Not that good players should be hobbled, but that the games themselves need adjustment from time to time to account for this phenomenae.

It's why I won't let my daughter 'play' gymnastics. Even though my father was an Olympic gymnast, and I qualified on a national level, the female component of gymnastics requires such an absurd devotion from a young age, and that the girls are 'old' at 20... There is no way I would put my daughter through that.

She has the right build and 'pedigree', we have already received phone calls, which is why I say no way. She not even in first grade.

Again, one of those sports where the extreme competition spoils the fun.

Priapetic: "It may be really unfair to have a child who likes football, who may be told he will never make it because he has the wrong set of genes,"

Yet no one hesitated to tell my 5' 8" ass that I'd never make it in basketball. Life's not fair, Sparky. Deal with it.

/I sound short

Yup, and nobody 5'8 or under ever made the NBA.

Spud Webb, David Eckstein, Darren Sproles and a host of other pro and former pro athletes with the "wrong body type" disagree.

// 6'4, can't dunk
// I play the hell out of 1st base, though
// life's not fair, but, as in Gattaca, determination can sometimes get you places the genetic lottery can't

Wonders if anybody else thought of Gattica.

*clicks thread*

Oh...

Loreweaver
The article does raise a frightening possibility, that this kind of testing will lead to sports clubs selecting players based on their genetics rather than on athletic ability.

On the other hand there are players like Arjen Robben who spend half their career in physical rehab and still find clubs willing to pay for them.

Loreweaver: genetics rather than on athletic ability.

That's how it is already.

The three experiences that I know of 1st hand:
1) My junior year the kid that won state at heavy weight for wrestling was 6'10". Never wrestled before in his life and just decided he didn't want to play basketball anymore because he was too big.

2) One of the USA Eagles (or former USA Eagles) didn't start playing Rugby until a year or two before he started playing for the national team.

Both were just natural athletes that picked up the sport. I've coached some kids that LOVE the sport but will never ever improve past a certain ability. It's easy to see in runners. Some people just plod along and you wonder how they walk right others just look graceful.

3) Nearly every single althletic person in my family has had some sort of knee surgery of some sort or another. All 3 uncles, me my brother: ACL. My 2 aunts needed scraping. There is something genetic about the way our bone structure is that we're predisposed to tear an ACL.
-

Dr Dreidel: Priapetic: "It may be really unfair to have a child who likes football, who may be told he will never make it because he has the wrong set of genes,"

Yet no one hesitated to tell my 5' 8" ass that I'd never make it in basketball. Life's not fair, Sparky. Deal with it.

/I sound short

Yup, and nobody 5'8 or under ever made the NBA.

Spud Webb, David Eckstein, Darren Sproles and a host of other pro and former pro athletes with the "wrong body type" disagree.

// 6'4, can't dunk
// I play the hell out of 1st base, though
// life's not fair, but, as in Gattaca, determination can sometimes get you places the genetic lottery can't

Darren Sproles and David Eckstein are horrible at one on one though. Eckstein tries this little fade away jumper in the post and misses every time.

/they are the exception to the rules

/Hot

I'm guessing it's not Arsenal.

redmid17: Dr Dreidel: Priapetic: "It may be really unfair to have a child who likes football, who may be told he will never make it because he has the wrong set of genes,"

Yet no one hesitated to tell my 5' 8" ass that I'd never make it in basketball. Life's not fair, Sparky. Deal with it.

/I sound short

Yup, and nobody 5'8 or under ever made the NBA.

Spud Webb, David Eckstein, Darren Sproles and a host of other pro and former pro athletes with the "wrong body type" disagree.

// 6'4, can't dunk
// I play the hell out of 1st base, though
// life's not fair, but, as in Gattaca, determination can sometimes get you places the genetic lottery can't

Darren Sproles and David Eckstein are horrible at one on one though. Eckstein tries this little fade away jumper in the post and misses every time.

/they are the exception to the rules

That's my point - there are enough exceptions to the body-type "rule" to invalidate its use as a "rule" - Spud Webb can jump like a flea, and can handle the ball. Ditto Nate Washington and that guy who used to play on the Nuggets. Eckstein weighs about as much as Pujols' bat, and doesn't look like he has much range, yet he's a defensive mastermind. Ditto Ozzie Smith. Darren Sproles is elusive enough to be an actual RB for an actually good NFL squad, and Ray Rice, despite being 5'7, has balance good enough to shoulder a huge workload.

If you read Moneyball, Billy Beane essentially threw out the body-type rulebook, focusing only on who produced, and he built himself a team whose only Achilles' heel was statistics. And Jeter's prescience to stand behind Posada on a cutoff throw.

// and as I said, it cuts both ways
// I may be tall, but I can't shoot or dribble to save my life
// decent outside shot
// maybe it, like the DNA marker(s), should be a "guideline", not a hard-and-fast "rule"

Ah.. another European Turf Diving thread.... sigh.

mikaloyd: Loreweaver: The article does raise a frightening possibility, that this kind of testing will lead to sports clubs selecting players based on their genetics rather than on athletic ability.

It would be one thing to screen out people with congenital heart problems and other conditions that can be fatal. It is quite another if it leads to "genetic testing tells us this player can increase his peak strength 10% more than the other guy, so we will select him instead of the guy who is actually good at his role."

Why? Wouldnt the genetic overlords lose to the players who were good at their role anyway? Who would be worse off?

My dig is aimed mostly at Pro Football. Have you seen the direction they are taking with linemen? Instead of signing on strong, agile blockers and tackles, they are just signing on the biggest, heaviest players they can find who are somehow still able to move under their own power. These are not football players, they are fledgling Sumo wrestlers who will die of heart attacks before they reach 40.

They "win" solely because of their sheer size and mass (weight), not because they posses any kind of strength or athletic skill. And because of their ever-increasing size, more players are suffering permanent, career-ending injuries. As an example, linemen are no longer allowed to front-tackle the QB, because of a full-front tackle a few years back that crushed part of the QB's ribcage.

Genetic testing will only lead to more of this, and "Min-maxing" of the real world.

If you're using DNA to determine performance in sports, you're a terrible coach and evaluator of talent.

It should be obvious who's good and who's not. And all the genes in the world won't matter if you don't train right, have bad form, or have prior injuries, all of which are things the coach/trainer should already KNOW.

It's the lazy-man's cop-out, and it'll work as well as those always do.

Dr Dreidel: Ray Rice, despite being 5'7, has balance good enough to shoulder a huge workload.

An interesting note about Rice is that his small size actually contributes to his success in a lot of ways given the VASTNESS of the Ravens O-Line. A lot of teams have trouble getting a stop on him promptly because they can sometimes be confused about just where he lined up. Great height actually tends to be a weakness in an RB unless they do a lot of receiving because they're easier to unbalance and stop thus tackle, and have an easier time lowering their center of gravity, thus keeping you from bringing them down.

Adrian Peterson's dramatic success has been a bit of a surprise to me given his 6'1'' frame, because there's really a lot of him to grab, and he's not as much heavier than other RBs as he could be at that height. Frank Gore is about 4 inches shorter than AP, and outweighs the guy by about 5 pounds. Longer limbs also make it more difficult to apply force in cramped quarters and situations where leverage is limited.

Loreweaver: My dig is aimed mostly at Pro Football. Have you seen the direction they are taking with linemen? Instead of signing on strong, agile blockers and tackles, they are just signing on the biggest, heaviest players they can find who are somehow still able to move under their own power.

Actually the current trend is using smaller, speedier linemen to handle the zone blocking schemes, which can be used to offset the myriad formations, blitzes and stunts that are so prevalent nowadays in NFL defenses.

cefm: If you're using DNA to determine performance in sports, you're a terrible coach and evaluator of talent.

Also, how does one measure a talent like say, Xavi with genetics?

O HAI GUYZE, WHAT'S GOING ON IN THIS THREAD?

Trapper439: Dr Dreidel: That's my point - there are enough exceptions to the body-type "rule" to invalidate its use as a "rule" - Spud Webb can jump like a flea, and can handle the ball. Ditto Nate Washington and that guy who used to play on the Nuggets. Eckstein weighs about as much as Pujols' bat, and doesn't look like he has much range, yet he's a defensive mastermind. Ditto Ozzie Smith. Darren Sproles is elusive enough to be an actual RB for an actually good NFL squad, and Ray Rice, despite being 5'7, has balance good enough to shoulder a huge workload.

Did any of those guys dominate their sport in the manner of a Diego Maradona or Sachin Tendulkar (both 5'5")? How skilled would 5'3" Muggsy Bogues have needed to be to go down in history as the equal of 6'6" Michael Jordan?

/5'10"

I don't know, can Darren Sproles throw for 6,000 yards this season?

Muggsy Bogues was a PG, ditto Spud Webb. The fact that he (Webb) averaged 9.9 PPG, 2.1 RPG (!!!) and 5.3 APG leads me to think that, despite his size, he contributed as much as any other PG in the league.

Ozzie Smith sure captured peoples' attention, including the dumbass HoF voters.

And, on the flip side, there was that 6th rounder from Michigan. What was his name? Not highly regarded, was 7th on the depth chart his freshman year, the other potential front-office draft choice was Tim Rattay, started for a year or two in college and had a pretty good statistical senior year?

// Earl Boykins was the name I forgot
// I'm not making some grand claim, gents
// "they don't play the games on paper", is all

Loreweaver: My dig is aimed mostly at Pro Football. Have you seen the direction they are taking with linemen? Instead of signing on strong, agile blockers and tackles, they are just signing on the biggest, heaviest players they can find who are somehow still able to move under their own power.

Some of those guys are STILL terrifically quick. In fact I'd be shocked if they weren't as fast, if not faster, than you or I in the 40 yard dash. Antonio Gates is hilariously big for his position at 6'6'' 260, and he's still faster than 80% of the people on the field.

Hell look at those two Patriots INTs by Vince Willfork. The man is more than 320 pounds, and he takes off with that ball like a freight train. If you check is 40 yard dash time, its 5.08 seconds with a 26.5 inch vertical leap. That man may be heavy but I very much disagree with your assessment that he was selected for nothing but plodding size. Those guys are wicked strong, much faster than most people would ever guess, and have to be tremendously graceful and balanced to stay up and do their jobs well when opposing the kind of forces that are applied to them during a game.

Super_pope: Loreweaver: My dig is aimed mostly at Pro Football. Have you seen the direction they are taking with linemen? Instead of signing on strong, agile blockers and tackles, they are just signing on the biggest, heaviest players they can find who are somehow still able to move under their own power.

Some of those guys are STILL terrifically quick. In fact I'd be shocked if they weren't as fast, if not faster, than you or I in the 40 yard dash. Antonio Gates is hilariously big for his position at 6'6' 260, and he's still faster than 80% of the people on the field.

Hell look at those two Patriots INTs by Vince Willfork. The man is more than 320 pounds, and he takes off with that ball like a freight train. If you check is 40 yard dash time, its 5.08 seconds with a 26.5 inch vertical leap. That man may be heavy but I very much disagree with your assessment that he was selected for nothing but plodding size. Those guys are wicked strong, much faster than most people would ever guess, and have to be tremendously graceful and balanced to stay up and do their jobs well when opposing the kind of forces that are applied to them during a game.

Vernon Davis is 6'3" and weighed 254 lbs when he ran a 4.38 at the combine. I think that might be the definition of freakish. Dwight Freeney might qualify as well.

I'm guessing a team with too much money on their hands. Manchesters, I'm looking in your direction...

Is this his a tiny bit illegal?

doesn't messi have a genetic disorder? Doesn't his case prove generic screening isn't te best strategy?

Begun, the gene wars have.

I just say this; the rules in basketball were not written with the idea that the average player would be 6' 6" with an enormous wingspan and hands the size of dinner plates and a 26" vertical. I'm pretty sure the idea behind putting the basket at 10' was so you couldn't just reach up and drop it in and would have to actually shoot the ball. If you can't put your hand into the cylinder from below to block, you shouldn't be allowed to put it in over the top to shoot either.

Calm Down You Spaz: I'm guessing a team with too much money on their hands. Manchesters, I'm looking in your direction...

Is this his a tiny bit illegal?

doesn't messi have a genetic disorder? Doesn't his case prove generic screening isn't te best strategy?

I know he received growth hormone injections. No team in Argentina could afford to sign him because of it, so Barcelona stepped in.

dwrash: Ah.. another European Turf Diving thread.... sigh.



I am so stealing that line.

+1

redmid17: Vernon Davis is 6'3" and weighed 254 lbs when he ran a 4.38 at the combine.

I don't understand the last bit, but the size makes me think of Jonah Lomu. 6'5" (1.96m), 19st 10 (276lb) and could run the 100m in 10.8 seconds. He was phenomenal.

Is that 4.38 a 40m?! That is...wow. That is Olympics quick isn't it?

Super_pope: Loreweaver: My dig is aimed mostly at Pro Football. Have you seen the direction they are taking with linemen? Instead of signing on strong, agile blockers and tackles, they are just signing on the biggest, heaviest players they can find who are somehow still able to move under their own power.

Some of those guys are STILL terrifically quick. In fact I'd be shocked if they weren't as fast, if not faster, than you or I in the 40 yard dash. Antonio Gates is hilariously big for his position at 6'6' 260, and he's still faster than 80% of the people on the field.

Hell look at those two Patriots INTs by Vince Willfork. The man is more than 320 pounds, and he takes off with that ball like a freight train. If you check is 40 yard dash time, its 5.08 seconds with a 26.5 inch vertical leap. That man may be heavy but I very much disagree with your assessment that he was selected for nothing but plodding size. Those guys are wicked strong, much faster than most people would ever guess, and have to be tremendously graceful and balanced to stay up and do their jobs well when opposing the kind of forces that are applied to them during a game.

I admit there a quite a few standouts, where their size and weight is all lean muscle. It may be turning around nowadays, but there for a while, it seemed like all I saw were more and more linemen with waistlines bigger than their shoulder-pads. Where basically, when they could not get any stronger, they just started packing on fat to increase their weight, so it was harder for the opposing linemen to hold them back.

Before they instituted the newer tackling rules, I saw a lot of brutal impacts, and far too many injuries that had nothing to do with hitting the ground. I still have the image burned into my memory of one QB who was struck so hard, he was propelled airborne 5 yards backward before hitting the ground. IIRC, he had to be carried off the field.

I admit, after seeing that, I stopped watching pro football on a regular basis. It wasn't football anymore, it was becoming a game of "Kill the Quarterback"

Loreweaver: The article does raise a frightening possibility, that this kind of testing will lead to sports clubs selecting players based on their genetics rather than on athletic ability.

It would be one thing to screen out people with congenital heart problems and other conditions that can be fatal. It is quite another if it leads to "genetic testing tells us this player can increase his peak strength 10% more than the other guy, so we will select him instead of the guy who is actually good at his role."

You don't need DNA testing to test for "genetics". The guy with better cardio has better genetics, the guy who is stronger has better genetics, etc. The athletic testing process already finds all that stuff.

This testing is about finding the hidden problems, like the heart problems you mention and other injury-prone things.

The movie Gattica was basically saying that is is dangerous to rely on "potential" (i.e. your genes) since actual achievements are different things. In many walks of life that is true, but probably in athletics it is already the people who are realizing their achievement who are being considered. The only ones that would be weeded out at that level would be ones with predictable health issues.

Actually, there could be a positive to it for some people. Imagine if a kid from a non-athletic or poor family was found to have good genes for sports, or same for science, etc. It actually would help those people.

But the whole issue is really hard to accept because this goes against all our principles of equality, but the reality is that everyone isn't equal.

The main danger is being simple-minded about it: If you just go for "strongest" athlete, you might not get the one with the determination or the intelligence or the ability to lead others, etc. It is legitimate to want the "best" athlete, but that might not be an easy thing to fully quantify.

The Envoy: redmid17: Vernon Davis is 6'3" and weighed 254 lbs when he ran a 4.38 at the combine.

I don't understand the last bit, but the size makes me think of Jonah Lomu. 6'5" (1.96m), 19st 10 (276lb) and could run the 100m in 10.8 seconds. He was phenomenal.

Is that 4.38 a 40m?! That is...wow. That is Olympics quick isn't it?

It would be 40 yards, so 36.5m. Which is only very slightly less impressive.

Do we really need DNA tests to prove how much of a wanker Wayne Rooney is?

There's a genetic predisposition to fake a sports injury?

I guess that only soccer players have it.

/In spades.

Homer Nixon: I'm guessing it's not Arsenal.

This!

jabelar: The main danger is being simple-minded about it: If you just go for "strongest" athlete, you might not get the one with the determination or the intelligence or the ability to lead others, etc. It is legitimate to want the "best" athlete, but that might not be an easy thing to fully quantify.

This is what I was referring to as the frightening outcome: when the testing becomes less about preventing injury and improving athletic performance, and more about refining one ability to an absolute extreme at the cost of everything else.

In the gaming community, we call these people "Min-maxers". They create an avatar/character that sacrifices everything else so they can have the highest-possible number in one statistic. We are not talking about specializing. A specialist is good at several things, and excels at one thing related to the things he is good at. A Min-maxer is completely unequaled at one specific thing, so much so that he is terrible at everything else in the game.

An example of a min-maxer would be a sprint runner who has massively muscled legs, yet is otherwise anorexic to keep his weight down. He can run faster than everyone else, but is so weak that he sprains his wrist if he picks up a 10-lb dumbell.

The Envoy: redmid17: Vernon Davis is 6'3" and weighed 254 lbs when he ran a 4.38 at the combine.

I don't understand the last bit, but the size makes me think of Jonah Lomu. 6'5" (1.96m), 19st 10 (276lb) and could run the 100m in 10.8 seconds. He was phenomenal.

Is that 4.38 a 40m?! That is...wow. That is Olympics quick isn't it?

It's the 40 yard dash at the combine. I know you're british, so I'm not sure how familiar you are with gridiron football. Every year the college athletes do a ton of measurables for pro teams. It's way too big of an affair. One of the speed measurements is the 40 yd dash. Smaller players typically dominate that category, but generally speaking a person running a 4.40 40 yd dash is probably going to weigh 200-210 lbs and not be as physical as the bigger guys. Someone like Vernon Davis (or your guy) should be physically impossible.

7wolf: You'd think naming their club would be a more pressing concern than testing the genes of their members.

Heh. Nice.

As a futbol player i got a huge kick out of this headline.

/it hurt my leg
//now writhing in agony
///book him ref!!!

Arsenal

Loreweaver: In the gaming community, we call these people "Min-maxers". They create an avatar/character that sacrifices everything else so they can have the highest-possible number in one statistic. We are not talking about specializing. A specialist is good at several things, and excels at one thing related to the things he is good at. A Min-maxer is completely unequaled at one specific thing, so much so that he is terrible at everything else in the game.

Odd definition, my understanding is that a min-maxer would be someone that knows the rules inside out so they only do things to maximize their chances, at the expense of role playing or having fun (well more conventially). So for example if having 13 Charisma gives the same bonus as 12 Charisma, they would never put the extra point in it, and if Strength is statistically better for winning combats than extra Constitution they would increase Strength, etc.