So You Want To Be A Professional Athlete - So You Want To Be A… 20
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Ages: 8-11, 12-15
Talent gets you noticed. But talent alone has never made anyone a professional athlete.
This illustrated nonfiction guide takes young readers ages 10 to 14 inside the real world of elite sports — not the highlight reels and trophy ceremonies, but the thousands of hours of training, discipline, and sacrifice that happen long before the arena lights come on. From pre-season conditioning and sports science to in-season competition and recovery, this book shows kids what professional athletes actually do every single day to perform at the absolute edge of human capability.
You will discover how athletes build their bodies through periodized training programs, nutrition science, biomechanics, and carefully planned sleep and recovery. You will learn how they develop the mental toughness and psychological resilience to handle pressure, failure, and the relentless scrutiny that comes with competing at the highest level. And you will see why mindset and discipline matter just as much as speed, strength, or natural ability — because at the professional level, the margin between winning and losing is smaller than most people can imagine.
This is also a book about what a sports career really costs and what it gives back. It covers the full arc of an athletic life — its intensity, its brevity, and how the best athletes build confidence and prepare for what comes after the final game. It explores the team behind every athlete: the coaches, trainers, nutritionists, and sports psychologists who work in careful coordination so that one person, in one moment, can do something extraordinary.
Packed with vivid illustrations and real stories of what elite training looks like from the inside, this guide treats young athletes as equals. It does not talk down. It does not oversimplify. It brings kids all the way into a world most children only see from the stands — and gives them honest, specific answers about whether this demanding path might be their calling.
Whether your young reader dreams of competing in baseball, soccer, basketball, swimming, or any sport that demands everything they have, this book was written for the boy or girl who is never just playing. The one who is always competing, always measuring, always reaching for something just beyond their current best.
Somewhere right now, in a gym or on a field or in a pool, the next great athlete is doing the work that no one sees yet. This book is for the kid who wants to know exactly what that work looks like.
Reviews
So You Want to Be a Professional Athlete, by Linda Soules, pulls back the curtain on a job kids usually meet through highlights. Part of a wider 'what you might become' series for curious tweens, it takes ambition seriously and still refuses to sell the path as simple or painless. If you have ever sat beside a child who thinks pros mostly 'play,' this is the reality check you needed. Soules maps the hidden ninety percent: recovery, nutrition, film, travel, and mental training next to the grunt work in the gym. She does not soft-pedal injury, public failure, or how strange life feels when the sport stops being your whole address. Moments like Derek Redmond's finish with his father land hard, and the margin between medal and fourth still stings in a good way. She nudges kids toward multi-sport curiosity, loving movement, and losing with honest questions. It feels like straight talk from someone who respects your intelligence. The prose is clear and reads well at the kitchen table, with short sentences that steady the talk when sleep, anxiety, or money show up. The weave of science, career craft, and biography suits curious browsers more than kids who want one unbroken story. Now and then the detail stack runs deep. Through it all the voice stays respectful and never talks down. For parents raising a practice-obsessed ten- or twelve-year-old, this guide is a strong shelf mate: honest about cost, generous with dignity, and clear that 'professional' begins long before anyone in the stands knows your name.
