Sports myths that everyone believes but are not true

It’s a commonly known fact: where there are people, there are myths. Till today, myths have always been a part of people’s day-to-day lives; the urban legends and the Greek mythologies. Most of these legends are far from being true, yet people still believe them.

These myths fall in the middle of fairytales, which people know are non-existent, and conspiracy theories, that could be real to some extent but have no validity whatsoever. Now that we’re talking about myths in sports, it is necessary to point out that these myths are not significant enough to to be widely discredited and are normally used to make the teams/players we dislike look bad.

Quite a few such myths continue to exist in the sports arena which the world needs to know are NOT TRUE.


Athletes are overpaid: sports myth that are not true but people still believe in them
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Several athletes have been branded as “overpaid” on several occasions. They make one small mistake and all they get to hear is “you’re making millions of dollars for doing one thing and you can’t even get that right”. Taking Cam Newton, for example, he earns $20.70 million on average, per season.

To be very honest, it does sound like a huge amount of money being paid to someone just for throwing a ball around. But people need to also take into consideration that he’s a vital part of the team, taking them to 12-0 without much assistance. If the Panthers refused to pay him that much, someone else would have offered to. So no, not all athletes are overpaid. For some, it’s an investment and a great one.


Baseball players still use steroids : sports myths that are not true but are still believed in by people
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Use of steroids in baseball is a rather crucial issue; more than it is in any other sport. Use of steroids went out of hand in Baseball, in the US, from the late 80’s to the early 2000s, the period that was commonly known as the ‘Steroid Era’.

The fact that this particular period of time was specifically named after it, clearly highlights how big of an issue it is. Even though the era is now over, there are still several players who are using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).

This has painted a picture that baseball players have yet again started taking steroids, also taking note of the how the players have started to look bigger and how the number of home runs being hit has increased.

Now, to tell the truth, there’s no proof as such which suggests that steroids are as bad they were a decade ago. The fines have become big now to avoid the risk of not getting into the Hall of Fame. More home runs are being hit now because the contemporary athletes, in general, are better and are constantly improving. With much better and more intensive training, and rules being adjusted to enhance the scoring, because no one wants to watch a guy throwing a ball around, without anyone hitting it.


Basketball is an american sport: sports myth that are not true but people still believe in them
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Just to clarify, it is essential to mention that it was a Canadian man who invented the sport of Basketball. The inventor of Basketball is James Naismith. He has been accredited with devising this supercool sport in the year 1891. Naismith also issued the first authentic rulebook for basketball and founded the first basketball program at the University of Kansas.

The sport may have originated in America, but its inventor, James Naismith, was originally from Almonte, Canada. He would have ultimately gone on to become an American citizen. However, that didn’t happen until the year 1925, i.e. 35 years after Naismith invented basketball.

This is one major reason why he’s not included in the American sports, but in the Canadian sports, Olympic and Basketball Halls of Fame.


early recruitment is the only route to athletic greatness : sports myth
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Many parents feel the need to get their kids enrolled into athlete support training programmes at an early stage because they fear that this is the only way to get to the top. Several athletes have been involved in such programmes at some point in their lives, but evidence suggests a rather non-linear path.

It’s okay to not choose a sport or a program right away. Quite a few studies with samples of athletes across many different sports suggest that the younger the 1st recruitment, the sooner the exit from the programme.

Essentially, world’s best sportspersons are recruited to such programmes considerably later than their less skilled counterparts. It’s necessary to highlight that early recruitment to athlete programmes is not the only route to the development of talent.

The world’s best performers tend to have advanced solely in one sport but have participated in multiple sports during their childhood and adolescent years. As a matter of fact, the possibility of a person accomplishing the highest level in an individual sport is more likely to be enhanced by combining a good amount of rigorous training in that one sport, along with a decent amount of training and competitions in the other sports.


dehydration is bad for athletic performance: sports mythst that are not true but people still believe in them
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An entire generation of athletes was taught that any amount of dehydration had a negative impact on their athletic performance and escalated the risk of exertional heat sickness. Several recent scientific studies suggest that this isn’t, in fact, true and that the old ideas that suggested that athletes need to drink enough to completely avoid dehydration during training are inefficacious.

It is especially ineffective for runners and footballers because during intense training it is almost unfeasible consume ingested fluids as the body loses fluids through sweating. Various studies suggest that runners perform better and face close to no additional risk of heat strokes when they simply just drink according to their thirst, which basically replaces 65-70% of the sweat losses.

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