> clearly there is no causal relationship between lacrosse and job performance
IMO it could have an effect on "soft skills". Learning to have an authority push you to beyond your known limits. Working and training within a team to achieve a goal. Learning as a team to face and overcome weaknesses. Social skills that go with it. Humility from dealing with loss. Learning to celebrate victory with dignity.
There's a lot of educational positives that come from team sports. It's certainly not the only place that a person can get those skills, but it's a very common one.
IMO it's one of the biggest benefits of US football simply because the teams are so large, diverse and position groups have different but complimentary jobs.
Just like there are different versions of "good" leaders and "good" workers in any given field, there are different types of "good" in sports.
Similarly, sports has a much more straight-forward rewards system; score a point, prevent the opponent from scoring, immediate result and reward.
For anything technology related, the action => reward system tends to be far more delayed and requires a different approach and type of patience. Whether it's Devops, Programming, Administration, or Support, even if you do everything right, the reward might be delayed or sullied by negative rewards. (e.g., network is never fast enough for users, it's still too complex to use your program, the solution is just not desired by the user)
Again I do understand the premise of your statement, and for some situations I can agree there is crossover, but my experience in hiring for technical positions is that sports participation has been a non-factor at best. Too often, it's been a negative one because the rewards for technology related challenges tend to be very delayed or difficult for the participant to recognize. Success in Technology is very personal and goes beyond the tangible result, and instead is a victory of the self as you grow intellectually and better understand something. This does happen in sports also (you train yourself to recognize openings that maybe didn't exist for you before or you couldn't act on due to physical limitations), but there are other rewards that make sports more compelling.
Athletes spend tens or hundreds of hours training for every point scored.
Tenacity is a strong signal I look for when hiring. Not being afraid to ask for help but being willing to put in the time when it is needed. Sports are open-ended. With school exams you know how many points you can achieve so you know when to stop. In life you don't know how many points can be scored or how much you'd need to train to do so meaning that you need a lot more self-assessment.
I don't use sports as a metric but they seem a lot more valid than many signals I see other reviewers use.
I think contact sports in general help people to develop fortitude.
Lacrosse, hockey, football, rugby, etc.
It’s a difference from just developing a skill in terms of mentality.
Within a single sport I’ve always found the offensive line position in football to be unique as well. It’s the only position in sports where your only job is to protect other players.
IMO it could have an effect on "soft skills". Learning to have an authority push you to beyond your known limits. Working and training within a team to achieve a goal. Learning as a team to face and overcome weaknesses. Social skills that go with it. Humility from dealing with loss. Learning to celebrate victory with dignity.
There's a lot of educational positives that come from team sports. It's certainly not the only place that a person can get those skills, but it's a very common one.
IMO it's one of the biggest benefits of US football simply because the teams are so large, diverse and position groups have different but complimentary jobs.