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This reminds me of Brian Scalabrine — nba bench warmer who could destroy pretty much any rec:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Scalabrine#Fan_support

“In 2013 in response to criticism over him being in a bench role throughout his career and to claims that many would beat him 1-on-1 Scalabrine stated "I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me", suggesting that there is a huge difference between any (active or retired) NBA player and the majority of those outside the league. In an event organized by The Toucher and Rich Show selected volunteers had the chance to play 1-on-1 against Scalabrine (until 11 points with a margin of 2). The format was called the "Scallange" and Scalabrine played four games (one against each of the voluntary contenders). Scalabrine won every game with a combined score of 44-6. In an additional game Scalabrine played against the three hosts of the show and won 11-1.”

This effect is also well known by people who play in minor or collegiate level sports, who then move up into professional or major leagues. The distribution of good players becomes way more concentrated, for each team is now composed of all of the best players from the lower leagues, and many rookies suddenly have to achieve new levels of excellence. Many don't. Talk to most semi-pro or collegiate athletes and many of them will readily admit that they have no chance of making the professional leagues, even if they are better than everyone else on their team. The skill differential between the leagues isn't linear, it's exponential. Pro players are not just better than amateur players, they're 10x better.

Yeah people seriously underestimate how skilled professional competitors of all kinds are. You're used to seeing them compete against others at their level, which makes it seem reasonable. In most sports the worst professional would dust the best amateur without even warming up, as in that example.

My favorite story was from a former coworker of mine.

He was 6’2” and a former high school basketball player. His girlfriend was about 5’7” or so and was a starting point guard for a women’s pro basketball team in Turkey.

They would play make-it-take-it to 21, he would start with the ball, and she would spot him 19 points!

He said he beat her once, and that was basically due to two lucky shots from the perimeter.

Being anything in high school is pretty meaningless, since they accept everyone regardless of skill. So being a 6'2" HS basketball player is just about as much a qualifier as 'reasonably athletic young random dude that's above average height'.

So no wonder someone like that would lose to a pro player (male or female)

In fact that's exactly what high school activities are for - skill discovery with low stakes.

This is patently untrue. Are you American? When someone says they played in high school, they usually mean varsity sports, which can be fiercely competitive and high level depending on the school. But regardless, it’s a competitive process to make the team.

They're probably speaking on behalf of the overwhelming majority of the world (not America) where this is true.

I've seen this at my local indoor soccer place. There is a former NWSL (womens pro soccer) player that plays on a team in the top Men's division and she just shreds these guys, some of them former college players. It's even worse when she plays in co-ed leagues because the 2-point per female goal rule.

On the other hand:

https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-b...

And like the above posters former coworker, even he got lucky once. Though Id be more inclined to believe that the boys were far more invested in winning then a team that was experimenting with new players and formations/tactics etc —- as they do in the down year after the olympics when they have no major tournaments for 2 years.

This is really not the same as is being discussed and reads as some weird insecurity from reading about an ex pro female dominating a local neighborhood men’s recreation soccer league.

Honesty, it’s probably the only league she can get any competition these days as it would just be unfair for her to play in the womens divisions. I saw it once when she subbed into a top level womens game after one of my co-ed games she destroyed us in — it was not pretty. Second half she resigned herself to defense only in the back 3rd

Exactly. It’s like prof Lambeau character from Good Will Hunting - he’s at the top of his field (Fields medalist) and then he sees someone like Will and it just destroys his self worth. Most “regular” people who interact with Will probably dont even realize what he’s capable of

That is a fictional movie and not based in reality.

Next you gonna tell me he also didn’t get stranded on Mars?

At the end of the bell curve you have higher variance between people? Aren't two people at close points of the curve by definition similarly skilled? In fact, for two close x-values of two people at the tail end of the curve the y-values (skill levels) are much closer than those of two people closer to (but somewhat off from) the median, where the slope is steeper.

Let's do a simple experiment. Say skill is normally distributed. Let's take 1000000 people and draw their skill levels from a standard normal, and sort them by the skill levels. What is the difference in level between the 500000th person, and the person 1000 spot above them? 0.00252225 (in this simulation). What's the difference in skill levels between the 1000000th person and the person 1000 spots below? 1.596959. The 1000-person gap is 633 times larger at the top than the middle.

    skill_levels <- rnorm(1000000) %>% sort()

    skill_levels[501000] - skill_levels[500000]
    skill_levels[1000000] - skill_levels[999000]

Yeah the wording was not completely accurate but I assume he means that the tails are long.

It’s hard to localize when the Internet exists. That’s the root of the problem IMO. All of a sudden you’re competing on the global stage for everything and Internet scale and distribution creates winner take all effects for everything that can be expressed in text, audio, and video