According to the NCAA, only 1.6% of NCAA football players go on to play their sport professionally.But most professional athletes compete in the NCAA prior to going pro. In 2018, the NCAA found that “there were 256 draft picks in that year's draft, 255 of whom were former NCAA players.  NCAA to Major Pro figure [was] calculated using [this] data.” So the bottom line is: if you want to play a professional sport, the NCAA is likely your best shot. But your journey to the pros can still be challenging. Here's how to go pro in football, women's basketball, and men's golf. 

Football

To compete in the NFL and to go pro, there are specific requirements that athletes must meet, similar to how high school players must meet certain requirements in order to be eligible to compete at the collegiate level. Here are the major specific requirements that must be met in order for athletes to be eligible for the NFL draft:

• A player's college eligibility must have expired (through participation)
• Player has graduated or received a diploma from their given university
• Five-Year Rule: five league seasons have elapsed since the player first entered or played for any sort of recognized university or junior college
• For non-collegiate athletes, a player must not have competed in college or four seasons have elapsed since they have started college
• Any player who has not attended college is eligible for the draft after four league seasons have passed since the player has graduated high school
• A player can be given special eligibility for special circumstances by permission of the Commissioner

This means that there are many routes to prepare to go pro, with playing football in college as the most popular, common or prevalent. The best of the best are the ones to get drafted into the NFL, but some players decide to cut their collegiate career short in order to better prepare for the NFL. These players declare early and leave their college teams simply to have more time to prepare for their professional careers. 

However, gruesome player injuries, such as when Georgia running back Nick Chubb withstood a severe injury on the first drive in their game against Tennessee back in 2015 warranting surgery, many call into question whether or not the years a player must be out of high school before entering the NFL draft should be reduced. Cameron Wolfe from the Denver Post said, “If you aren't going to pay the young men, at least let them leave a little earlier.” NIL may help encourage athletes to stay in school before going pro for this reason–in a sense, college athletes can now get paid before they go pro. 

Women's Basketball

Based on the NCAA's research, the likelihood of women's basketball players moving on from high school to compete in the NCAA is 4.0%. The members of that 4% that participate in the NCAA that moves on to play professionally is 0.9%, according to data from the 2018 WNBA draft in conjunction with NCAA research. 32 out of 36 draft slots were given to NCAA players, all of which came from DI schools. 

Unlike football, women's basketball provides more opportunities for its players to play professionally on an international scale. In 2018, an additional 223 players from the WNBA draft cohort played internationally; 208 from D1, 13 from DII, and 2 from DIII.  Even though women's basketball players seem to have ample opportunities both abroad and possibly within the WNBA, for years, the players have not really entertained the idea of leaving college early to go pro like we see in men's football at the college level as well as men's basketball. In 2016, it was the “second straight season at least one player [was] entering the WNBA draft rather than staying in school.” That player was Michigan State's Aerial Powers. During the previous year, players Jewell Loyd (University of Notre Dame) and Amanda Zauhi B. (Minnesota) were the first players to ever declare for the draft and leave their college careers early to prepare for the WNBA draft. 

Related: Daily Grind of a D1 Women's Basketball Player: Quinnipiac University's Cat Almeida

So far we have seen three options for women going pro in basketball. On one hand, we have the women who stay on their college team for the entire time they are there and are eligible to play in college. On the other hand, we have those who will go play professionally on an international stage. Lastly and more recently, we have seen players declaring for the WNBA draft and leaving college early. However, there is one more option of a way of going pro in women's basketball that combines these previous options. In 2009, we saw “Epiphanny Prince, a third-team all-American guard for Rutgers who once scored 113 points in a high school game” leave her senior year to go play in Europe for a year before declaring for the draft. 

With all these given options of viable paths to go pro, the WNBA requires players either complete their four year degree or wait four years after graduating high school to be eligible for the draft.

Men's Golf 

For men's golf, the percentage of high school golfers that go on and compete in NCAA D1 schools is around 1.6%, and even fewer than that go pro by earning their PGA Tour card. In golf, especially men's golf, however, there is a big to do around whether or not their elite athletes should go to college and play golf in college. From my research, I have found that there are both pros and cons of golfing in college for those who want to play professionally.

The pros of going to college are that the golfer receives an education, builds strong social connections, is able to network, and has time to figure out life in general. John Stabler, co-founder of Golf Psych, wrote the following on the benefits of playing golf in college when wanting to go pro: “Four or five years to grow and mature. Social connections and experience. Deeper knowledge in your field. Figuring out what you want to do with your life, although this may not happen by the time you finish. A delay to enjoy life as an individual before you have to earn a living? Increased self-respect for completing it. Potential friends for life. Certainly there are more.”

Related: 16 Things You Need to Play College Golf

On the flip side, there are also seemingly many cons to going through the American traditional route of college before going pro in golf. Competition is very strong when it comes to pursuing a college golf scholarship, so the expense of paying for junior golf is high while one is not guaranteed to earn a scholarship. According to Joe Zumpella at Golf HQ, “NCAA Division 1 men's golf programs only get 4.5 full scholarships to hand out so in a lot of cases potential college golfers are given a half or partial scholarship depending on their level of play since teams can have anywhere from 8-12 players.” 

Another con is that playing golf in college before going pro can slow down, or even stunt, improvement. These are Hank Haney's, a writer for Golf Digest, thoughts on the matter: “With winning so important to a big-time college program's ability to recruit, the emphasis is on shooting the lowest possible scores now. I've seen a lot of players put loyalty to their schools above their own development, and they delay important swing changes until turning pro. But by then their bad habits are ingrained, and they're under the pressure of playing for their livelihood. Because of college, they've missed a crucial window.”

Overall, in the U.S., there is a tradition behind golfers going the college route before going pro. This can been seen with some of the greats who followed this tradition: Jack Nicklaus, Hale Irwin, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods just to name a few. However, there are others that are challenging this tradition, such as Akshay Bhatia, Ty Tyron, Justin Rose and Michelle Wie. Golf has been evolving ever since it has become increasingly more global in recent years. We will see if the collegiate tradition before going pro will give way to modern times.

Going pro is a hard decision that a select few college athletes will get to make. So if you're not pro material, don't sweat it! You may be saving yourself from a massive headache in the future. For now, enjoy your college days.

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* Originally published on May 4, 2022, by Ashton Royal