Everyone always thinks their sport is the best or hardest. Each sport has its own difficulties, I admit. And anyone can be good at something if they work hard enough. This is a list of the sports that require the most discipline and hard work, in my opinion, and my reasoning behind it.
1. Wrestling
I know many people who would say things like "Wrestling is gay," or "Wrestling is easy." These people couldn't be more wrong. I've seen high school wrestling practices in a state that only goes up to class A for this sport. They are some of the most intense practices I've ever witnessed. I couldn't imagine what NCAA wrestling practices look like. These guys are truly some of the strongest, both physically and mentally. They spend hours at meets to spend six minutes on the mat, and they always leave everything out there. Their endurance and stamina are extremely impressive, and their mental toughness equally so. They constantly get beat up, thrown around and dropped onto a mat, and yet they get up and continue to fight every time. If you think at all that wrestlers are undisciplined meatheads, I encourage you to look again at everything they do.
2. Hockey
Hockey may just be so important to me since I grew up in Minnesota, but it takes a lot more skill than people think. Skating itself is impressive to me. It takes quite a bit of coordination and endurance to skate. Then, throw in a couple extra pounds of pads and a helmet that may reduce vision slightly, and you've just added extra elements that make it impressive. Also, hitting a hockey puck, which is quite small, into a net guarded by a goalie who takes up most of the net, is also astounding. It's also a very physical game, which just adds to the difficulty. Hockey players have always been some of the most disciplined people I have met.
3. Baseball
America's favorite pastime had to be on this list, of course. Although it's starting to get overshadowed by football, baseball will forever be one of the greatest sports. It may not take very much endurance, per se, but it does require a certain level of skill and dedication. The amount of muscle it takes to throw a 95 mph fastball, or to throw a ball from way out in right field to the second baseman is incredible. The flexibility of the tendons and ligaments in the arms of baseball players is also impressive, and somewhat frightening. Catchers squatting each inning is also impressive. Batting is something that takes an incredible amount of skill, as well. Even the best professional players don't bat over .500 and that is with years, probably decades, of practice.
4. Gymnastics
Gymnasts are by far the most flexible and muscular people. They have incredible endurance and stamina, as well as grace and poise. They train hard for hours on end, and have to know what they're doing in not one, but four (women) or six (men) different events. They are also some of the more harshly judged athletes. Most sports, one person or team wins by scoring more points than the other, through goals, touchdowns or runs. Gymnasts don't have that luxury. They get deductions from little things like not pointing toes or not hitting a vertical handstand. A quote from my favorite movie, "Stick It," describes what gymnasts do with incredible accuracy: "The stunts gymnasts do make the Navy SEALs look like wusses, and we do them without a gun."
Whether you agree or disagree with these being the top four most disciplined sports, you can't deny that each of these has an element of difficulty not seen in many other sports. This is by no means meant to say that other sports aren't difficult, or that these are the better sports. Every sport is difficult if you don't know what you're doing, and hard work goes a long way.
