Came to mind while thinking about the mental aspects of physical activity.
Suppose you had the mind of an elite athlete in any one sport - all the judgment, timing, strategy, leadership skill, etc etc anyone could ever ask for, but your physical gifts and attributes are, at best, average, and won’t likely improve with training and working out enough to play at the professional level. In what sport would such expertise do the most good? I’m envisioning some kind of coaching, but if there’s a sport where you could get away with playing, go ahead!
Yea, it seems like there are a lot of sports that rely on “muscle memory” type skills (basiclally, shoot stuff at other stuff sports like bowling, darts, shooting, curling, etc). Not sure if the OP wants to count those types of skills as mental or physical.
Become a baseball umpire. The minutiae of baseball rules are extremely complex compared to other sports, and you really have to know where to look. With other sports, it’s pretty much follow the ball, but the umpires have to watch the ball, and also know when a base runner, who may be far from the ball, may make a sudden and quick move-- especially a base steal. And yes, a professional game has more than one umpire, but nonetheless, they have to keep a lot of information at the forefront at once, and be aware of a lot of things besides where the ball is.
Apparently umpire school is really tough. I don’t know what referee school is like for other sports, but umpire school is supposedly like military basic training.
Actually, you’ve pretty much described nearly every successful baseball manager, ever. Not to mention NBA coaches like Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson (Auerbach nevere played pro hoops, and Jackson was never good enough to be a starter.)
In fact, there’s a long-standing theory that really good athletes don’t make good coaches, because they don’t understand their players’ limitations.
Pinch hitter in baseball-----if you can shag fly balls, and if you can hit slightly above the Mendoza line with lots of practice, you could probably serve for a spell in the Majors by obsessively studying opposing pitchers.
Long snapper in the NFL-----you’ll need some size, because you’ll be expected to block, but your ability to snap the ball successfully to the placekick holder can well overshadow your inability as a lineman. Again, it will take a lot of practice, but theres some otherwise unqualified NFL players who have made coin off this skill well into their 30s.
Agreed golf is a mental game, look at all the middle aged fatsos you see still making money off the game on TV. As a matter of fact, being too into shape can actually hurt you, as seen by Tiger Woods.
It seems to me most people are ignoring this part and trying to pick a sport where the physical skills could in fact be learned (i.e. fighting the hypothetical).
I think the obvious answer to the OP is American Football, where you can become a highly-paid coach of the game. This is probably true of football (soccer) as well, where a lot of the great managers weren’t great players.
F1 drivers are insanely, physically fit and mentally capable. You can’t separate the mental processing and the actual driving and the OP doesn’t really allow for that.
However, you could be an excellent team principle as you may be able to translate the driver feedback into engineering and set-up changes and also think up smart strategies etc.
Some of the better crew chiefs in NASCAR are former drivers that did not have what it takes to be an elite level driver. Chad Knaus, CC for 6 time champ Jimmy Johnson is an excellent example. His father was a long time driver in the Midwest when it was the hot bed of some of the greatest short track drivers of all time. His own driving career went no where but he learned what it took to make a car do what was needed to win races. He took a driver that was considered good, not great and made him one of the all time great drivers in NASCAR history.
Obviously coaching in general is the answer.
But if you had to actually play, I’m thinking maybe a baseball catcher. There are physical demands that not everyone can do, but it doesn’t necessarily take superhuman strength and reflexes to be able to squat for a couple hours at a time, while being hit in the hand with 100 mph baseballs. And the ability to call good pitches, manage pitchers’ emotions and mental state, work umpires, and frame pitches are together probably more important that the sheer physical aspects. Still wouldn’t be professional level, if you’re hitting like an average Joe, but I think that might be the most useful position for a Hall of Fame mind in an average body.