There’s a secret formula for how to succeed as a professional athlete. Obviously, it takes a lot of hard work and some amazinwg physical skill, but there’s another side of being an athlete.

Athletes have to market themselves. Whether it’s through a TV show, clothing line or name change, it’s all about staying in the public’s eye.

First of all, get yourself a Twitter account. Tweet pictures of your breakfast, come up with some funny jokes or retweet a fan’s birthday wish. The more interesting things you tweet, the more popular you become. Want extra publicity? Start a twitter feud. Call out your coach, your wide receiver, a mean sportswriter or your fans. The next thing you know, you’re tweets are all over Sportscenter, and you gain another 10,000 followers.

The next thing to do is to write a book about yourself. Include your sob story, like how your middle school basketball coach wouldn’t play you for the last game of the year and that’s your motivation for doing a thousand push-ups a day. The better the sob story, the more copies sold. Include a picture of you posing with an intense look on your face, pondering the world’s problems while holding a football or a baseball bat. You want to appeal to the world as this clean cut, all around good guy who had to work harder than anyone else in the world to get to where they are today.

Of course, with all the money you’ll be earning as a professional athlete, the next best thing to do is buy a flashy car. Give it a camoflauge paint job, include 50 inch spinners and 10 speakers in the trunk so everyone within 20 miles can feel the bass. Hang some curtains in the back window, and you’re all set to go.

The most important part in becoming a successful athlete is all in the name. A-Rod, Kobe, Chad Ochocinco, Shaq, Big Ben, and T.O. are all talented athletes, and from some reason or another decided to jazz up their name. Apparently, Terrell Owens is too hard to pronounce, so T.O. did us a favor and shortened it. Want to make an even bigger scene? Change your name completely to the spanglish version of your jersey number. The more outrageous the better.

Last but not least, you’re going to want to get your own shoe line, and you’ll have to market the shoes as the sole reason why you perform so well. The shoes are what lift you to the basket during a slam dunk, or help you jump over ten defenders into the endzone. Of course, the shoes have to look good too, and correspond with all the bling-bling professional athletes wear every day.

So all you future athletes, get out there and fine tune your writing skills. Start designing shoes that give you mad skills, and find some phrases that are 140 characters or less – you’ll be on your way to cementing a place in your sport’s hall of fame.

hrutt@mavs.coloradomesa.edu