What sport requires the smartest athletes?

And let's stay with physical sports, rather than stuff like chess.

 

Baseball.
Fencing.
Sumo wrestling.

 

Curling

 

Why baseball?

 

American Football.

 

Full-contact attention whoring.

Or quarterbacks and OL in American football.

 

I'd say hockey. It's the fastest paced sport other than soccer, so you actually have to stay on the ball. Basketball is fairly fast paced, but it's in a much smaller area and a much larger and slower object. In hockey, you have to constantly be aware of where you are, outmaneuver your opponent, handle the puck well without giving it away and trick the goalie or defensemen. There's a lot more space to cover, and with things changing so quickly you have to always be aware and know what's going on.

I'd say hockey and soccer are about even as requiring the most intelligence from the players. American football is probably the least, because only two or three guys really need to have any brains (quarterback, receivers), everyone else just charges into the person in front of them.

 

It's difficult to classify an entire sport that way, but the Quarterback position (American football) requires the most on-the-spot decision making.

So I guess football.

 

Golf maybe.

 

Marbles because you need to have lots of marbles to play. And yes I consider marbles a physical sport.

 

He said smart, not technically able.

Darts requires mental agility to calculate the correct numbers to hit to leave you with an easy double finish. Snooker also requires a smart maths head to work out combinations required when playing catch up to a big break.

Rugby captains require intelligence to organise the entire 15 players to execute a move mid game (there's no stopping to ask the coach as there is in 'football').

Soccer players are renound for being extremely thick, as are hockey players.

 

I'd say hockey. It's the fastest paced sport other than soccer, so you actually have to stay on the ball. Basketball is fairly fast paced, but it's in a much smaller area and a much larger and slower object. In hockey, you have to constantly be aware of where you are, outmaneuver your opponent, handle the puck well without giving it away and trick the goalie or defensemen. There's a lot more space to cover, and with things changing so quickly you have to always be aware and know what's going on.



He's not talking about athleticism. Every sport requires that, but not all require a high degree of intelligence. As for me, I'm going to agree with The-D here and say American football. The QB does carry the brunt of the thinking, but everyone on the team has to be able to read their opposing team's plays, decide whether or not that pass interference penalty is worth the lost yards, what player on the other team will deserve the most attention per play, etc.

 

I disagree. I've found hockey players to probably be the most intelligent athletes (team sports anyways) that I have heard speak. I also think it takes smarts to play such a high pace game (football or hockey). They have to process a great deal of information in a very short amount of time. It might not be book smarts, but it is smarts.

 

Spelling Bees. Come on, it's physical. They have to get up and stand there for a while!

 

Basketball.

 

I only enjoy it if it's man vs. woman.

I don't care much for woman vs. woman.

 

Fencing.

Though, actually, any good American Football fan knows that being smart is incredibly essential to many positions... QB, Corner, RB... my motto is that I will always take the smart guy over the more althletic but dumb as a brick guy.

 

Martial Arts.

 

Curling.

 

Air Racing (not really a sport per se though) unless someone says nascar, then it is.

 

I was thinking air racing (they've had that on the TV recently).
Not so sure about NASCAR as I think anyone could drive around a circular track 200 times.
Formula 1 is all about the car these days rather than the driver.

 

Heh.

My husband would agree with you.

 

Figure skating.

 

Synchronised swimming.

 

Considering how I always land on my butt when I put ice skates on, I must be pretty stupid.