It’s a painful realization. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the one where you welcome… It’s a painful realization. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the one where you welcome yourself to real life and accept the fact that you aren’t going to play professional sports in your lifetime.

The all-world athletic ability, the fame and the millions of dollars just won’t be headed your direction and you’re going to have to get a real job.

Now, remember, it’s not all that bad. And if you’ve grown up with your life revolving around the sporting world (like I did), you still have some hope. There are plenty of jobs out there for you.

For one, you could write sports like yours truly. That’s if you don’t mind the small pay, the many hours of work and the seemingly hopeless future for the newspaper business.

However, everything is at your fingertips as a sports writer: Seats in the press box, exclusive interviews with the athletes and coaches, free food during the game and your name in print the next day are all nice perks.

Still, though, if the workload seems too much, you can always be the middle man between the team and the press — the media relations director and its staff.

Media relations gets you near the action as well, but don’t plan on skipping out on any work. The staff does just as much work, if not more, than everybody else in the press box during games.

In that staff, you’d work closely with the media and the members of the team, setting up interviews, dishing out tons of information and simply making sure everything runs smoothly during game day.

In a whole different direction, you could coach.

If you grew up playing sports and studying one or more games very closely, you might know enough to teach others.

Most coaches start off down in the ranks as high school assistants and work up to a head coach position. With a good track record (or maybe you might “know some people”), you can move up to an assistant position in the college ranks.

From there, it’s hard work and making yourself known. Not all coaches make top-notch money like the best in collegiate or professional sports, but for a lot of coaches, the money isn’t always the number one priority.

Also, there’s always the enemy. And by the enemy, I mean the agent.

Every professional athlete needs his or her own agent. The agent, as you all probably know, is in charge of negotiating the contracts for the players and helping them gain endorsements from the business world.

Many sites online offer agent classes — a quick Google search will point you in the right direction for research.

Beware of the agent profession, however, because the ones known by the casual fan aren’t liked. Just think about Drew Rosenhaus, Terrell Owens’ agent, and Scott Boras, the famed agent of Major League Baseball that drives up the prices of all his players who helped create competitive imbalance in baseball.

If you’re smart enough on the business side of things, I’d say go for it all — mainly because I wish I could. By all, I’m suggesting you head to the top and be the general manager for a professional team.

Wheel and deal your way to the top of the league in the real world, rather than the Baseball Mogul computer game series. Manage all of the team’s finances and keep your fans happy unlike Pirates GM Dave Littlefield.

Keep in mind that these jobs are just a small sample of what sports has to offer the non-athlete.

While one of these jobs may intrigue you, you can still be something in sports marketing, a physical trainer or even a scout. The possibilities are endless, just do a little research.

Try some things out and see where you fit in. Even if the pay isn’t quite what it’d be for throwing 95 mph fastballs for a living, it’s gratifying to know that you enjoy going to work each day and love what you do.

Now that is a pretty good feeling.