This is life, at some point it is thrust into your face that there are always other people who do what you do, and do it better.
Participation in competitive sports can be a good way to learn to deal with this at an earlier age. Every level, from youth to junior high to JV to Varsity to college/minor and ultimately pro has a talent filter. You can be good on your middle school team and then in high school find that you don't make the Varsity cut.
Not if you went to my school junior or high school. The (very wealthy) district used egregious tactics to remain classified as a size 4A district for years after it realistically exceeded that classification, so it could "compete" against teams from rural and poor areas with smaller student bases and WAY smaller tax bases.
On the other hand, they had everything else (college, jobs at dad's company, etc.) handed to them the same way so maybe it did prepare them for their lives. Ugh.
This cannot be "always" true. Somebody has to be at the top of the game so it's a matter of discovering if you're at the top or not.
The writing imo is some of the best I've seen in a while. Did you read the article to completion? The writer personally spoke with a number of involved individuals in person, this is real investigative journalism and here you are spouting a couple of weak claims without backing them in any way.
No one accused you of being critical because of the subject material but your offering of that as a reason for your criticism is very telling.
