What It Takes To Be Great By Geoff Colvin: Article Analysis

Some people believe that humans do not control their own destiny, and success is due to natural causes. Others believe that humans do control their own destiny, and success is due to hard work. The Sports Gene, written by Daniel Epstein, is about a young man named Donald Thomas who discovered his natural talent for high jumping through a friendly bet. Outliers: The Story of Success, written by Malcolm Gladwell, explains that hard work is more important than natural talent. Through thorough explanation, Gladwell produces a more convincing argument supporting hard work over natural talent for controlling what happens in our lives.

In The Sports Gene, David Epstein compares two high jumpers and their success, arguing that physical ability is the leading cause of an individual's success. David Epstein uses Donald Thomas as an example to support his claim by comparing his success to Stefan Holm. Donald Thomas was an inexperienced high jumper who had an incredible amount of success leading him to participate and eventually win the 2007 World Championships. Stefan Holm was the reigning Olympic champion of the high jump which used discipline and many years of practice to achieve success but was defeated by a neophyte. Epstein provides information about studies conducted on

Every elite athlete makes it look easy. Splashing through the water or striding gracefully down the track making it look effortless. Some people assume they are “naturals,” that their perfect DNA sequence is what has brought them to this level. Others argue that hard work and drive is what has made the difference, separating the elite from the average. These thoughts are the ones that give rise to the age-old nature vs. nurture debate. Countless hours of studies and research has concluded: it’s both. High performance sports consultant Ross Tucker puts it this way, “The science of success is about the coming together of dozens, perhaps hundreds of factors” (1). The relationship of such factors, including genetics, types and lengths of

Some people are born with natural god given skills and ability while others who are not that lucky and have to work twice as hard just to get the same result. And then there are those rare individual who even though they are born with the talent, they still work just as hard and sometimes even harder to keep improving. It is called determination and that is a trait that all the great athletes share and it is what separates the great ones from the just good ones. This is perfect way to describe Peyton Williams Manning, who is considered to be one of the most prolific passers in NFL history.

In the collegiate world of sports, basketball has become an increasingly recognized sport among African Americans, predominantly males. The hope of any young basketball player is that one day a scout will come and recruit them into stardom The question that presents itself as a problem to the lucky few who are chosen to go professional, is whether or not an education is more important than a million dollar shoe deal, “The NCAA's (1998) annual six-year study reported that only 33% of Black male basketball players graduated, (Chronicle of Higher Education, 1999). Individually, basketball reported the lowest graduation rate in all divisions,” (Robinson, 2004:1). Basketball players have become so idolized in the eyes of young

Divided into parts on “Opportunity” and “Legacy” the writings of Gladwell focus on shattering the myth that “success is exclusively a matter of merit” (67). As Gladwell exhibits, through the example of Hockey, the common belief is that “Success…is based on individual merit” (17). However, after a thoughtful analysis of precursory, and undeserved opportunities, such as, birth month, time spent practicing due to being selected because of age grouping, and “accumulative advantage[s],” all of the opportunities were critical to the success of the all-star hockey player; not just talent (30). Moreover, due to the arbitrary access to more practice, an individual (like the hockey player example) is allowed more of a chance to develop their skills.

He sees the validity of this claim, however, declares that this only gives limited knowledge, in that there is much more to this. There are many other factors factoring into athletic performance, not simply genetics. With this, he shows how these athletes followed the 10,000-hour rule, demonstrating that deliberate practice was needed to perform as well as they did. These athletes dedicated large amounts of training and dedication in order to reach the success they did. This success was not simply achieved due to their genetics, it was rather nurtured through their practice. While Gladwell believes in the idea that blacks are generally better athletes than whites, he also believes that hard work is the most important thing for someone who wants to be good at a sport. His theory is that hard work and drive are more important than someone’s race when it comes to being good at a sport, in that athletic ability does not always come down to physical ability. There is no clear explanation of why and if certain races perform better than others. Ultimately, Gladwell believes there is more than one factor that contributes to

INTRODUCTION: “I have failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeeded” a quote by Michael Jordan. How many of you believe failure is a prerequisite to success? , how many of you believe that the difficulties and obstacles you’ve faced changed who you are as a person? well, life is not a wish granting factory , it will feel long and tough , eventually at one point you will fail , we all do , but it’s not about failing it’s about how you perceive failure , that is what defines you as a person , Samuel Becket once

many young athletes’ perceptions that their parents expect them to be extraordinary and would criticize them if they failed to deliver. The added pressure from coaches to be perfect can also deter young athletes’ focus on doing what is right or doing what will allow them to succeed and ultimately satisfy their parents and coaches desires (Madigan, Stoeber & Passfield, 2016).

The Sports Gene, written by David Epstein, supports the argument that natural ability controls our lives. Malcolm Butler, author of Outliers: The Story of Success, argues that preparation and work ethic are more important than innate talent. With great examples and reasoning, Butler builds a more convincing argument by presenting evidence and reasoning from the text, making Butlers position better for answering the question How much of what happens in our lives do we control?

America is the place of unlimited potential; anyone can be whatever they set their mind to. Everyone has the ability to become wealthy. From rags to riches, a poor young child can become the greatest in the world, and this is what happened to Jim Thorpe.With his endowed abilities, Jim Thorpe became the greatest, most well rounded athlete in the world. Even though Jim Thorpe’s childhood was rough, he rose above it to become the greatest athlete of the twentieth century, and he left a legacy still being felt today.

A trainer for the Team USA basketball program once described how Kobe Bryant practiced deliberately until he made 800 shots in the morning. Although his other teammates were practicing as well, Kobe practiced more hours on specific skills to become an elite player. Similarly, Malcolm Gladwell, who is the founder of the 10,000 hour rule, believes that to be an expert on something, it requires 10,000 hours. This suggests that Kobe practiced to be the best basketball player in the world. If I were to be a NBA player like Kobe, I would need to practice playing basketball for 10,000 hours along with developing teamwork and fundamental skills.

What makes a good athlete? What separates a person on the 1st line up from a bench warmer? Where does athleticism come from? Is it from our genes, or is it a product of the environment we live in? These are the types of questions that arise in the nature vs. nurture debate pertaining about athletic ability. In 1582, British educator, Richard Mulcaster wrote that
''Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward,'' he gave the world
a euphonious name for an opposition that has been debated ever since; Nature and Nurture. People's
beliefs about the roles of heredity and environment affect their opinions on an
astonishing range of topics including sports. The nature versus nurture debate not only exists in the sporting community but also in many others. It is a very controversial topic that has puzzled researchers for centuries. There are two sides to the debate; Nature and Nurture. To be on the side on nature one believes that DNA and heredity make us who we are. In the case of sports, an athlete is born with genes that give them the ability to excel in a certain sport. On the other hand, many people believe that we become who we are because of the environment and people around us; Nurture. A nurtured athlete is an individual that has developed elite skills over time caused by rigorous training and their surroundings. Nature or nurture, which contributes more to the creation of professional athletes?

In earlier days sports psychology was mostly concerned with developing assessment methods that would identify those people with the potential to become serious superior athletes. Today the focus is on psychological training, exercises that strengthen the mental skills that will help athletic performances on the path to excellence. These skills include mental imagery and focus training. If an athlete is serious about becoming the best he or she can possibly be, the most essential ingredient is commitment to practice the right things. It takes incredible commitment to reach the top: a commitment to rest and train the body so it can perform under the most demanding conditions and a commitment to train the mind to

What makes champions in sport? At the end of the day, it is the moment when one stands at the top of the podium, holding up their well-deserved medals and trophies that all elite athletes strive for. Thus, experts have studied this question extensively to see which programs, or by what means, are elite athletes developed to achieve this goal. One of the many aspects to athlete development is the controversial topic of deliberate practice versus deliberate play. Deliberate practice can be defined as “any training activity (a) undertaken with the specific purpose of increasing performance, (b) requiring cognitive and/or physical effort, and (c) relevant to promoting positive skill development” (Cote et al., 2007, p. 185) On the