Quote:
Originally posted by tomegun
I have another topic that doesn't "teach." How many guys think athletes from pro to middle school don't compete and show up like they used to?
Today's athletes are the most talented/gifted physically ever without question. What irritates me is there is always an excuse for a lack of performance. It is either the ref's fault, the coach's fault or something else. I personally don't think there are many athletes that are winners anymore. Not as many anyway. You know Jordan, Majic, Bird, Russell, Montana, Ali, Gretsky, even Mary Lou. Kobe is starting to put together a resume like this but his team has to win. The Lakers have problems and they are being exposed.
A few years ago in Vegas there was this kid named Smokey that was about 5'6". I loved to watch him play because he got the job done. He didn't even shoot jumpers all that well. He would draw fouls, drive to the lane or dish. His team was terrible but they beat one of the best teams in the city. Smokey had 20 points in the quarter and 13 of those were from the line. I wasn't there but I wasn't surprised.
Have we increased in talent but lost the "IT" a winner has? It's like we have momentary stars. Roder can't pitch forever (maybe), Venus and Serena lose in the same round, Tiger hasn't won a big tourney in a while and Roy Jones got knocked out in the second round! What is the world coming to?
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1) Too much play - I think it gets to be too routine. When you play 80 games a year as a kid, do you really have the mental energy to care about all of them? If not, you start building bad mental habits at a young age.
2) Injuries have affected Tiger and the Williams sisters. You can say it's just an excuse, but the level of play is so high now compared to several years ago that you can't compete unless you are in top condition. and the injuries are coming at an earlier age because of . . . too much play at young ages, and a serious level of physcial effort that is required.
3) Today's athletes are more able to do things, but maybe that higher level of performance is harder to sustain than the lower levels we saw before. When the peak is twice what it used to be, it may just be too much to expect that you can stay there. Again, this can be taken as an excuse, but we really are in uncharted territory athletically speaking. If the valleys of performance are higher than the previous peaks were, are the athletes really doing that badly?
4) Better competition. there are more athletes that can knock you off the perch now. so we may not have noticed a drop off before, because the best on their worst day were still better than the wannabes. Maybe it's simply tha the wannabes have caught up. Just look at the number of competitive schools in the NCAA now as compared with 30 years ago. Night and day different, because there are more high level athletes out there now.