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is it true that most of the star athletes you went to school with were relentlessly trained by their parents since childhood?
i was recently having lunch with our old schools star pointguard and i asked him how he got so good, he basically told me as long as he could remember his father mercilessly practiced shooting with him and pretty much forced him to play.
is this true of most of the good athletes we went to school with or do you get good just playing for 2 hours everyday during practice?
>>37335576
Most good athletes did put an awful lot of time into it. Whether that's because they were forced or had their own passion for it is pretty variable.
>>37335576
For the most part, yes. I did boxing, football, and wrestling. Anyone who was above average had pretty strict parents. Aside from boxing, some were just angry ducks.
>>37335616
i guess it makes sense i mean, what kid wants to practice doing layups all day instead of playing power rangers or something.
still i wonder if it would be fair to my kid to force him to practice playing basketball all day (even if it would be for his own good)
Sometimes its hardcore training from childhood, sometimes people are just naturally talented at something.
>>37335680
that must be a huge component of it.
i could imagine so many parents that want their offspring to be the next michael jordan who force them to practice constantly, but naturally some of them are going to be better than others.
even still, without that initial push though probably many wouldnt ever have discovered if they had talent or not.
even more were probably just talent enough to be better than others but still outclassed in the grand scheme of things.
>>37335576
Yes. But it's not just sports. The kids I know who went to ivy league schools had helicopter parents--many of whom were college professors themselves--who forced them to put together a resume full of strong extracurricular activities and of course forced them to study hundreds of hours to take (and retake) the SATs to get near perfect scores to go along with their perfect GPAs.
But just to go with sports, yes. Off the top of my head, you have Roy Jones Jr (Sr. trained him so hard Roy said he wanted to commit suicide to get away from him), former UFC welterweight champ Jonny Hendricks (dad forced him to do hundreds and hundreds of push ups a day, plus wrestling training), Ronda Rousey (mom was judo world champion who took Ronda around the world to train with the best people), skateboarding champion Nyjah Houston (dad forced him to train 8 hours a day and then made a living as his manager), et al.
Once you realize this is how it is for many successful people, you see it everywhere. Michael Jackson, the Kardashians, Beyonce, Britney Spears, you name it--all had super driven parents who managed them from a young age and pushed them into the spotlight. It's a huge advantage to have driven, ambitious parents who to some extent live vicariously through you but it's also a major drag, obviously. I've felt somewhat bitter that my own parents were such complete losers who didn't give a shit to encourage me to do anything with my life. But I also realize that's just a cheap excuse to stay a lazy, unsuccessful bitch and I need to just force myself to be more driven.
>>37335724
how many of the people who get into ivy league schools were just naturally motivated and pushed themselves?
even now i think about the top 3 smartest people i went to school with and atleast two of them were mentally abused by their parents for getting bad grades.
it was really unhealthy to see that shit.
but of the rest of the top 10, it seems atleast like some of them were really self motivated to succeed so i dont know how true that is of the true cream of the crop.
>>37335724
damn, nyjah houston story is crazy if true.
but just goes to show that the more time you put into something, the more you get out. crazy...
>>37335858
>the more time you put into something, the more you get out
honestly do you hear the stories about how some people dedicate their entire lives to practicing something and still end up shit?
do you think that is possible or are these so called "i practiced 8 hours a day but i didnt have talent" people are overembellishing their actual dedication and in actuality were just lazy and unmotivated?
>>37335576
I come from a place with a lot of good athletes and honestly not the case for most that were really good. Most of the really skilled kids i knew just played all day everyday. Their parents just enabled them to play all the time, they didn't push them.
For reference our highschools regularly win state championships in all kinds of sports, and one kid who played soccer (my sport) now plays for the US national team. His younger brother was also very good but got too into pot, however their parents were actually very relaxed.
>>37335858
It's pretty much true with everything. People throw around the word 'talent' as an excuse for their own shortcomings.
The reality is if you have a mediocre aptitude for something but you do nothing but practice at the one thing relentlessly you'll become 'talented' at some point.
Sure, you might lack the raw genetics and physiology to be the very best in the world but you can certainly become elite level at pretty much anything you choose to if you start young enough and put in the hours (or have your wanker parents force you to put in the hours).
>>37335639
Of course, make that little fucker cry.
>>37335883
One persons '8 hours a day' isn't the same as another persons '8 hours a day'.
It's like half the dyel jabronies here whining about seeing no results after a year despite 'eating big, training hard, doing everything right blaa blaa'...
They might be trying their best but if they're working stupid they're going to make shite progress no matter how many hours they put in.
>>37335831
>how many of the people who get into ivy league schools were just naturally motivated and pushed themselves?
Hmmm, let me think...zero.
I went to a good public school in an upper-middle class suburb. Two kids from my graduating class went to Harvard, one kid went to Duke, two kids went to Yale and two went to MIT (actually three, but one transferred to Yale).
Some other data worth mentioning:
-Of those kids, exactly zero came from single parent households.
-Zero were born to teen parents.
-Zero came from families with combined income less than 150k a year.
-Zero had any known family history of substance abuse, mental illness, sexual abuse, et cetera.
-Zero were first generation high school graduates
-Zero were first generation college students
-The one black kid who went to Duke was adopted by a couple of middle-aged white college professors. Both had PhDs and taught at a state university. The rest were white/Ashkenazi Jewish.
-Two Jewish kids (one male, one female; unrelated) who went to Harvard were both children of college professors teaching in STEM fields.
-The other two Jewish kids who went to Yale were both the children of lawyers. As in, both kids had lawyers for both parents, and pretty successful ones at that.
We're taught over and over again that in America, you can be anything or anyone you want. And while this may be true in principle--on a long enough timeline, you may eventually meet long term goals independent of where you started out--the university caste system suggests that it's not true in any tangible sense. The odds of a random 17 year old kid putting together the kind of resume that gets them into an ivy without affirmative action are pretty low, imo.
It's not a death sentence. Tons of extremely successful people went to fairly shitty schools or started out as underachievers. But I do very much see an ivy league education as a reflection of good parenting rather than of innate academic merit.
>>37336042
i mean i guess im only speaking anecdotally.
i know this one kid who got into columbia university which, yeah its not the best school but its still pretty fucking good.
his parents werent strict he just told me he always knew that school was important and was the key to him making it out of welfare so he graduated i think top 7th in our class?
i spoke with his parents and they said they never beat him or anything they just tried to instill within him a good work ethic.
do you think he is lying/leaving out details?
Yup I went to high school with Adam Vinatieri and his dad made him kick for like an hour every day and sometimes twice in the off season
>>37336057
>an hour every day
seems a bit lacking? i know total losers who practice playing fighting games more than 1 hour everyday
>>37335858
>damn, nyjah houston story is crazy if true.
Nyjah's life is crazier than you even suspect. His dad was a maniacal stage parent and raised Nyjah almost from birth to be the family's meal ticket. Nyjah turned pro at the age of 9 and was supporting the entire family with his earnings by 11.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keESOFr64Gk
>>37336071
From like age 8 and not including his time practicing for the actual team
>>37336056
Not who you're responding to, but probably not.
I grew up in poverty, it affected us all in different ways. most did something along the lines of military, the dumb ones for the glory, smart ones for stability, some tried community college, some dropped and some did well; unequivocally, we all had it much harder than the rich kids, and it continues to be harder in our 20s. I went to college under the intent of ROTC but loved STEM and did well in that.
I did an internship at an ivy and met more than a few people I'd consider dumber than my friends back home.
>>37336056
If he went to Columbia, his parents did an amazing job raising him. Most kids from welfare families never come close to attending an ivy league school. Despite living in a good town for the high school years, I come from a welfare family myself. I never met my dad and my mother was an 8th grade drop-out. I had no one telling me to study for the SAT or even to do homework. I had as much drive to do these things on my own as the average teenager; by this I mean none. It wasn't until I was 27 or so that I said "Damn, it's a shame I didn't actually apply myself in school. I can't say that the kids who did better than me were objectively smarter than me; they just applied themselves and I didn't even know enough to apply myself until after it was over."
I've always related to Adam Carolla, a fellow welfare survivor who frequently drives this point home on his podcast or in interviews.
"We didn't do homework. I didn't do homework a day in my life. Neither did any of my white trash buddies."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on5FdRcg7WA
But I also draw inspiration from Adam since he's proof that you can come from a family of dysfunctional white trash losers, grow up in poverty surrounded by people with no ambition whatsoever and still achieve massive success.
>do you think he is lying/leaving out details?
I think most people omit key details--whether consciously or subconsciously--in the interest of crafting a more embellished creation myth. People want a big story of how they heroically beat the odds. And in a way, they did—you still have to do the work. The only point I want to make is that very few people do it on their own, particularly at a young age where you have neither the foresight to appreciate the full importance of academic achievement and higher education nor the innate drive to act on this knowledge.
Kids who go to ivies had good upbringings. Maybe their parents weren't doctors or lawyers but they got their kids to take school seriously.
>>37336212
>in the interest of crafting a more embellished creation myth
honestly that sounds just like him.
to his credit, i do find him to be incredibly smart but yeah crafting a sort of 'alpha male effortless' persona is literally his signature.
that must be such a hard part of parenting though, you pretty much have to have the will of a superstar to continue pushing your offspring to succeed for 18/21+ years
>>37335576
My dad forced me into wrestling in high school. After practice, I'd spend all night drilling with him.
I got pinned in every single meet and dad would beat me. Now I do cocaine and get into bar fights.
>>37335576
The top rugby guys I went to school with usually started playing around junior school, then started roiding at 16. The parents were always egging them on and packing them meals. Jelly desu.
>>37336247
just curious, why do you think you lost every meet?
surely with all that practice you mustve been pretty good at wrestling, unless you were competing with people whose parents forced them to practice harder/beat them more savagely?
>>37336267
I was never good at it and I don't even know why my dad wanted me to wrestle. I was decent at basketball but I wasn't allowed to try out because I had to wrestle all the time. Yet when I fight today, it's effortless how I make people tap or nap.I must have subconsciously jobbed on purpose.
>>37336244
>i do find him to be incredibly smart but yeah crafting a sort of 'alpha male effortless' persona is literally his signature.
Well, that alone is proof he's smart because that's one of Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power: make all of your achievements appear effortless.
Speaking of Greene, he wrote a good book called Mastery that touches on all of this--academic success, success in sports, et cetera. He outlined a step by step process for becoming masterful at anything and one of the steps is to find a mentor to coach you through it. Literally none of the people he profiled in his book were just driven to do the work on their own or succeeded overnight without the help of multiple people, including parents and coaches.
Also worth reading:
The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance
https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice%28PsychologicalReview%29.pdf
TL:DR: You have to do the work—thousands and thousands of hours of work, in some cases—which is why I do give credit to your friend and other people who achieve through a combination of hard work and being coached or prepped.
>>37336391
thanks for the advice/resources
