Is There a Skewed View of Michael Jordan, Ted Williams, and Tom Brady?
There is a connection between having the talent to become a standout professional athlete and working hard. But the message gets skewed sometimes.
Let’s use Michael Jordan, Ted Williams, and Tom Brady as examples. Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. Likewise, Williams has been called the greatest hitter of all time. And Tom Brady gets the nod as the best-ever quarterback.
But these legendary players didn’t build themselves.
In the book “The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams,” author Ben Bradlee noted that Williams didn’t like to be called a “natural hitter,” according to MercuryNews.com.
“When I wasn’t sleeping or eating,” Bradlee quotes Williams saying of his growing up, “I was practicing swinging. If I didn’t have a bat, I’d take any piece of wood, or make a bat of paper and swing it.”
First, it’s hyperbole — unless Williams practiced his swinging in the middle of a strict 1920s schoolhouse. Did Williams want people to believe he achieved greatness of his own accord?
Meanwhile, Jordan had a legendary work ethic, according to his book “Driven From Within” via sportsforthesoul.com.
“I wanted to PROVE what I could do,” Jordan said. “Nothing of value comes without being earned. I practiced hard every day because I wanted every one of my teammates to know what I expected out of myself. If I took a day off, then I knew they would, too.”
For superstar-level players, personal accolades might ring hollow if their success is attributed too heavily to natural ability.
Hard work plays a key role. But hard work and effort are never the foundation. I could have taken 100 more shots than Jordan every day. I could have lifted harder and run more miles than he did. But no amount of hard work would ever have allowed me to be better than Jordan. This same notion applies to Williams and Brady.
The foundation is always God-given athletic ability.
I recently heard a professional football player say that his making it to the NFL proves “anybody can do it.” It simply isn’t a true statement. To play in the NFL, a player needs a certain amount of physical ability that not everybody possesses.
There have been people who painted Brady as someone who became an NFL superstar mostly on guts and guile. Even his coach, Bill Belichick, played into this notion, according to cnbc.com.
“He’s not a great natural athlete, but he’s a very smart, instinctive football player,” Belichick said.
Maybe Brady wasn’t a great natural athlete when compared to NFL players like Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen. But when compared to the average person, Brady possessed far more physical skills and abilities. The average person could not throw a football as hard and accurately as Brady.
Again, it comes back to the foundation.
And when people push away from the God-given foundation, it highlights the person and diminishes the blessings bestowed by God.
We don’t know why some can run faster, leap higher, throw harder, or swing better than others. But as Christians, we know God knitted all of us together in the womb. His designs are different for every person. We each have a purpose. And since the chief end of man is to glorify God, we know that pulling athletic achievements away from the foundation of what God designed falls short of furthering His kingdom.
Hard work is important when it comes to separating from the crowd in athletics. This is true from professional sports down to youth. But physical ability comes from God, and athletic success should point to Him.