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Author: Habeeb Asudemade

ABSTRACT

A lot of times, people have refused to do certain things incidental to their success, because they fear what people will say or simply because they may be made fun of. People tend to place an otherwise triggering amount of priority on inconsequential social considerations. We want to be successful, yet we want the process to come with an absolute finesse such that nothing attracts detracting comments from the society. That’s greedy and absurd. And, time and time again, we have seen that the pathway to success is not smooth – and this makes all the sense. You cannot dictate for success the paths in which it should take you. It’s the other way round. But, this is not the problem just yet. The problem is this:

Often, when people don’t do that which is good for them, it tends to be out of plain ignorance that they do not know that thing is good for them. However, the problem this piece seeks to engage lies in those times when we do know something is good for us or has a very high probability of being good for us, but we refuse to do it because of insignificant social considerations. Yes! That!

To properly do this, I shall use the story of Wilt Chamberlain and Rick Barry, and other relevant instances. For a good part, it shall seem like a story about the game of basketball. But, in the actual sense, it’s a story about the place of social courage in attaining our potentials; a story about having low threshold; and why inconsequential considerations should never impede a person’s growth. I have divided this piece into three parts; The Abstract; The story of Rick and Wilt; It takes social courage to reach one’s potentials. Finally, this may be a little long. But, it isn’t really long.

THE STORY OF RICK AND WILT AND THE ONE WHO WILTS AWAY

One of the most memorable games in the history of NBA was played on March 2nd 1962 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. It was on a cold rainy night. The electrifying game was between Philadelphia Warriors and New York Knicks, played before over 4000 people gathered. And there was a 7’1 man who set a record which is yet to be broken – not by Jordan, not by Kobe, not by Lebron. His name was Wilt Chamberlain.

At half time of the game, Wilt had made 41 points. No one, at this time, was thinking something historical is about to go down. At the end of the third quarter, he had made some whooping 69 points and he keeps on going and going. By the time the game came to an end, Wilt had made 100 points – the most anyone had ever scored in the history of professional basketball. Yet, the most beautiful thing about this event was that Wilt shot astonishingly from the foul line all through game. Why is this incredible? It is incredible because Wilt – prior to this season – was a horrendous free thrower. He was a graceful basketball player who could dribble his way towards the basket and score with defenders all around him. But, place him 15feet away from the basket and he was hopeless. He was shooting 40%. That’s terrible. It’s terrible because when you cannot make your free throws, you are a big liability to your team. But, this season where he sets this huge record, Wilt changed tactics. He started to shoot underhand. And that night at Hershey, Pennsylvania, Wilt shot brilliantly. He made 28 free throws – the highest anyone has ever made in the history of NBA

One would think Wilt has every incentive on earth to continue shooting underhand. I mean: you had just tried out a technique that changed the trajectory of your entire career; it only makes sense that you adopt it permanently. But, in what one would consider a shock, Wilt stopped shooting underhand. And he gradually went back to being a terrible free thrower and consequently faded. To bring this home, this is like finding a perfect way that helps you to ace your exams; you try it out and it works excellently; then you stopped making use of it. In the words of Rick Barry, that’s stupid. So, the question here is why?

To Rick Barry – a contemporary of Wilt Chamberlain – underhanded shooting is the most efficient way of shooting. It is result driven. He even argues that, from the point of Physics, it makes more sense to shoot that way than to shoot overhand. Interestingly, this has been severally argued online as the right position. Rick Barry would know this because he was one of the greatest free throwers of his time. During the time he played, Rick would miss an average of 9 free throws per season. Putting that in perspective according to Malcolm Gladwell, Lebron James – the greatest player of the current basketball generation typically misses about 150 free throws per season. Rick would miss only 9 or 10. And Rick Barry only shot underhand. So, the question here is this: what was it with Rick Barry that made him continue to shoot underhand, but made Wilt Chamberlain stop despite the great benefits?

In an attempt to understand what it is with underhand shooting, Malcolm Gladwell and his Producer – Jacobs Smith – visited Columbia to get the views of some young female basketball players on underhand shooting. Their idea was that perhaps men are the ones who find underhand shooting dumb. But, it wasn’t so. The Columbian female players refused to shoot underhanded. One of them referred to underhand shooting as the Granny style. This is the same thing a commentator called underhand shooting while Wilt Chamberlain was playing: Granny style. In fact, if you Google underhand shooting now, you would see Granny style littered everywhere. We would later realize that this was the problem Wilt Chamberlain had with that style of shooting. It made him feel foolish, like a sissy. In Chamberlain’s words, as contained in his autobiography, he said I felt silly like a sissy shooting underhanded. I know I was wrong. I know some of the best shooters in history shot underhanded. Even now, the best shooter – Rick Barry – shoots underhanded. I just couldn’t do it

Arguably, underhand shooting is a funny style. This is the way people generally view it. It is a position where you almost squat with your two hands in between your legs, then you flick the ball towards the basket. People consider that weird, funny, and making one look like a sissy. I also could agree it’s a funny style. But, physics doesn’t. From the standpoint of physics and has severally argued, it is better and an even smarter way of scoring. Yet, people refuse to shoot underhand. When Rick Barry tried to reason with Shaq O’neal to shoot underhand, as he was also a horrendous free throw shooter, O’neal said: I would rather shoot zero than shoot underhanded. It was that deep.

Funny thing, however, is that Rick Barry also felt the same before he started shooting underhanded. When his father initially asked that he tries underhand shooting to increase his free throw potentials, he retorted saying It makes me feel like a girl. People will make fun of me And people did make fun of him when he started (as personally recounted by him). But, once Rick shot underhanded and he saw the results, he basically no longer gave two f**ks. He adopted that style and he religiously used it. Invariably, people started seeing the fact that he doesn’t miss his throws over the fact that he shoots in a way – whether funny or not. So, the problem really was about threshold – how much conviction do you need from other people to go ahead with something clearly good for you. How much validation? How many people do you have to see doing it before you join in? Remember Chamberlain said I know I was wrong (for stopping to throw underhand)… I just could not do it. This makes it not to be the classical case of not doing something beneficial because you are unsure if it’s good for you. It’s a case of knowing and still not doing. It’s why Rick Barry considers it stupid

IT TAKES SOCIAL COURAGE TO REACH ONE'S POTENTIALS

As human beings, we have varying levels of threshold. For someone with a high level of threshold, they need many people to do something before they are convinced to do it even if such thing is obviously beneficial to them. For those who have low threshold, they do not really need the acceptance of people before they do what’s right and beneficial to them. Rick Barry has a low threshold. He is the kind of guy that prefers to do what’s right than to be liked. He doesn’t care to the point where it hurts his success. And given the reality of life, we all need dosages of this attitude. For many of us, it won’t be about underhand shooting as is the case with Wilt Chamberlain; it would be about closer realities. It is counterproductive to wait for so many external validations before you validate a thing in itself. As a rational human being, we have to be able to identify systems that work for us and pursue them accordingly. This is not too hard. Result is how you test what works.

In the words of Rick Barry It’s almost incomprehensible for me that someone could have that attitude to sacrifice their success over worrying about how somebody feels about you or what someone says about you. That’s sad, really. This is to say that it takes social courage to attain one’s potentials, to damn what people say (when it’s inconsequential), to pursue your dreams using the necessary means incidental to them, to become stellar, and every other thing willed for you. It is counter-intuitive to expect the process to success to come garnished with finesse. It’s often a rough road. We don’t dictate for success. It dictates for us.

Many people have failed because they don’t want fellow students to call them a “jacko” and, as such, either don’t read intensely or avoid places where they can read intensely — and end up not reading as they ought — which leads to the same result anyway. Many people do not try out things they wish to pursue because people will make fun of them in the process and, consequently, they are stuck in the same spot, because you just cannot skip the process. It’s unspeakable and prettty unforgivable when inconsequential social considerations are your excuses for failure. And for me, just like Rick Barry, it’s almost incomprehensible. In the end, Rick Barry is revered to have lived as the best basketball player he could have been. But, Chamberlain, despite the memorable match in 1962, can’t say the same. From what we know, Wilt wilted away for the fear of being called a sissy. That’s sad, really!

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