In Sports Illustrated a couple weeks ago, in the section "The Point After," Selena Roberts writes about parents who care too much about their child's/ children's sporting success enough that they are willing to take DNA tests that can show how likely they will be to being super-fast, like being able to sprint fast, or if they will have good endurance. These come from the amount of fast-twitch muscle fibers that each person has. The more someone has, the more likely they are to be quick sprinters.
This difference in people is genetic, and that obviously has some impact on an individual's athletic performance. She then goes on to talk about other advantages that some children have over others. For example, she talks about the Canadien junior hockey leagues, whose cut off dates are January 1st for age requirements. By the time you get to professional, and other elite levels of play, you see a trend where the majority of the players have very early birthdays in the year.
In Outliers, which is by Malcolm Gladwell, he goes into detail about these different scena
rios, and how and why each person succeeds differently. When he looks at sports he sees the cutoff dates, and how normally the older players do better because they start off just being a little bit bigger when they are young. They make the "A" teams, and then most of the time they practice a little bit more than those on the "B" teams. As this progresses, the members of the "A" teams continue to have more and more practice hours than those on the "B" teams.
He also looks at schools, and which students do better. There he also sees that in terms of the school year, the olders students do better. He believes that this is because in kindergarten, the smarter children (normally the older, but not always) are put into the advanced programs, and they learn a little bit more there, and like in sports they progress a little bit further each year.
He then goes on to talk about how opportunity comes into play as well. For example, he looks into computers, and computer programmers such as Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. Now obviously they were all smart enough to understand and figure out all the computer stuff that no one had before, but why were they the ones that did it? The reason is that they were young enough to have the newest technology at the time, but they were old enough that they were able to figure it out for the first time. It turns out that the three of them, although they all came from different places, were all born within a year of each other.
This story goes on to talk about many other successful/unsuccessful people, and the difference for why some, even with a 200 IQ are unsuccessful and others are. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but it is definitely a book worth reading.
In Outliers, which is by Malcolm Gladwell, he goes into detail about these different scena
rios, and how and why each person succeeds differently. When he looks at sports he sees the cutoff dates, and how normally the older players do better because they start off just being a little bit bigger when they are young. They make the "A" teams, and then most of the time they practice a little bit more than those on the "B" teams. As this progresses, the members of the "A" teams continue to have more and more practice hours than those on the "B" teams.He also looks at schools, and which students do better. There he also sees that in terms of the school year, the olders students do better. He believes that this is because in kindergarten, the smarter children (normally the older, but not always) are put into the advanced programs, and they learn a little bit more there, and like in sports they progress a little bit further each year.
He then goes on to talk about how opportunity comes into play as well. For example, he looks into computers, and computer programmers such as Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. Now obviously they were all smart enough to understand and figure out all the computer stuff that no one had before, but why were they the ones that did it? The reason is that they were young enough to have the newest technology at the time, but they were old enough that they were able to figure it out for the first time. It turns out that the three of them, although they all came from different places, were all born within a year of each other.
This story goes on to talk about many other successful/unsuccessful people, and the difference for why some, even with a 200 IQ are unsuccessful and others are. I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but it is definitely a book worth reading.
