The Athlete Gene
I have observed this interesting concept over the years that I like to call “The Athlete Gene.” I notice it in myself and many of my friends/former teammates and competitive people I have interacted with all over the world. ‘The Athlete Gene’ is that thing that keeps you going when times are tough. ‘The Athlete Gene’ comes out when you need to assess a situation in life and play to your strengths. Those with ‘The Athlete Gene’ are not quitters but that doesn’t always work out for the best because it’s hard for them to realize the situations when it is time for them to hang it up. In life there are scoreboards but there are no buzzers.
I’m a basketball player and my ‘Athlete Gene’ comes from countless hours of sweating blood in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw High School gym. My travel league team practiced there since I was 13 years old and I ended up going to high school there. Literally from day one I was trying to prove that I was a worthy player to whoever was the coach and the rest of the players in that gym. I remember my first day of practice me and my Mom were to go meet a man named ‘Tiny’ to see if I could play on his team. Tiny told me to grab a basketball and shoot around while him and my Mom spoke so he could check out my game. So immediately I was trying to show him I was good enough while not really knowing what he was looking for (which is a theme that continues throughout life). I was accepted on the team but Tiny would test every aspect of my character everyday I set foot in that gym as he did every player on his team. He would leave no stone unturned in his quest to expose weakness. One of the major misconceptions in life is that people believe they are born with some characteristics and not born with others. I believe that we are all blessed with the same set of virtues but the difference is our readiness and ability to express them. Your life experiences truly have the ability to mold you and while developing this athlete gene your ability to express certain characteristics is challenged. Tiny would make you display uncompromised work ethic and when you did good he would praise you but if your head got too big he would humble you. This developed my ‘Athlete Gene’ to the point where I hunger for recognition but I don’t get too full of myself because I know you’re only as good as your last achievement. “A pat on the back is only six inches away from a swift kick in the butt.”
“The Athlete Gene” can help some people develop into great leaders or great team players in the business world. When you step into the corporate world you can tell the ex-athletes from the civilians. Athletes are comfortable being the most talented or being around people with more talent than them. An athlete realizes that there are going to be people with more talent than them in certain areas and they are going to be more talented than those people in other areas but they can still work together for a common good. Others may feel threatened by this circumstance while ‘The Athlete Gene’ gives one the assurance that hard work beats talent every time.
‘The Athlete Gene’ isn’t always a good thing though. As every hard working athlete knows the worst pain is a loss. Some of us know how to lose and swallow the painful pill of a lesson well learned but others have the hardest time accepting defeat. I have had many situations where the scoreboard was not in my favor and I needed to just learn a lesson from that defeat. Instead of taking the loss I fought and fought just to get one more shot only to widen the gap between myself and victory. Sometimes ‘The Athlete Gene’ comes out of you and says, “Give me the ball and get out of my way!” and you end up pulling off the impossible but other times you just end up looking like a self centered jerk (just ask Kobe...one day he’s a hero then the next he’s a ball hog). Sometimes the gene says, “Step aside I’ll guard him! Let me handle this!” and you end up making big things happen but other times you have simply overstepped your boundaries.
In a relationship ‘The Athlete Gene’ is great because it allows you to treat your partner as your teammate and ally as you two work towards a common goal. In a break up ‘The Athlete Gene’ can be disastrous if things are over and you insist on trying to do just one more thing to change the game/prove yourself worthy. There are two sides to every coin but overall I think ‘The Athlete Gene’ is an empowering thing because throughout developing the gene one is shown how to deal with many different life situations.
When Tiny was torturing my teammates and I on the basketball court he would always say, “Basketball players get better little by little.” To me this meant that I needed to work harder than I could ever imagine if I wanted to be good enough to play in the NBA. This meant to always put your best foot forward because you never know when that increase in skill is going to come. Today my ‘Hoop Dreams’ are long gone but I apply this same mantra to my path of becoming an attorney. So every little bit of responsibility the partners in my firm give me I take full advantage because I know attorneys get better little by little.
Namaste.
-Deji
I have observed this interesting concept over the years that I like to call “The Athlete Gene.” I notice it in myself and many of my friends/former teammates and competitive people I have interacted with all over the world. ‘The Athlete Gene’ is that thing that keeps you going when times are tough. ‘The Athlete Gene’ comes out when you need to assess a situation in life and play to your strengths. Those with ‘The Athlete Gene’ are not quitters but that doesn’t always work out for the best because it’s hard for them to realize the situations when it is time for them to hang it up. In life there are scoreboards but there are no buzzers.
I’m a basketball player and my ‘Athlete Gene’ comes from countless hours of sweating blood in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw High School gym. My travel league team practiced there since I was 13 years old and I ended up going to high school there. Literally from day one I was trying to prove that I was a worthy player to whoever was the coach and the rest of the players in that gym. I remember my first day of practice me and my Mom were to go meet a man named ‘Tiny’ to see if I could play on his team. Tiny told me to grab a basketball and shoot around while him and my Mom spoke so he could check out my game. So immediately I was trying to show him I was good enough while not really knowing what he was looking for (which is a theme that continues throughout life). I was accepted on the team but Tiny would test every aspect of my character everyday I set foot in that gym as he did every player on his team. He would leave no stone unturned in his quest to expose weakness. One of the major misconceptions in life is that people believe they are born with some characteristics and not born with others. I believe that we are all blessed with the same set of virtues but the difference is our readiness and ability to express them. Your life experiences truly have the ability to mold you and while developing this athlete gene your ability to express certain characteristics is challenged. Tiny would make you display uncompromised work ethic and when you did good he would praise you but if your head got too big he would humble you. This developed my ‘Athlete Gene’ to the point where I hunger for recognition but I don’t get too full of myself because I know you’re only as good as your last achievement. “A pat on the back is only six inches away from a swift kick in the butt.”
“The Athlete Gene” can help some people develop into great leaders or great team players in the business world. When you step into the corporate world you can tell the ex-athletes from the civilians. Athletes are comfortable being the most talented or being around people with more talent than them. An athlete realizes that there are going to be people with more talent than them in certain areas and they are going to be more talented than those people in other areas but they can still work together for a common good. Others may feel threatened by this circumstance while ‘The Athlete Gene’ gives one the assurance that hard work beats talent every time.
‘The Athlete Gene’ isn’t always a good thing though. As every hard working athlete knows the worst pain is a loss. Some of us know how to lose and swallow the painful pill of a lesson well learned but others have the hardest time accepting defeat. I have had many situations where the scoreboard was not in my favor and I needed to just learn a lesson from that defeat. Instead of taking the loss I fought and fought just to get one more shot only to widen the gap between myself and victory. Sometimes ‘The Athlete Gene’ comes out of you and says, “Give me the ball and get out of my way!” and you end up pulling off the impossible but other times you just end up looking like a self centered jerk (just ask Kobe...one day he’s a hero then the next he’s a ball hog). Sometimes the gene says, “Step aside I’ll guard him! Let me handle this!” and you end up making big things happen but other times you have simply overstepped your boundaries.
In a relationship ‘The Athlete Gene’ is great because it allows you to treat your partner as your teammate and ally as you two work towards a common goal. In a break up ‘The Athlete Gene’ can be disastrous if things are over and you insist on trying to do just one more thing to change the game/prove yourself worthy. There are two sides to every coin but overall I think ‘The Athlete Gene’ is an empowering thing because throughout developing the gene one is shown how to deal with many different life situations.
When Tiny was torturing my teammates and I on the basketball court he would always say, “Basketball players get better little by little.” To me this meant that I needed to work harder than I could ever imagine if I wanted to be good enough to play in the NBA. This meant to always put your best foot forward because you never know when that increase in skill is going to come. Today my ‘Hoop Dreams’ are long gone but I apply this same mantra to my path of becoming an attorney. So every little bit of responsibility the partners in my firm give me I take full advantage because I know attorneys get better little by little.
Namaste.
-Deji
