Love of the Game
"Even when I'm old and gray, I won't be able to play it but I'll still love the game."--Michael Jordan
Love is an easy word to throw around and many people use it far too casually.
True love is innocent, pure and deep.
True love is based not on how much you can get but how much you can give.
Michael Jordan loved basketball so much that he had a "Love of the game" clause written into his contract with the Chicago Bulls; that clause stipulated that Jordan could play basketball whenever and wherever he wanted to in the offseason, something that was once taken for granted (back when pro basketball players routinely participated in the Rucker League and other summer leagues) but later was legislated out of existence because teams feared that their high priced players might get hurt.
Jordan fought with the Bulls' management to ensure that he could find full expression for his love of the game, even in games for which he would receive no pay and no glory. Love does not get any more innocent, pure and deep than that.
Jordan later defined his love of basketball very simply, yet very profoundly:
"Love is playing every game as if it's your last." Think about that for a moment: how much harder would you try, how much more passion would you display, if you knew that you were doing something you love for the very last time? That is a beautiful approach to take for sport and for life itself.
A performer who truly loves what he is doing is so much more captivating than a performer who is just doing something because he is good at it and/or because he can make money doing it. Bobby Fischer had the same kind of pure love for chess that Michael Jordan has for basketball:
Fischer would play chess any time, any place, with anyone; he studied old, forgotten games because they contained a beauty that others could not see. As Bruce Pandolfini noted, Fischer's love for chess changed the sport forever. It is such a tragedy that
the demons that haunted Fischer's mind drove him away from the game and impacted his ability to fully enjoy life.Labels: basketball, Bobby Fischer, Bruce Pandolfini, chess, Michael Jordan
posted by David Friedman @ 12:05 AM
Mano a Mano Competition is Pure
"It's nice to be modest, but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth. It is Fischer."--Bobby Fischer's response to a question about who is the greatest chess player."On the chess board lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite."--Dr. Emanuel Lasker, World Chess Champion from 1894-1921In a recent interview with Tavis Smiley, Prince
explains why he prefers the pure competition found in sports like golf, basketball and boxing to the nonsense he deals with in the music business (his comments about those subjects can be found starting at the 11:10 mark of Part II of the interview).
Prince's newest three CD set
(LOtUSFLOW3R/MPLSoUND/Elixer)
debuted in the number two sales position despite receiving little if any radio airplay--and Prince told Smiley that his CD set may in fact have had the most sales: "SoundScan said that it was number two. Other
charts say that it was number one. So, it doesn't make a difference to me one way or another. What makes a difference to me is that history is told truthfully and that's not always the case. I love golf and basketball and sports--and boxing especially--because it is mano a mano." Prince--or at least his new music--has been effectively banished from the radio because he has chosen to distribute his work via his own website and in cooperation with Target, as opposed to conforming to the traditional norms of the music industry. Prince owns his recording masters and controls his fate and it is quite an accomplishment to vault nearly to the top of the charts despite working outside of the music industry's tired, old infrastructure.
Prince's comment about relishing "mano a mano" battles resonates with me on a very deep level. I recently won the
Dayton Chess Club Championship for a record seventh time (1997, 1999-2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009) and I have a U.S. Chess Federation rating over 2000, which classifies me as an "Expert" and places me somewhere around the 95th percentile of American chess players. I love chess for many reasons--the game is part art, part science, part raw blooded competition--but one of the best things about chess is that your performance can be immediately and objectively quantified: you win, lose or draw and your rating is adjusted accordingly (often within 24 hours thanks to the internet/computers). Facing someone over the chessboard is much like going into a boxing ring--you are battling one on one against your opponent and it does not matter how rich you are, how popular you are or who you know: if you don't bring everything you've got then you will get knocked out. Boxers are taught to "protect yourself at all times" and I deliver a similar message to my chess students, because one lapse in concentration can completely turn a game around; if my last round DCC Championship game had been a boxing match then you could say I was losing on all of the judges' cards but my opponent made one critical error that enabled me to obtain a draw (and thus win the tournament).
You may have in mind a certain stereotype regarding chess players but I have played in USCF tournaments since 1987 and the truth is that most tournaments consist of a diverse socioeconomic melting pot; a young child from a poor neighborhood may very well be a much stronger player than a middle aged corporate executive. While a person's intrinsic worth is obviously not reflected in his USCF rating, that rating is a very reliable indicator of his chess playing strength.
What does this have to do with basketball? It can objectively be said that I am a relatively strong chess player (though there are obviously players who are much stronger than I am), but I think that it is pretty clear to anyone who understands both writing and chess that I am much "stronger" at writing than I am at chess. Over the years, some commenters here at 20 Second Timeout have asked why I don't market my writing to larger publications. The reality is that I have tried to do just that and, for someone who is in many ways an "outsider"--I don't have a journalism degree and have never worked for a newspaper--I have had a certain degree of success, landing pieces in national magazines like
Hoop,
Lindy's Pro Basketball and
Basketball Digest. Unfortunately, the writing business--like the music business--does not have objective ratings. There is no mano a mano competition; people who are completely unqualified to analyze either writing or basketball often determine who "wins" and who "loses."
I respect the way that Prince has successfully sidestepped the music industry's bureaucracy and found ways to deliver his art straight to the public; of course, he has the advantage of already being well known and he also possesses a certain degree of wealth, though his personal fortune is minuscule compared to the resources commanded by the recording companies he is snubbing. Similarly, George Lucas obtained enough capital to assert complete control over how his films are made and the way that they are distributed. Not only have I yet to discover a similar path in the writing field, I have had to endure the indignity--and the irony, considering how I feel about chess--of seeing my work
ripped off by an editor who
does not even know the most basic facts about NBA history. This is a strange business, though a stronger word than strange comes to mind.
My last round DCC Championship opponent--John Dowling, who many years ago obtained the National Master title (signified by a 2200 rating) that still eludes my grasp--collects chess-themed posters/artwork and he is generous enough to display many of these items at the DCC; the piercing visage of
Bobby Fischer "watched" over us during our battle for first place but my favorite poster reads, "A bad day playing chess beats a good day at work."
Labels: basketball, chess, music, Prince, Tavis Smiley, writing
posted by David Friedman @ 5:59 PM
Clyde Drexler Explains How He Developed His Jumping Ability
The April 2008 issue of
Dime had an interesting quote from Clyde Drexler. This is what the "Glide" says about his legendary hops:
"There was nothing natural about my jumping ability; it was 'natural' after I spent six hours a day working on it (laughs). I had so many exercises to improve the strength of my legs: sprinting, jump rope, squats, wearing ankle weights two or three days at a time and jumping rope with those ankle weights. I did all that for a 10-year period of time, and during that time I became a pretty good jumper."
It is interesting that Drexler mentions that he put in a decade of work to become a great leaper, because--as I mentioned in
a July 27, 2006 post titled Basketball, Chess and Boxing, Part II--there is a significant body of research that suggests that it takes 10 years of "effortful study" to become an elite performer in a wide range of fields, from chess to music to soccer. A lot of achievements that are assumed to be the result of "natural" talent are in fact the product of years of hard work that honed whatever "natural" ability that particular individual had in his given field. Hard work may not guarantee success--particularly at the elite level--but no one gets to the elite level without putting in a lot of hard work over a long period of time.
Labels: basketball, boxing, chess, Clyde Drexler
posted by David Friedman @ 2:01 AM
