Calling Out Michael Phelps

Why?

 

This times 100.

 

Workin' hard:



Hardly workin':

 

I remember finding it incredibly refreshing to find out that Jordan worked as hard as he did, and that it wasn't as easy as he made it look.

 

I was going to make a similar post with David Eckstein and Jimmy Rollins, but I didn't want to it to look like I was insinuating that Jake_Taylor was being influenced by race in any way.

I think white athletes, in general, are often portrayed as working harder to get the most out of limited athletic ability, while black athletes are often portrayed as having a ton of natural ability and "making it look easy."

Jordan is a notable exception (along with Tiger) in that his incredible work ethic is part of his legend.

 

“The fact that he doesn’t have to work as hard to get that done, it’s a real shame,” Clary said. “I think it’s too bad. You see that all too often, where you get athletes that are incredibly talented that really take it for granted. I think the things he could have done if he’d worked as hard as I do would have been even more incredible than what he has pulled off.”

Maybe Clary should train more like Phelps

 

Yeah, it's not a race thing, considering this story is about two white swimmers. Or how about Tim Duncan, who never had the power or explosiveness of Amare Stoudemire or Blake Griffin, but produced better results? Or any number of hitters from a variety of races compared to Babe Ruth (though I don't know for sure, maybe Ruth spent a ton of time in the cage)?

 

He overlapped with him at Michigan in 2007 and 2008 (presumably pre-Bejing only). I think that whatever Phelps did in terms of training kind of worked, no?

 

Right, that's why I didn't say it, because I knew that wasn't what you meant. But it was kind of my first snarky reaction to the question "how would you tell the difference" because of how white athletes and black athletes are often portrayed.

 

Found this an interesting read from a few weeks back. It's true. Swimmers are born not made.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1200383/index.htm

 

This entire topic would be a good one for the Olympics thread. Oh, wait...

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/3382511/

(Not very often I can D_B moddy. My day is complete!)

 

That article provided no proof of such a claim. The writer, who swims, observed that elite swimmers are tall and have big hands and feet? Wow. Mind-blowing stuff right there.