Nature v. Nurture - compilation

From my little social survey I may not have taken any strides forward in the eternal battle of Nature versus Nurture, but if there are any conclusions that I can draw, it's that a very quick way to get an athlete talking is to ask him/her about their childhood in sports. The feedback I received from everyone was amazingly quick and insightful and proved fodder for an great discussion in the class.
As a recap, I was asked to guest speak in a Boston College Business School class on on Competition with the specific topic of my experiences with Nature versus Nurture and how people become experts. Although not nearly as nervous as I would have been a couple of years ago (thank you coaching and teaching), I wasn't all that sure where to begin so I reached out to all the athletes I knew who could be considered "experts" (pro or high-level collegiate) in what they did (thus if I had nothing original to talk about, I could at least regurgitate everyone else's ideas). The responses made inbox checking for that week particularly interesting and as per request, and simply because it's interesting, this is what I got out of it all:

I received email responses from 18 people and spoke in person to 1 (she's got a gold medal and multiple World Championships so she gets special treatment).
12 of these were Track in Field (mostly multi-eventers, the others field eventers)
2 Endurance Athletes (triathlon and marathon)
4 Nordic Skiiers
1 Soccer Player.

Weighing Nature v Nurture
Of these 19 people - actually, I'll include myself in order to pad my own stats - of these 20 people, only 3.5 of these people specifically put the nature versus nurture balance at a higher ratio than 50/50. 1 person (unless i'm using them for a laugh, i'll keep most names out of the discussion), one of the endurance athletes, tipped the scales towards nurture, with 2.5 believing nature to be of stronger influence. 0.5 a person? I guess I should explain. Jason Hinkin, a buddy of mine and someone to helped intoduce me to the pole vault (among other things I can't mention here) comes from parents of zero athletic background and yet of his siblings, Jason has one brother international rugby star, one brother that just missed the US National Rugby Team, a sister that competes in Dressage (horse riding stuff that I tried to understand watching the Olympics...), and another sister that won an NCAA Soccer Championship at North Carolina. As Jason put it: "I think Mark Spitz was our mailman, it's the only way to explain it." Jason believes this is proof of some sort of strong nature...but could it also be proof of just incredible nurture? Thus, he only counts as half - plus he also mentioned seeing the nurture side be as evident as the nature in so many others. The most intriguing factor among these 3 is that these were the only 3 amongst the 20 that didn't write glowing happy accounts of their youth in sports. Jason was a soccer player growing up but just kind of did it to have something to do and he only picked up pole vault in high school because he heard it was a good way to meet chicks. Of the other 2 "nature-leaners," neither remembered being at all encouraged toward sport and neither really enjoyed sport all that much growing up. It took until much later in life to really find a passion for competition (both are now professional Heptathletes).

The Early Years
On the contrary - and this is my favorite part - every single one of the others surveryed used some sort of positive exclaimation (either with punctuation or rhetoric) to explain their early stages of exposure in sport. There were no pushy dad or crazy soccer moms of mention, and in fact only one athlete, the soccer player (not shockingly), mentioned the competitive side of their sport early on. In fact, some learned their sports early - like the skiiers who learned to ski about the same time they learned to walk, some learned their sports late - like the triathlete who didn't pick it up until college, but absolutely every single one of the 20 participated in sports other than the one they are now professional in.
Personally, I think the over-specializating, hyper-competitive mentality so many young parents have now is an absolutely terrible trend. Everyone is trying to create the next Tiger Woods by making their kid play golf at 4 years old or enrolling their kids in tennis academys instead of grade school. There were 3 girls I talked to that participated in heavy gymnastics early on, you know, the 4 - 6 hours a day from the time you're 3 type stuff. Did you notice my list of sports in the introduction? Not one of these is still involved in gymnastics. All 3 of them are now heptathletes (one of them an olympian) because they got so burned out of gymnastics that around high school they got out of the gym and picked up any and all other sports they could get their hands on. One of them was 5' - 4" when she left gymnastics in high school. She's now 5' - 11".
Specifically, half of the surveyed used the words "fun" or "enjoyed" when speaking about early sports. Many did use the word competitive, but it was always the enjoyement that was emphasized. Trey Hardee, olympic decathlete and NCAA record holder, specifically mentioned how non-competitive his youth leagues were. Zoila Gomez, alternate for Olympic Marathon, who comes up to about my waist in height, remembers her absolute love for basketball growing up. In fact, other than the skiiers and the soccer player, most didn't even start competing in their sport until 8th grade or later - something I think to be very refreshing. Hell, Mike Hazle, Olympic Javelin thrower, didn't pick up his first jav until college - where he was on a football and baseball scholarship. Zoila, 11-time Div. II All-American and 6-time NCAA Champion didn't start running until she was 17. The academic literature loves to talk the thousands of hours of "deliberate practice" it takes to become an expert at something. Yes it takes time, it takes practice, but pushing a kid into a sport at 4 years old produces nothing without true enjoyment - just ask those gymnasts. This actually brings me to the next thing I noticed:

The Role of Parents and Coaches
For the class I was asked to speak in front of, an article was assigned* which outlined Benjamin Bloom's stages of talent development and the roles of teachers and parents in these stages. In the early years a child is introduced to a field; the parents are usually responsible for introducing this field due to their own involvement or excitement (ie, whether dad played baseball or watches it nightly, the ol' game of catch eventually comes out). Early it's the role of the teachers/coaches to emphasize the process of learning. Later in the middle years, the kid gets hooked. Here, the teachers/coaches move on to teach actual skills and technic while emphasizing discipline and work ethic. The role of the parents is of support (often emotionally and/or financially). The final stage is that of perfection in which the athlete/musician/scientist becomes devoted to their field and can eventually become an expert. It is only those that have reached this third stage that I sought out for my survey and in their responses I found Bloom to be spot on. As I mentioned before, 2 of the total didn't feel that they were particularly encouraged early on by their parents or otherwise, but absolutely everyone else made it a significant point to talk about their support system growing it. Whether or not their parents college basketball players, street racers, band members, or completely non-athletic, everyone had either parents, coaches, or both that were instrumental in their lives early on. Katie Whitcomb, 2010 Olympic Noridic Skiing hopeful, who "started skiing as soon as I was too heavy for my parents' backpack" said it was "super important" to note that it was her folks that made it all possible. Chris Helwick, decathlete, said his parents were the support and encouragement but his early coaches introduced him to his sport and put in huge time to help teach him it. In fact, almost half the athletes specifically used the words "support" when speaking of their parents, or as Julie Picker, heptathlete, expanded by saying her parents were "extremely supportive" and were responsible for introducing her to many great sports. It was then the coaches that taught her the sports themselves. Mike Hazle were "extremely instrumental" in his early success because they provided the means for excelence but were never pushy whereas his coaches taught the work ethic and character. Sarah Groff, triathlete, reflected many in that her parents were super no-pressure and that it was her enjoyment over her victories they stressed. Her parents were her emotional support as well as her taxi drivers. Those few that didn't have particularly active parents found some coach along the way to step in. My mom, discus, javelin, hurdler at ucla grew up in a time when women were far from encouraged to become athletes but it was the huge heart, knowledge, and time commitment of her high school coach and lifetime mentor that was her support system. For Zoila it was a PE teacher that discovered and encouraged her running ability, and for Stacy Dragila, many time world champion pole vaulter, it's still her dad to this day that is her emotional support after each meet. To tell you the truth, deep down I always wondered if I was the only one who had amazing parents and coaches growing up. In reading these responses I am of course psyched to see how many others shared experiences like mine developing in sport, but part of me also wonders, with the decline of two parent families (many spoke of one parent being the introducing of the sport, the other the taxi driver, etc), with the striping of physical education departments and after-school sports, what is going to happen to those that will never see the support systems we were blessed with?

Genetics (Nature)
It was interesting to see how few people actually talked about their gentic gifts. Many did have athlete parents, but also, many did not. Trey Hardee, at 6'-4" is the tallest in his family by about 5 inches, and Brian Gregg, skiier, talked about being naturally talented in just about everything he tried, but that was about all I really heard. Everybody was so excited to talk about their parents and coaches. Yes, Trey is tall, but you can't long jump 25 feet off of height alone (kid's got speed for days), and if you've seen Mike Hazle on youTube or the new [Impact!] video, you can see that Mike's got a cannon for an arm and some incredible strength. These guys actually summed it up pretty well themselves: According to Trey, the nature determines your potential, the cap on how good you can possibly be, but it's the nurture that determines how close that you become, whereas Mike related it to hardware and software. Nature deals you the hardware, but without the software, the nurture, the hardware will get you nowhere.
We opened the class at BC with a discussion one of the students brought up. She had heard that they are starting to be able to read your genetic code with the ability to tell you what you will be good at and she wanted to know what I thought about this. To me I'm curious as to how they think they can determine what makes you good at something as yes, becoming an expert may take "10,000 hours" of deliberate practice, but who determines what tools you use to get there? What if you told Bryan Clay, world's greatest athlete via his decathlon gold medal, that he was too short to be a decathlete (he's 5'-10" in a sport dominated by 6'4" monsters)? What if Labron James was given a discus rather than a basketball when growing up? Some elite athletes are freakishly fast, some freakishly large, some strong, most are their own special brew of each of these. It's terrible enough that so many parents are trying to force their kids into one sport or another in hope of Venus and Sarena Williams 2.0, I can't imagine how many more childhoods would be crushed by docters trying to impose stricker restrictions to a child's hope. If anything I took from this little experiment it is this: obviously nature has much say in where you may end up, but its really the software, the nurture that creates an expert, an elite, and it's only on their own terms, through enjoyment and support that one will find his way to the top of the mountain.


Thanks to all those that helped and to Cathy Utzschneider for the opportunity to speak with her class.

-matt

*Nurture over Nature: A New Twist to the Developement of Expertise, Bush & Salmela (it's actually very interesting if you want to look it up)