cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
Not sure what you two mean by "goat." In my day it was the guy who screwed things up with a key error. I suspect the all caps means "Greatest Of All Time."
I know this, there was a prevailing attitude among Cincinnati fans that Pete Rose was as good as he was because he took limited skills and out-worked everyone else - a part of the attitude held by some that black athletes don't have to work hard because they have more "natural athleticism."
A scientist was intrigued by the question of what separated the greats from the not quite so greats. One of his findings was that Pete Rose worked hard, yeah, but he also had a faster reflex time than almost anyone he was playing against. The same study went on to compare other stars with their contemporaries and found reflex speed to be a consistent part of separating the top stars from their slower reacting brothers.
I would guess that if Chic Harley's reflex speed had been timed we would find it comparable to the reflex time of today's great running backs - it is that ability to reflex faster than their peers that gives star athletes a better ability to see and react , to retain or recover balance, to anticipate a split second sooner than other athletes with similar strength and speed.
A final discovery began with tennis players and wondering what the difference was between a John McEnroe and the 25th ranked player on the circuit. The researchers found that the top 25 pros possessed comparable reflex time, strength, foot speed and endurance, but that the top four or five believed they could consistently beat the bottom 20. They researched scores and found consistent instances in which a bottom 20 player would be outplaying one of the top 5 until a critical point in the match when they would fall apart and the top 5 player would rally and win.They saw themselves as top 25 players, but not as top 5. When asked about these matches they told the researchers that when the match reached a critical point they found themselves thinking things like, "What am I doing? This Jimmy Connor I'm playing. I shouldn't be winning."
They went on to run this same sort of psychological analysis on college football players and found that star athletes sought better teams as much as those teams sought them, i.e. the best wanted to play for the best, while athletes of similar size, speed, strength and skill convinced themselves that they couldn't play at the level of the big programs.
So in a world of comparably skilled athletes, reflex speed and some sort of sense of Alpha dog mentality seem to be the key. It's what separated Nicklaus and Tiger from a field of incredibly good golfers, made you pray you would never have to face Bob Gibson with the game on the line, or want to see what Jordan would do in the final minutes of a close game.
I know this, there was a prevailing attitude among Cincinnati fans that Pete Rose was as good as he was because he took limited skills and out-worked everyone else - a part of the attitude held by some that black athletes don't have to work hard because they have more "natural athleticism."
A scientist was intrigued by the question of what separated the greats from the not quite so greats. One of his findings was that Pete Rose worked hard, yeah, but he also had a faster reflex time than almost anyone he was playing against. The same study went on to compare other stars with their contemporaries and found reflex speed to be a consistent part of separating the top stars from their slower reacting brothers.
I would guess that if Chic Harley's reflex speed had been timed we would find it comparable to the reflex time of today's great running backs - it is that ability to reflex faster than their peers that gives star athletes a better ability to see and react , to retain or recover balance, to anticipate a split second sooner than other athletes with similar strength and speed.
A final discovery began with tennis players and wondering what the difference was between a John McEnroe and the 25th ranked player on the circuit. The researchers found that the top 25 pros possessed comparable reflex time, strength, foot speed and endurance, but that the top four or five believed they could consistently beat the bottom 20. They researched scores and found consistent instances in which a bottom 20 player would be outplaying one of the top 5 until a critical point in the match when they would fall apart and the top 5 player would rally and win.They saw themselves as top 25 players, but not as top 5. When asked about these matches they told the researchers that when the match reached a critical point they found themselves thinking things like, "What am I doing? This Jimmy Connor I'm playing. I shouldn't be winning."
They went on to run this same sort of psychological analysis on college football players and found that star athletes sought better teams as much as those teams sought them, i.e. the best wanted to play for the best, while athletes of similar size, speed, strength and skill convinced themselves that they couldn't play at the level of the big programs.
So in a world of comparably skilled athletes, reflex speed and some sort of sense of Alpha dog mentality seem to be the key. It's what separated Nicklaus and Tiger from a field of incredibly good golfers, made you pray you would never have to face Bob Gibson with the game on the line, or want to see what Jordan would do in the final minutes of a close game.
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