Look at these people trying to take my Championship Belt
Posted by Ben on May 20, 2011
I’m sure I’m not the only person who was raised on the saying “Never kick a man while he’s down.” With the amount of people who have never been able to beat me in a game of one-on-one challenging me to a game (both right now and when I get cleared by a doctor) it seems like this is not a popular saying here.
There are a number of players younger than me who I train and teach to play basketball. Even though many of them call me coach, I also play the role of the older brother. Most younger brothers train in order to beat their older brother. Even Michael Jordan – the greatest basketball player in the world – grew up wanting to beat his brother (and even wore 23 because it was half of his brother’s 45, and he hoped to be half as good). Most of my “younger brothers” want to beat me. When they tell me that they’re better than me, that they don’t want to do a drill because it’s not important, or they are just not working as hard as they need to because they think they’re good enough I’m not slow in pointing out that they have never beaten me, and if they don’t change their attitude and work hard they never will.
Needless to say this idea, although it has worked pretty well, has given me quite a list of challengers who think they are ready to beat me. I have to change my strategy and I tell them they have 3 months to train without me being able to do much, so when I come back they had better be ready because I’m rusty.
I’ve also had a different reaction. 2 players who hope to thrive on their varsity basketball team asked me to work them out in the summer. They also realized that they are rusty, and invited me to train with them while I train them. They know my game will be rusty, I’ll need to work on it to get it back to where it was, and they have offered to help me help them help me.
