Why Skill Alone Does not Guarantee Greatness in Sport
In sport, the big question has been: what makes a great athlete?
Is it skill? Talent? Passion? Work ethic? Or is it a combination of all the above?
Over the past few weeks, I have been attending our Jr. “A” hockey team’s training camp. I watch the young players practice; working hard as they run through the drills on the ice. I also listen to their conversations after practice. They enthusiastically discuss their equipment, maybe a need for new skates, or the patterns on their sticks. They compare notes from summer training; the coaches they used, and how some of them wished they’d worked harder. As I witness all of this, I can’t help but think back to the day my brother and I were first introduced to the game of hockey.
It was January 1971; my brother and I had just landed at the massive Pearson airport in Toronto after leaving the tiny island of Jamaica. I was 11 years old and my brother was only 8. We boarded our plane to leave Jamaica on a beautiful, sunny and hot day. When we landed in Toronto, we were greeted by frigid temperatures, typical for the first week of January. We hadn’t learned Canadian curse words, and I won’t recall the Jamaican ones we used that day but let’s just say that to say we were shocked is an understatement. Regardless of our emotions, we marched on through the terminal to meet up with our mom (who had left Jamaica earlier) and our new stepdad. The smith boys had arrived!
Our stepdad thought that it would be a great idea to get my brother and I acclimatized to our new home as soon as possible. He took us to our first hockey game, a plan that would be the first of many great decisions over the years to come.
Before I go too far, you must understand that my brother and I had never seen nor heard of anything to do with the game of hockey. The only ice we knew of was ice cream, ice cubes, and block of ice the ice man would bring each day to place in the ice box. You can understand our shock when we got to Maple Leaf Gardens, sat down in our seats, and saw the players flying around. It was as if they were floating on air.
I remember asking my Dad how they could be moving around so fast, but not running. He giggled and explained that they were skating on ice. My brother and I exchanged a look that said, “This man must be smoking ganja!” When I looked back at my stepdad, what I actually said was “Ice? Big sheet of ice? and then I settled into my seat to watch the game.
The Leafs played the California Golden Seals, and my brother and I had no idea what the hell was going on the entire game. Nevertheless, we had a new favorite game. It was amazing! the speed, the fights, how the players could knock each other down! Leaving the rink, my brother and I had all kinds of questions for our stepdad. There wasn’t a quiet moment all the way home, we ran inside with excitement to recall our day for our Mom. From then on, my brother and I watched Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday, waiting for the day we would get our turn to play.
After a couple of months in Canada, we moved from Jamison Avenue to Agincourt into a subdivision of townhouses. Before the pound froze, a construction team had done some digging in preparation for a new plaza. It had rained a lot, so what we found when we moved was a frozen pond, the perfect chance to try our favorite game! Our stepdad took us to Canadian Tire, where he bought my brother some skates. I had to use his old pair, which were too big. My stepdad thought we could try to skate, and if we took to hockey and committed to it, he would buy some better equipment. It wasn’t long before we were shopping for better equipment because no matter how many times we fell, we got right back up and kept going.
Every day after school, we would be out on the pond skating. On weekends, we stayed out all day, trying to learn and improve our skills. Our stepdad knew we weren’t planning to give up, so he enrolled us in power skating. My brother and I were always the first ones on and last ones off the ice, always yelling, “just one more lap please!”
We trained in power skating during the spring and summer playing a lot of road hockey as well. In the winter of 1972, our stepdad knew it was time for organized hockey. We started out in house league. It took some time, but we started to get the hang of it even though we were out of position a lot. The way we saw it, we had to go get the puck. We would work hard going through (and over) anyone to do so.
The following year, I joined another team. My new coach, Mr. Ainsworth, thought I had potential. He spent extra time with me, and my brother had coaches that did the same for him.
In 1974, we started playing AA hockey. During the same year, my stepdad was transferred to a small town north of Toronto called Newmarket and later, in 1975, we moved. We had to make new friends and just as important, we had to figure out where we would play hockey. Our stepdad got all the information we needed, and it was decided that my brother and I should try out for a AAA team. Well, wouldn’t you know it, we made it!
Getting back to the question I asked earlier, how bad do you want it? What makes some succeed, while other skilled and talented athletes fail?
Two little Jamaican boys – new to Canada and forced to learn and adapt to new customs and a different lifestyle – learned to skate and made a AAA hockey team in 4 years. Players who had been training much longer and skating since they were tots got cut. Take a minute and let that sink in.
What I can tell you definitively is that my brother and I worked very hard. While the other guys were talking in practice, my brother and I were like sponges. We were very passionate about the game, reading everything we could and watching the pros play on TV. We loved getting up at 6:00am on a Saturday morning to have eggs and toast with hot chocolate before going to a league practice.
We always packed our hockey bags the night before to make sure we didn’t forget anything.
In addition to the love of the game, we exercised and trained a lot. We did push-ups and sit-ups all the time. We spent hours outside running sprints without any trainer, just the knowledge that it would let us skate harder for longer. We ate well before games and after games we would come home to have egg and tomato sandwiches. Even back then, we were having pre and post-game meals.
At the end of the day, all the hard work we put in both on and off the ice would allow us to overcome the limited skills we had. Simply put, we wanted to play and improve and we never took anything for granted.
The question, whether you are playing sports, studying or trying to move up in your career, is always: how bad do you want it? To have a chance at greatness you need a great work ethic, passion, skill, talent and the desire to want it more than the next person.
It doesn’t matter how scientific your training is or which fancy equipment you use (or don’t). It isn’t even about how good your trainer or coach is. Without work, passion, skill, talent, drive and desire, you won’t succeed.
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