In this day and age, we process countless amounts of information on an hourly basis. From talking on our cell phones to scrolling through our Twitter feeds, thoughts and ideas are crammed into our brains so often that we don’t even realize it. If we aren’t careful, we have trouble even formulating our own opinions because it’s difficult to decipher what’s real from what’s fake. This applies to life in general, but it is especially applicable to sports.
We hear cliché (though true) statements all the time about how “impossible is nothing” and how “you can do anything if you set your mind to it.” We oftentimes hear sayings like these so often that we don’t truly think about what they mean. Inevitably, however, due to the incredible amount of information we take in daily, we hear something discouraging and again, if we aren’t careful, it can start to have a negative impact on us. College football recruiting has become a monster in the last several years and we get so caught up in measurables that we think the only way to be a good quarterback, for example, is if you’re 6-foot-4 inches tall. Or we think that, because we don’t have the biggest bench press on our athletic team that we’ll never make it to the next level. Or we allow an article saying our team isn’t as good as an opponent to impact our perception of reality. But here’s a thought: since when did other people’s expectations for us ever matter?
Russell Wilson isn’t even six feet tall, but he’s a Super Bowl Champion quarterback. Kevin Durant didn’t bench press 185 pounds one time at the 2007 NBA Draft Combine, yet he was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 2014 and has been named an All-Star a whopping seven times. And Leicester City had 5,000-1 odds – the same odds of Elvis Presley being alive, mind you – to win the English Premier League title in 2015-16, but the Foxes won anyway.
Athletics, both individually and collectively, would be tiresome if everything went according to script. What fun would watching sports be if the team who was favored to win won every time? What about if the only athletes who went on to experience success at the college or professional levels were the ones who were offered full-ride scholarships? That would be boring. Sports are all about the underdogs: the people who have been written off and who had every reason to quit, but who kept pushing anyway and pulled off the impossible. So what if someone tells you that over 99 percent of athletes who compete in high school athletics won’t go on to make the pros? There’s a reason why that number isn’t 100 percent. Why can’t that person who makes it be you?
J.J. Watt was only a two-star recruit, but he has become one of the most dominant defensive players in the NFL today. DeMarcus Ware wasn’t even rated as a recruit, yet he became one of the best pass-rushers of our lifetime and will most likely end up in Canton in the Hall of Fame. The examples are endless: App State beat Michigan. The Americans upset the Soviet Union in the Miracle on Ice in 1980. Buster Douglas knocked Mike Tyson out in 1990 despite the fact that Tyson was an astronomical favorite. And NC State beat Houston’s ‘Phi Slama Jama’ team to win the NCAA basketball title in 1983.
Sometimes, in the sea of the million people that tell you that you can’t do something, all you need is for one person to tell you that you can. Hopefully, wherever you might be in sports or in life right now, this article can serve that purpose. The constant pursuit of one’s dreams was never ended because of outside expectations, but rather because outside expectations began to impact the inside source. You are the only person that controls your destiny. Tune out those who doubt you and stay in relentless pursuit of your dreams, no matter what they might be.
As my time as an intern at In The Game draws to a close, I wanted to thank every high school athlete I had the privilege of watching this season. High school is, in my opinion, the level at which sports are the most pure and the most passionate. There’s nothing I love more than that. Whether you’re undersized, a little slower than a teammate or you just keep hearing that you can’t achieve your dreams, keep pushing anyway. You can pull off your own version of an incredible upset.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes.
As the legendary Jim Valvano said in his 1993 ESPY’s speech: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
January Column
Jacob Dennis
Final Column: Pull Off The Upset
