Natural Talent vs. Achieved Talent

My youngest brother made a comment on my post suggesting an article regarding natural talent vs. achieved talent. Great idea little brother.

There are so many different thoughts as to what makes the best athletes....those where skills come easy, or those who work hard to achieve what they have. Some say that athletes just can't work hard to get taller, run faster, and things of the like. It is genetics. They don't say that athletes can't work hard to perform better, just there are certain aspects that they have no control over. Some say that most athletes with natural ability tend to get lazy in training because things just come too easy to them. This causes lack of focus, bad fundamentals, and a cocky, not confident, attitude.

I say ability is important, but attitude, mental preparation, and willingness to learn outweigh natural talent AND achieved talent. I will not be sucked into the debate whether one is greater than the other because there would be too many generalizations made.

I coached an athlete in Louisiana who had more than one person's share of talent, but she still wanted to be the best softball player she could be. She worked just as hard if not harder than her teammates and was seen as a positive leader on the team. On that same team I had an athlete who struggled to perform tasks. She was slower than most, had a hard time fielding, and her bat was slow, but she had an absolute passion for the game and she was young, so I figured the akwardness of movement and her coordination would all come together with age. (I began coaching this athlete when she was in Jr. High). Her Senior year she ended up making all of the post season teams and turned out to be a fantastic softball player for the school.

There is also the flip side. The athlete that has tons of ability and grumbles because of the bad team they are on. The player that yells at their teammates instead of assisting them to get better. The player who at the end of the game determines whether it was a good game or not based on how they did, not how the team did. Then there is my least favorite athlete to deal with. The player that does not have natural ability and does not work hard because she believes that she is better than she really is.

Natural talent vs. achieved talent gives me the piture of the two butting heads. Most coaches do not get to choose a team full of athletes that contain all natural athletes or all achieved athletes. So, instead of natural talent vs. achieved talent, a statement of opposites in conflict, I choose natural talent and achieved talent, a statement where the two work together with a common purpose.