OT: Dutch Speed Skating Coach Advice to US: Stop Wasting Talent "in a sport that sucks"
Coach Jillert Anema is talking about football, and he does have a point. If the US dropped football and had everyone instead focus on speed skating, I'm sure the US would be better at it than it is now. I don't think it's a stretch to think that someone like Denard Robinson, if he were a speed skater from childhood, would be quite good at that sport. .
"You have a lot of attention on a foolish sport like American football and you waste a lot of talent, athletic talent, on a sport that is meant to kill each other, to injure each other. ... You're so narrow-minded, and then you want to compete against the world [in other sports] when you waste a lot of time, good talent on a sport that sucks," he said.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101431838
OTOH, I doubt football linemen would have much success as speed skaters, and of course there's the whole thing about his claim that the most popular game in the US sucks. To each his own I suppose.
February 27th, 2014 at 11:19 AM ^
I was thinking the same thing, but in reverse. I was full of fast twitch fibers, really quick reflexes, fast hands and feet. But I didn't have the body mass necessary for any popular American sport. I didn't even make it to 100 pounds until my senior year of high school. I spent my childhood getting shoved around on basketball courts and trying to slap baseballs through the infield. I wonder what would have happened if I'd lived somewhere where badminton or table tennis was a serious sport?
TL;DR- It probably isn't just endurance talent we're missing out on.
February 22nd, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^