Profile of Nik Stauskas in the Daily

Submitted by PeteM on

This is an interesting piece about Nik Stauskas' development in the Michigan Daily.  I've always wondered about how a good athlete in a hockey-obsessed country ends up playing anything else.  Getting picked to shoot with Vince Carter at a Raptors' game as a 10-year old is a great anecdote, and generally you get a sense of where his drive and self-confidence come from.

 

http://www.michigandaily.com/sports/3-holding-court-nik-stauskas-growth…

LandryHD

March 21st, 2013 at 8:19 AM ^

I think there was an article real similar to this but not from the same site. Unless this was all paraphrased. Certainly a good read!

MGoBender

March 21st, 2013 at 8:27 AM ^

I've always wondered about how a good athlete in a hockey-obsessed country ends up playing anything else

I know this is a little off-topic, but is it really that crazy? America is obsessed with football and we still have elite athletes choose soccer or baseball or hockey over football.

I was hoping the Daily would go a little more into Stauskas' first year in Ann Arbor, but a cool piece nonetheless. I like that they pointed out that Nik is such a coachable player.

justingoblue

March 21st, 2013 at 8:56 AM ^

where taller people get steered towards basketball with more regularity, but the percentage of high school type hockey players >6'6 is really small, with the median probably being typical NHL size of 5'10-6'2. Just speaking generally, playing good basketball as a really tall person is easier than being good at hockey at his height; he'd be ~48th percentile for height in the NBA and ~96th in the NHL.

I'm not at all saying someone with his athleticism wouldn't shine, especially in youth and high school hockey, but as someone who is 6'6 192 coming out of high school (presumably even taller for his age bracket and maybe lankier in, say, elementary school), his size is almost certainly an advantage in one sport and a disadvantage in the other. Just looking at Stauskas, he looks like a basketball player all the way. Not too surprising he went the route he did, IMO.

PB-J Time

March 21st, 2013 at 11:02 AM ^

Real question: what OTHER sport do you think that he would be good at? I chose Altidore because I think he could have played Bball or football (American) with his athleticism. Dempsey is quite a good footballer(soccer), but I don't know what else he'd translate to.

MGoBender

March 21st, 2013 at 12:06 PM ^

See, I don't think you can look at it like that.  RIGHT NOW, no I don't think Dempsey could excel at any other sport (though, maybe, I'm not sure).  I do know he is an elite athlete and if he had chosen, say, basketball, I suspect he would have been pretty succesful at that as well.

If we're talking about kids at a young high school age that could potentially excel in whichever sport they choose, then yeah, a lot of kids that choose baseball or soccer or lacrosse and don't play football could have probably been pretty good football players.

Spunky

March 21st, 2013 at 8:47 AM ^

Nik's statements on hating to play defense when he first arrived at St. Mark's really stood out to me. His coach had to "pound it into him because he wasn't used to playing much defense." It will be nice to see that part of his game continue to develop at U-M.