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What My Life In Sports Has Taught Me: An exclusive guest-post for Thought Economics by: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - The NBA’s All-Time Leading Scorer, 3x Award Winning Columnist of the Year, NY Times…
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Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq) is considered to be one of the most dominant basketball players in NBA history. At 7 ft 1 in tall and weighing 325 pounds, Shaq's larger-than-life personality and powerful…
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No one wakes up eager to write because it often reveals your shortcomings. It's like staring at your face in a mirror for two hours—after a few minutes, all you see are flaws. Discipline sees me through those self-doubts.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
When you're a child, you define your team as those wearing the same jerseys and your team's goal is to defeat anyone wearing different jerseys. But as you get older, your notion of what constitutes a team evolves.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
Sports taught me that, rather than be blind followers of rules, we need to constantly question them as to their purpose and validity and be bold enough to change them if they don't serve our value of fair play.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
So, the lesson I eventually learned was to distinguish between which teams are sincere in promoting true teamwork, and which are jingoistic self-serving pretenders. Teamwork does make the dream work, but not every team is worthy.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
What makes any sport exciting is learning how to excel by staying within the confine of rules, not by winning through ignoring them. The team isn't just the one with your jersey, it's everyone who wears a jersey.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
The team was a meritocracy in which performance alone was rewarded. As I got better and my team started winning championships for my school, my status as freakishly tall black kid became a badge of accomplishment and inclusion.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
On the court, there was no prejudice, just your contribution to the team. Off the court, teamwork seemed like a parody of what we did. So, the lesson I eventually learned was to distinguish between which teams are sincere in promoting true teamwork, and which are jingoistic self-serving pretenders.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
Coach Wooden's little lesson wasn't just about socks, but about how everything in life was basically a Rube Goldberg contraption with many seemingly unrelated parts that form a greater interrelated machine. Neglecting what appears insignificant can create a domino effect of failure.
— Kareem Abdul-JabbarNBA's All-Time Leading Scorer & Six-Time Champion
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