Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Leonard Marshall on Overcoming Adversity

My daughter was feeling a little low yesterday. All around she sees other girls for whom things seem to come easily. Some get A's without trying, others are great athletes. After we talked for a while and I shared some stories about people who were more naturally gifted than me, I spent some time looking for something to share with her. I liked this one particularly. Enjoy.

3 comments:

Kelly the little black dog said...

I remember our first year in college. A number of "A" students in high school, who never had to really work before, suddenly found that they couldn't get away with that in college. Many of them didn't last very long.

Banshee said...

People who are naturally gifted often regard their gifts as the only important part of them, the only thing protecting them from being seen for the miserable failures that they really are. There's a lot of kids who are sure that their parents only care about their talents, not them, and that if you can't get something immediately, you can never be any good. Your daughter will never have those ideas haunting her.

The sad truth is that, if you're naturally gifted enough and you're in the right kind of major, you don't have to work hard in college either, to get A's. (And more so now, with all the "gentlemen's A's" going around.) But it's a loss to you if that happens.

Of course, if you work really hard on outside interests and extracurricular activities and work study jobs, and if said interests are more intellectually rigorous and/or more demanding and professional than your classes, it might not matter so much. But it's still a loss of time and money that could have been better spent on better classes and better studying.

Dean said...

I remember Marshall as an absolute beast on those NY Giant defenses of the 80s and early 90s.

Unlike his more famous teammate, Lawrence Taylor, it's nice to see he has adjusted very well to life after football.

FYI: I thought that Marshall had done some charity work 2-3 years ago which entailed him walking across country (could not find anything). However, my "Leonard Marshall" search did turn up The Scratching Post" on the 2nd page.