When I first started playing basketball I knew how far behind I was than everybody else. It was my junior year in high school and most kids had already been playing since they were in elementary school. The only way I could catch up to my peers on the basketball court would be if I outworked them. I was raised by a mother who worked three jobs and raised five kids so I knew what hard work was all about. I made it a point to be on the basketball court more than any of my friends. While they took days off to be teenagers, I would go to the basketball court and shoot until the lights went off. While they slept in late on the weekends I was up early working on my game.
It took a little while but eventually the hard work paid off. By the time I was a freshman in college I was better or just as good as most of the people that I played basketball with when I started, that next season I was better than all of them.
As I got ready to go to college most of my friends were done playing organized basketball. They would still play but no one really had any aspirations of playing at a four year university. I knew from the very first day of college that I was going to have to outwork a new group of my peers. When I was in junior college most the players on my team were decent high school players. They were probably some all conference players on the roster but no one with a ton of accolades. When I transferred and went to North Dakota not only was everyone on my team an all conference player in high school but we also had a good amount of all-state players, and even a couple that received the Mr. Basketball award (which is the best player in their area or state). While my last years of junior college stats were impressive the years before that time were more than underwhelming. As my teammates talked about the high school days I kind of just hung out and didn’t say much. Hey Cornell what did you average in high school? (2pts per game) Hey C what was your record in high school? (My senior year we went 4-19) Where did you play AAU basketball? (Does my front yard count?)
I didn’t have the same basketball pedigree as everyone else on my team but I was looking to see if any of my teammates were going to have the work ethic and drive that I had. During the pre-season I was impressed. Mostly everyone stayed after practice or came before it and got extra shots up. I would wake up early in the morning and would smile to myself when I was the only one in the gym. Unfortunately by the time the season started there were only two people in the gym all the time, me and my best friend Damien.
Damien was from Milwaukee originally and from the first minute we met we shared an instant bond. I was a little bit older so he was like the wild, crazy younger brother that I never had. Me and Damien would play 1 on 1 full court, work on moves, and shoot all the time. This lasted for a good month or so but like normal college kids D was going out, chasing girls, and enjoying the college experience. My partner in crime wasn’t there full time and I felt that no matter what anyone else did I was never going to stop outworking everyone else. I’ll never forget a phone call I made to my mom one night. I was frustrated and I think she could tell from my voice.
I went on for about ten minutes on how I was the only one in the gym every day, and how I didn’t understand why my teammates only picked up a ball at practice. After I took a breath my mom said rather matter of factly, “Baby not everyone is you, and until you understand that you’ll continue to be frustrated”. I was used to my mom dropping gems like that one on me, but this one was so fitting I was speechless.
I was at a weird point in my playing career. I knew I wanted to play after college and I understood that I had to continue to put the work in for this to happen, but I had no one in front of me to push me. I was always the worst player on the court in my mind, so I played with this huge chip on my shoulder. The difference was In high school and junior college I had players that I could look at every day and say “I want to beat that person”, or “I ll be better than that person”, now I just had myself.
I had to be better than me every day. Here lies the problem with most people. When they get to a certain level of achievement they feel like they have nothing left to prove, they’re at the top of the totem pole where they are so how much further could they go?
I had this game I played with myself mentally. I would imagine playing 1 on 1 against Cornell from the previous month, week, or even day. I would ask myself am I getting better? Could I beat the old Cornell if we played 1 on 1 right now? I was on a constant mission to get better and it was never going to stop.
Sometimes I would see Damien getting ready to go out. He’d be getting his fresh new shirt on and he’d see me in basketball shorts and sneakers. It would be around eleven o clock at night and I would be hustling out the door to meet Melissa (my girlfriend at the time now wife) to break into the gym and get shots up. I would always say the same thing as I passed Damien’s room, “Have fun my brother I’m about to go get 500 makes (shots) in at the gym”. I know D thought I was crazy. The funny thing is that a couple of times he literally changed out of his clothes and put on his basketball gear and joined me.
Another mental game I would play is one that I share with the kids I train and coach. I would visualize another version of me. He would be in a different state or another country working out harder than I was. I would think about him doing every drill I was doing but ten times harder. I started keeping a log in my planner of my workouts. When I saw that I had a “light” workout I would think about the other me getting two thousand shots up that day. It got to the point that during my workouts when I felt I couldn’t go anymore I’d get mad and think about the other me breezing thru the same workout. I didn’t have anyone to challenge me except for me and that’s all I needed.
I knew that I wasn’t special. My work ethic was special in North Dakota because not a lot of people were working like I was but it wasn’t special around the country or the world. I had a roof over my head at the end of the day, the other Cornell didn’t. Basketball was his only ticket out and when I wasn’t training he was because that was his only shot.
Melissa and I still talk about the old days of breaking into the gym and shooting until two in the morning. She would rebound for me until she couldn’t lift her arms anymore and I was such a nut that I would be upset if she didn’t give me a perfect pass. When I talk to my kids about work ethic It feels great knowing that I practiced what I preach. If I told them everything I did they would think I was crazy (which looking back at it I was).
It doesn’t matter if you have a trainer, a sibling, a coach, or a boss pushing you to achieve greatness. You have yourself! You have your mind! You have the ability to do whatever it is you want to do. I’m reading a book right now called “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. I will get into some of the concepts of the book in later blogs but one point I think is very relevant to this blog.
Malcolm Gladwell studied experts in every field, business, sports, music etc. and out of some of his studies he came up with a formula. 10,000 hours. That’s the minimum amount of time you need to put into anything to be an expert. Through his studies (which are remarkable) every expert from the Beatles to Bill Gates has logged at least 10,000 hours into their field of study.
As a player I know I wasn’t the best player that has ever played but I’m positive I put 10,000 hours in from the summer of my sophomore year up until I decided to get into coaching, that’s why I was able to progress the way I did.
This upcoming season I’m going into my 8th year of coaching this season coming up and I know I have at the bare minimum 6,000 hours in. Starting this week I’ve been tracking every time I read something pertaining to basketball, train a player, do a camp etc. Whatever it may be I want to see how fast I can get to 10,000 and then 20,000. Are you putting your hours in or is the other you doing it instead??
“Be whatever you want to be, just understand that the difference between being it and wishing it to be falls directly on your work ethic”
