Where credit is due

There's something to be said about our own biases. You know, what we do or do not want to admit about things, especially people. Confirmation bias occurs when we see or don't see something, basically because we want to. It happens when something confirms what we already thought, and we accept it. It also occurs when something goes against what we think, and we find several reasons to dismiss it. Or even moreso, confirmation bias occurs when one thing happens, and two people that disagree about that event can both point to things within the event as evidence that they are right and the other person is wrong.

I could use politics to make this point, something about Trump's firing of FBI director Comey and Comey's handling of Hilary Clinton's emails and Russia's intervention into the presidential election. I COULD do that. But watch me not do that now instead.

People keep debating Lebron James vs. Michael Jordan, and it's fucking pointless.

Actually, it's not. It's human nature, to try to take the really good parts of something and say which part is the best. We do it with taste tests for foods, we're constantly weighing which television shows are getting the best ratings, we compare prices and qualities of different goods online before we shop for them in person, we give yelp reviews for places we've shopped at. Sports are especially key on records, on wins and losses, and eventually on champions. So it only makes sense that we start trying to compare which champion is the best. But that's not enough. A champion today doesn't feel like the champion if there was a guy in the past who was still better, so we just keep bringing up how the new guy isn't the old guy. We keep living in the shadow of past accomplishments until someone new can exceed those accomplishments to a level that everyone somehow agrees is better than all predecessors.

On the other hand, there are always new factors today that didn't matter yesterday. For example, many would point to how Michael Jordan played in a time where there were more fights in basketball, so he had to be tougher than Lebron does in the league today. And that's a fair criticism, until you consider: who the hell would pick a fight with Lebron James? The guy is huge, and even for his starting size, he's built like a tank. A tank that can still run with high agility and elevate over anyone he chooses to. There are NFL linebackers that might refuse to pick a fight  while wearing a full set of pads and a helmet. So it's not a fair comparison there. Why would there be? They are different players that played different positions and used different attributes to succeed. They had different upbringings, had different stages of development, and broke into success under different levels of expectation. I grew up with Michael Jordan winning championships, and I can now watch Lebron fight for them as a youngish adult, and both of them had greatness expected of them. And both have delivered that. But that isn't enough? There has to be one that's a higher level than the other?

In the back of my mind, I can hear a voice saying, "Yeah, kinda."

I'm doing my best to not choose sides on the two, mostly because there's not reason to. I have a poster of Jordan on the wall at home to this day from the finals of his first championship. I have a few of the books about Jordan's rise to fame and some of the ups and downs he faced once he got there. But I catch every Lebron game that I can and I genuinely want to see him play as great as he can, even if it means he one day surpasses Jordan. Either way, I can appreciate the unique skill level that they have both attained in their careers, and the fact that one of them is still going strong and may for another 5-7 years is pretty exciting. And you don't have to agree with me on either player, and you don't have to like either one, but for Lebron, it's crazy to try to say that he has to be the best of all time to be enjoyable.

I can give credit to something that's due credit.

Or somewhere, or someone. The thing about giving credit is that some people make you want to give them credit, and others just deserve credit despite being complete pricks that you don't want to give credit to. When you want to give credit, you give tons of it, and rarely do you give just what is deserved. You give way more than what is necessary, and you notice a bunch of other things that barely even matter and then you probably even make up a few things to give credit for. But when you don't like someone/place/thing, you intentionally wait until you are blown away before you acknowledge anything, because you actually want to diminish that which opposes you.

I had a track coach once that was much like this. Actually, to be fair, he was never officially my coach, but he coached another group within the team I was on, and he really new his stuff. And I hated the prick, because he was just that much of an asshole. I mean, he didn't try to hide it when he disliked someone, and he disliked a lot of people for reasons that were never explained. It wasn't just me either, there were plenty of guys my age that came to the same conclusion: he's not mad about something, he's not upset, he's not hard to get to know. Coach Anthony is just an asshole. (His name isn't really Coach Anthony, in case you were wondering)

The guy just seemed to look for reasons to dig at me, and I know I'm not just making it up. There have been others that confirmed it with me. People would come up at practice and just say things like, "Why does coach Anthony hate you? What did you say to him, because he is not a fan."

You know, to tell the truth, there was one time I messed with him just slightly. I used to work during the summers for the Food and Beverage department of my University, and they would have functions that would cater to the coaches. One of them took place in this dining hall set up in a certain part of the football stadium, mostly for sports alumni to meet and celebrate glory days, stuff like that. So I see Coach Anthony while I'm working this one time, and I decide to mess with him slightly. When he got up to the bar, I put on a stern face and just simply asked, "Sir, can I see some identification?" Thinking he'd think it was funny and we'd have a little joke between us. Yeah, not at all. His face turned t stone, and he was just like, "Are you kidding me? I will jump over this fucking bar if you don't get me a god damn drink, Victor." Which, wow. Didn't see it coming one bit. I tried to tell him I was kidding, and he really didn't mellow out about it that day or for like a year after it. Maybe he was pissed about some other stuff going on, I don't know. But he never ceased to be a prick from that point forward, at least not to me.

I know for a fact that he was a good coach though. I know because the one time that he actually gave me some coaching, which he didn't have to do, it made a pretty big impact on my career. It was about 2 years after the bar incident that was barely an incident, and I was preparing for the conference championship, pretty much the biggest meet of the year for me. And my actual coach had already left to go to the site where the meet was going on, and I had one last pseudo practice as preparation for this meet before traveling there myself. So I see coach Anthony, and for whatever reason, he wasn't being a jerk to me, and we actually joked around for a few minutes about something random, like a Will Farrell movie or something. And I turn to walk away and I think to myself, I wonder if Coach Anthony has any pointers for me that my real coach hadn't thought to say. So I turn, and I ask him.

Turns out, yes, he did. In about 2 minutes, coach Anthony gave me some advice that I had not previously thought of. I won't go into the specifics because you probably don't actually care about that level of detail, but he had an insight into one of my main events, that I had been doing for years and years, that completely changed the way that I thought about literally everything I was doing to set up my body's position and... see, there I go again. You don't care. The point is, it was a really simple thing to think about and he knew exactly how to communicate it so it would stick.

And then he said, very confidently, "Congratulations."

And I said, "Congratulations, what for?"

"For finishing in the top three at the meet." And he walked away. Just like that.

Can you guess which place I came in at the meet that weekend?

Second. I finished second at the conference championships because of 2 minutes of instruction from a coach who was otherwise a complete asshole to me every time I spoke with him. And I lost by just.... well, it was really close to me winning. Really, really close.

But I give credit to him because he deserves it. He's a hell of a coach.

But MAN, I don't like that guy.

Anyways, bye now. I'll talk to you later.

...

A centimeter. I lost at the meet by one god damn centimeter! GUH! Can you imagine if Anthony had taken a full five minutes to not be a jackass?!