15. Surprisingly Awesome
I listened to the second episode of the newest Gimlet show and it was… unsurprisingly awesome.
In Suprisingly Awesome, hosts Adam Davidson (Planet Money, New York Times) and Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers) try to convince each other that amazingness lurks in the seemingly mundane.
The theme of Episode 2: Free throws.
We first learn the backstory of Adam Davidson’s aversion to sports, dating back to his childhood feelings of inadequacies. He was embarrassed that his skills were not good enough for his athletic dad. “I have no interest in sports, at all,” he says.
Adam McKay’s case rests on the notion that free throws are actually the great equilizer, whether you are Lebron James or a Peabody Award-winning economics journalist. Free throws are about “90% mental,” as one free throw coach stated, meaning you can be awful or amazing regardless of your physical prowess.
I mean, just watch this —
So to use the theme of the show, here are four surprisingly awesome facts about free throws.
A dairy farmer has the record for most consecutive free throws
Ted St. Martin made 5,221 free throws without a miss. That’s 7 hours and 20 minutes of free throws. He got his start on the farm with a potato sack as the basketball net, and he credits the discipline of being a dairy farmer with giving him the mental fortitude for free throws. “I think the hours that I had to put in, early hours, getting up at any time of the night, really helped me as far as discipline to stand there and concentrate without being distracted by anything,” he said. Oh, and he was 66 years old when he broke his own record.
Dirk Nowitzki’s free throw ritual once included Counting Crows
The Dallis Mavericks power forward said he used to sing a few lines of “Mr Jones” as part of his free throw ritual. Early in his career he would “freeze up” at the thought of a free throw, and a familiar song would help him relax. Nowitzki said you want to concentrate while shooting free throws, but not concentrate too much.
Shaq learned to improve his free throws by closing his eyes
Free throw guru Ed Palubinskas had notoriously bad free throw shooter Shaquille O’Neil practice by closing his eyes and just focusing on the spatial relationship between him, the basket, and muscle memory. That way he could focus on the mechanics without being so worried about making it or not. “When players have their eyes open, they’re thinking of the product, ‘I hope I make it,’” Palubinskas said. “As a man thinketh, so is he.”
The secret to free throws is the secret to life
Adam Davidson said that before he studied the free throw, “sports felt like one undifferentiated mass of stuff that I just didn’t care about” and free throws were “the most boring part of a boring thing.” Now, he sees the mental strength you need to succeed at the free throw line is where the best athletes of all time can struggle, but where are a humble dairy farmer can be the greatest of all time. “The tools you need for dealing with the free throw,” he concludes, “are the tools you need for dealing with life.”
