Adam Thielen and Grit:
Passing Gladwell’s Threshold and Capitalizing on Opportunities To Find Success as An Elite Wide Receiver in NFL
By Nick Banfield | Biokinetics Major, Bethel University
Adam Thielen waited in his 2013 Chicago hotel room glued to his computer. He did everything right during his tryout in Chicago. He ate his Wheaties, slept his eight hours, and geared up for a full day. Thielen knew he had to run between a 4.4–4.5 on his 40-yard dash to have any chance of being looked at. Without a fast enough time, his football career ended right there. Refreshing the page every minute, Thielen noticed the new results finally appeared (Thielen 3).
Thielen grew up in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, dreaming of becoming an NFL athlete. Envisioning Minnesota Vikings receivers, Randy Moss and Chris Carter, Thielen scampered around his backyard surrounded by a football atmosphere. Thielen, an All-State selection in high school, and dominant senior at Mankato State University, prayed for a chance to try out for a team in the NFL (Thielen 2).
Four years later, Thielen, a 6’3” 205 pound receiver, won 2017 Offensive Player of the Year for the Minnesota Vikings. Many sports analysts noticed his sneaky speed and questioned how so many teams overlooked such a dominant player. In Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell discusses how the best and brightest are not the ones who succeed (Gladwell 79–81). Thielen, an overlooked Division II athlete, used his relentless grit, Gladwell’s idea of being good enough, and handful of extraordinary opportunities to find success as an elite wide receiver in the NFL.
Gladwell dives into a discussion about the existence of “innate talent” through music, academics, and athletics. Gladwell concedes that innate talent exists, but he argues innate talent will never become successful without practice. Gladwell uses specific examples that examined the practicing habits of expert and amateur musicians and chess players. Each study found that no expert rose to the top without practice. The more capable individuals always resembled the ones who practiced the most and were classified as grinders (Gladwell 39). Thielen fit this role perfectly. A grinder contained more grit than any other competitor which gave them an advantage over natural talent. Thielen failed to get recruited out of high school and ended up taking $500 scholarship to go play at Mankato (Thielen 2). Swallowing pride and taking minimal compensation for exceptional talent and a hard work ethic required a gritty mindset. Thielen took one of the most unconventional paths to the NFL, and he could not have reached the top without his exceptional grit.
Just like the rice farmers from Chapter 8 in Outliers, Thielen worked harder than every other receiver in his class. The rice farmers worked long days with no breaks or vacations. Rice farmers illustrated dedication, persistence, and emphasized sacrifice for the greater good (Gladwell 224–227). Thielen illustrated dedication to continue his career at Mankato, persistence in playing for all four years of his college career, and sacrificed his time and money to only accept $500 from Mankato (Thielen 2).
Gladwell also highlights grit through The Beatles’ story. When The Beatles first started performing, they settled for little pay for a club in Hamburg, Germany. The acoustics made instruments sound like kitchen appliances trying to make harmony and the audience could not care less about what they listened to. However, this club hosted The Beatles as long as a regular work day, eight hours. The Beatles took advantage of this by playing seven days a week. The grit and practice The Beatles possessed landed them major success by 1964 (Gladwell 47–50). Mankato acted as his Hamburg club and the $500 scholarship enticed him enough to practice his eight hours a day, seven days of the week. Thielen, reflected many traits from the rice farmer’s persistence and desire for perfection, and The Beatles’ absurd amount of practice which guided him to success.
Grit’s adaptability allows academic success and athletic success through grit to connect. Thielen used his grit through football to guide his professional journey.
Thielen’s name did not stick out like a bright orange flag on luggage in the baggage claim of the airport to scouts. Early in his life, success did not come easy. Scouts failed to recognize the one key factor that best predicts success, grit. From the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Kaili Rimfeld, a PhD student at King’s College London in the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, addressed how grit and genetics played a part in children’s success in school. The author stated that students who had the grit to get through school the right way rather than just trying to get the work done ended up more successful in life. The author stated, “…effort and intellectual investment, predict more variance in achievement that the major Big Five personality factors” (Rimfeld 781). This article highlighted grit multiple times to predict academic achievement. Even though academic achievement does not translate directly to Thielen, the success part of grit through school and doing things the right way applies to Thielen’s situation of becoming a success in the NFL.
From the Psychology of Sport and Science, Jenna Gilchrist, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, studied how grit predicted success within student athletes. The author moved away from praising athletes who had a bunch of natural talent and started to push more towards the idea of grit within those athletes. She mentioned how if a student possessed both traits, natural talent and grit, they turned into something very desirable within their program. The grit these students developed translated to their school work much like Rimfeld’s study above because, “grit is an adaptive trait that predicts achievement outcomes in various contexts” (Gilchrist 1). Grit’s adaptability allows academic success and athletic success through grit to connect. Thielen used his grit through football to guide his professional journey.
To find Thielen’s Nobel prize, the NFL, all he has to do is be good enough. Except in this case, rather than being smart enough, he had to be fast enough, tall enough, and have good enough hands to catch.
Another scholar, Angela Lee Duckworth, who is an American academic, psychologist and popular science author from Harvard College, University of Oxford, and Christopher H. Browne, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, studied grit and self-control. Duckworth discussed grit through her experience in education. Through her TedTalk, wanted to change the public’s view on education. She wanted to highlight that teachers should be looking into how to create incentive inside each kid so that they have some kind of motivation to graduate rather than just going through the motions. To make the educations system better, she desired to learn more about the psychology of kids’ brains as well as the motives that they already have inside of them. From her years in the system of education, she said, “in all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t good looks, physical health, and it wasn’t IQ. It was grit” (Duckworth 2:44–2:59). Again, grit rises to the top as the greatest predictor of success. Thielen used this “adaptive trait” of grit as discussed by Rimfeld, Gilchrist, and Duckworth in his athletic journey to the NFL even though almost nobody noticed him coming out of high school.
Thielen used more than grit in his path to the NFL. He also needed to pass the threshold to get noticed. Gladwell defines the idea of being good enough or passing the threshold. Gladwell proceeds to connect this threshold to IQ and likelihood to win a Nobel prize. Generally, a high IQ and success demonstrate correlation with each other, but Gladwell finds a catch to this correlation. Once a person’s IQ reaches above 120, the direct relationship between success and IQ ceases to exist. After reaching this threshold of 120, someone with IQ of 120 has the same likelihood of winning a Nobel prize compared with someone with an IQ of 170. Being smart enough gives a scholar equal chance at winning a Nobel prize when compared with the defined 150 IQ genius (Gladwell 78–83). To find Thielen’s Nobel prize, the NFL, all he has to do is be good enough. Except in this case, rather than being smart enough, he had to be fast enough, tall enough, and have good enough hands to catch.
After discussing academics, Gladwell moves into an analogy about athletics; basketball players generally need to be tall. He asks the question: is a player 6’8” tall better than someone who is 6’5”? Making a modern-day connection, comparing a 6’3” shooting guard and a 6’6” shooting guard, who would you predict to be better? 6’3” Steph Curry and 6’6” James Harden remain stars of their respective teams in a primarily scoring position on the court. Both average the same number of points over their career, but one stands three inches taller and weighs 30 pounds more than the other (NBA Career Statistics). Gladwell provides the reason for this phenomenon, once a basketball player is tall enough, i.e. 6’3”, other factors begin to make a difference. Can he move quickly? Shoot well? Good under pressure (Gladwell 80)? Gladwell’s idea of being good enough in basketball translates to Thielen’s football journey. Thielen needed to be tall enough, fast enough, and have good enough hands to get noticed by scouts. The average NFL receiver stands at about 6’1” and averages a 4.55 on his 40-yard dash. Thielen stands a little taller than 6’2” and runs a 40 yard dash time of 4.45 which clearly qualifies him as NFL talent (Goessling). After clearly passing the threshold, Thielen got overlooked even though he stood out as NFL talent.
Along with grit and passing the threshold, Thielen also needed a handful of extraordinary opportunities. To demonstrate extraordinary opportunity, Gladwell introduced Joe Flom who grew up in a Jewish family during the Great Depression. He received good grades while in school, got accepted into Harvard law without a college degree, and graduated at the top of his class. While searching for a job, New York major firms did not suit his personality, so he joined a small group who started their own firm. Today, that law firm, Skadden, Arps, earns over $1 billion a year. His reason for success? Flom was a Jewish lawyer in New York when it was the perfect time to be a Jewish lawyer in New York, which made him demographically lucky. Gladwell argues that being “demographically unlucky” can play a part in the path to success. If you became old enough to enter the workforce at the very beginning of the Great Depression, you were demographically unlucky. Flom’s success can be attributed to this kind of demographic logic. He enjoyed smaller class sizes, more attention, and less competition throughout school. For a lawyer, being born in the 1930s seemed to be an almost magical kind of advantage (Gladwell 129–139). Mankato acts as Thielen’s small, developmental firm even though he might not have been born at the right time. Thielen, similar to Joe Flom, enjoyed a smaller school, more attention, and lower caliber competition throughout his collegiate football career.
August 22, 1990. Thielen’s birthday flashes demographically unlucky according to Max Roser. Roser, an economist and media critic, analyzed the birth rates over the past 70 years. He researched global trends of living conditions. Currently, a researcher in economics at the University of Oxford, Roser released his data about the birth rates from 1950 to 2015. From 1987–1993, giving four years plus or minus for Thielen’s possible collegiate career competitors, the average birth rate is 3.22 children per woman. In the present, the birth rate per woman is 2.49 (Fertility Rate). Thielen had many more competitors during his time which could have contributed to the reason that scouts overlooked him. However, the turning point for Thielen’s career was his opportunity at the Chicago combine in 2013. His results from the combine would propel him into the NFL. NFL scouts rarely showed up to a small Division II school in Minnesota to recruit receivers. The tryout at the Chicago combine stood alone as his publicity for scouts.
Outliers illustrates the definition of opportunity by using the example of Bill Joy who received unlimited accessed to the library at the University of Michigan. Bill Joy’s unlimited access clearly led to his success in the computer programming world. Having the opportunity to practice every day made him successful today (Gladwell 35–47). Gladwell argues that Flom and Joy demonstrate examples of great talent, but what sets them apart? A series of extraordinary opportunities. Thielen did not stand out as a dominating football player coming out of high school. However, getting the simple opportunity of going to Mankato was enough to develop his skill into NFL talent. From overcoming his busy birth year, getting the opportunity to go to Mankato, and getting invited to the combine in Chicago, Thielen took the most of his opportunities to find success in the NFL.
Thielen refreshed the page one final time before he received the results that changed his life forever. 4.45. He ran the time he needed to be noticed. The NFL draft comes and goes. Thielen expected not to get picked. He didn’t expect not getting signed as an undrafted free agent. He thought he had done enough to have a team at least bring him in to see what he could do. Then he received two invites to tryout at rookie camp. Carolina Panthers and Minnesota Vikings (Thielen 4). The little kid inside Thielen went berserk. The Vikings. A hometown hero made in Minnesota.
But the unknown wide receiver from Mankato knew that it was just an invite, nothing guaranteed. Then one of the coaches asked Thielen to come up to the office. The coaches said they liked what they had seen, but as expected, they had finalized their roster. They said they wanted to sign Thielen anyway. They had cut another wide receiver — someone they had already paid a signing bonus to — just to make room. Knowing that all the hard work Thielen had put in, all the training, the trip to Chicago, the playbook cram, it all paid off. “It amounted to me being able to execute and make plays to the point where they actually had to cut somebody they had already made a financial commitment to, just to make sure they locked me in. That felt pretty good” (Thielen 8–12).
Thielen powered past all of the odds. Small division II school. Unrecruited. Undrafted. Unsigned. Through the combination of Thielen’s grit, power past the threshold, and opportunities along his path, a 6’3”, 4.45, 40-yard speed receiver, went overlooked by all 32 NFL teams. Thielen did not receive 2017 Minnesota Viking Offensive MVP for scampering around dreaming of Randy Moss and Cris Carter and having loads of natural talent. He owns this award because of his ability to power past the doubts of not being good enough. Many who dream of reaching their highest potential, overlook their own advantages that lead their path to remarkable success. Society publicizes that only those with extreme natural ability make it in this world. The ones that pull it all together, take advantage of each opportunity, focusing on each of their strengths, transform their lives into NFL talent.
Works Cited
Duckworth, Angela Lee. Grit: the power of passion and perseverance. TED talk: Education, 9 May 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8. Accessed 25 Mar. 2018.
Gilchrist, Jenna, et al. “Feelings of pride are associated with grit in student-athletes and recreational runners.” Psychology of Sport & Exercise. Vol. 36, May 2018, pp. 1–7. EBSCO MegaFILE,https://web-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/ehost/detail/detail ?vid=18&sid=a42f54d4-dbd4–4474-a1f9-d42675302761%40sessionmgr101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=129050904&db=keh. Accessed 20 Apr. 2018.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers. New York: First Back Bay, 2011. Print.
Goessling, Ben. “Vikings receiver Adam Thielen rose from below the NFL radar to stardom.” StarTribune, Jan. 12, 2018.http://www.startribune.com/vikings-receiver-adam-thielen- rose-from-below-the-nfl-radar-to-stardom/468900163/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.
“NBA Career Statistics.” NBA.com, NBA Media Ventures, 2018, http://www.nba.com/players. Accessed 2 May 2018.
Rimfeld, Kaili, et al. “True grit and genetics: Predicting academic achievement from personality.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 111, no. 5, Nov. 2016, pp. 780–789. PsycINFO,https://web-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bethel.edu/ehost/detail/ detail?vid=4&sid=c7c44f61–8489–4317-a4c4–286e671a4c60%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=2016–06824–001&db=psyh. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.
Roser, Max. “Fertility Rate.” Our World in Data, n.p., 2018, https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate. Accessed 7 May 2018.
Thielen, Adam. “Made in Minnesota.” The Players Tribune, Oct. 12, 2017, pp. 1–16, https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/adam-thielen-vikings. Accessed 7 Mar. 2018.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nick Banfield
Nick Banfield, a freshman from Rochester, Minn., seeks good grades and writing skills to push him towards becoming a Doctor of Osteopathic sciences. Banfield likes creamy chocolate shakes as tall as his 6'3" self, hilariously horrible movies, and barbacoa burritos from Chipotle for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
I was worried. There was doubt. This classroom is warm. I did not know anyone that was in my class. They were quiet. This is my worst point so I thought I would start with it.
Scott defined a new kind of sin within writing. Passive voice. Using “is”, “are”, “was”, and “were.”
Eric Adler expressed the importance of dropping readers in the moment, raising tension, keeping verbs active, naming dogs, and connecting the story to the reader despite the lack of interest in the subject. Make a story about cheer leading meaningful to a group of people that don’t care about cheer leading.
From the first TED talk by we watched about spaghetti sauce by Malcolm Gladwell, I learned how unique writers need to be. By comparing choice to the variety of spaghetti sauces, I knew that making a point took more thought than I ever imagined.
Show a story, don’t tell it. Not an ugly truck. A 1980 green ford pickup with a rusted out fender and a cracked passenger side window.
Snapping beats clapping.
Coming to class with my “perfect draft”, Scott and other classmates always found something to revise.
Our little note cards with three surprises and three questions kept me actively engaged in the reading no matter how late the night got. Discussion cards remain the key to retaining information from Outliers, and David and Goliath.
Annotations were so annoying in the moment. However, having the organization of key takeaways from each source eased the stress when in the midst of my paper at 2 a.m.
Breaking chalk makes more chalk for others.
Seeing the movie Moneyball for the fourth time made me absorb new information from a different perspective by applying Gladwell terms to Billy Bean and Peter Brand.
Get better at selfies.
Our notebook sheets of paper stretched to their limits, divided into 6–8 pieces, gave feedback that helped guide me to better speeches.
Sitting in the boiling hot RC423 classroom, Winter opened class with a different approach to any English/Composition/Writing course I’ve ever taken. He opened with dry humor that made me laugh every single class period without fail. Scott made writing fun, different, and unique.
