What Separates the Greats, from the not so Greats
David Foster Wallace wonders in his piece “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart” how can one human be so good at something and yet be so bad at something else? Taking a look at his piece he finds himself incredibly disappointed with Tracy Austin and how she was one of the best tennis players to ever grace this earth, yet her memoir was one of the worst things he ever read. Taking a look at why this is is something more important and something that can be hard to understand. David grew up around the same age as Tracy Austin and played Tennis as well, so watching someone excel at such a faster rate than him made him idolize her. If she was so much better than everyone around her she had to be someone who struggled, fought, conquered, and stood above others around her, right? This is what David thought but then after reading her memoir he was shocked to know that there was nothing more to her than being extraordinarily talented. She grew up without much of a struggle, she had a good relationship with just about everyone, and finally when she was injured, she didn't find much pain in that prospect, so why is this so frustrating to David? To him this boring piece of media and lack of inspiration was almost insulting to his belief of what makes top athletes, top athletes.
David believed that anyone who was one of the greats of any sport was some kind of genius, so having this bland piece of fiction that did nothing other than describe what everyone else already experienced felt almost disrespectful to David. This idea is interesting as David digs deeper to learn that maybe, just maybe, if someone is a genius in one thing, they may not be perfect at everything else. Tracy’s memoir was bland and boring but as David began to dig deeper and think harder about it, was that the reason behind hers and so many other athletes genius? “The real, many-veiled answer to the question of just what goes through a great player’s mind as he stands at the center hostile crowd-noise and lines up the free-throw that will decide the game might well be: nothing at all.” (Wallace, 154). In this piece David begins to unravel that maybe the thing that sets the greats away from the not so great is not necessarily genius but, lack of concern.
What really separates me from LeBron James? Other than massive devotion to the game and supreme athletic ability, it may quite possibly be that he can always put the ball in the basket. With thousands of people cheering in my face and no defense around me would I be able to even make a lay up? David questions this near the end of the essay and attributes this as to why the memoir may have been so boring. Tracy may have not had some super human intellect, she may have just been able to serve a ball with thousands if not millions watching and see it as nothing more than serving that ball in practice. Does greatness in one come from birth? Or does it come from the drive to wake up every single morning and do millions of repetitions until just about everything that happens is “natural” to you.
