The Over/Under on Achievement

Athletic achievements and careers are often parsed with an auditor’s eye and a toddler’s energy due to the delightful human tendency to view a mountain vista and envision a housing development. In other words, nothing and no one is appreciated for what it is or what they do longer than fifteen minutes before the gallery begins to search for greater meaning and start sentences with the phrase, “Yeah, but …” 

This occurs in many walks of life but is particularly prevalent in athletics due to levels of interest that manifest in scoring and comprehensive record keeping and history that purportedly make experts of us all for what should be a pleasant diversion. 

When accomplished athletes complete their careers and are done entertaining us, one common practice is determining if they underachieved, overachieved or performed as expected. It’s a swell little thought exercise that often carries more weight than is wise or proper. 

The G:TB commentariat launched a thread recently that wondered if Tiger Woods and Andre Agassi underachieved, given their respective ability. I don’t presume to tell anyone how to spend their oxygen or pixels, but I’d suggest that except in rare cases, athletes achieve exactly what they’re supposed to, barring injury, illness or unless they’re locked in a basement. 

Too often achievements and careers are judged as if performed by machines in a sterile environment, where performances are fed into a mental spread sheet that factors in physical gifts and health and age and competitive eras, and then projected to what should and should not have occurred. Fine for a lab setting, less relevant for human beings traipsing the earth. Often ignored are areas such as upbringing, personality, character traits, maturity, surroundings, personal flaws – the stuff that makes us us. 

Tiger won 15 majors, changed the sport of golf and was the game’s dominant figure for almost 15 years. The late, great sportswriter and columnist Dan Jenkins thought Woods had more in his bag than Nicklaus and Ben Hogan and once said the only things that could prevent him from being the best ever were an injury or a bad marriage. Nicklaus himself predicted that Tiger would win two dozen majors, far surpassing his own record of 18. 

Does that mean Tiger underachieved? Again, I’d say no; he did what he was able before the disintegrated marriage and injuries and bad mojo took their toll. Likewise Agassi. He won eight majors and was ranked No. 1 in the world in two separate stints. Could he have won more? Maybe. Should he have won more? Impossible to say. 

Agassi also overcame an abusive father, injuries, personal struggles and drug use. I’d say that makes his accomplishments all the more impressive, which brings up another point: not taking human factors into consideration actually minimizes athletes’ achievements. Elite athletes deal with the same schmutz as everyone else; they just happen to be more talented and can shelve the distractions and unpleasantries, with varying degrees of effectiveness, on the way to the pitch or the court. 

Here's one more: Shaquille O’Neal is a four-time NBA champ, eight-time first-team all-NBA, shoo-in Hall of Famer and on the short list of the best centers in history. Yet some basketball people and take-havers will tell you that for all his success he underachieved. I disagree. He did precisely what he should have, given his ability and personality and priorities at the time. Now, Shaq himself has said that he could have had an even more productive and dominant career had he trained more diligently and taken better care, particularly as he aged. 

Doesn’t that bolster the notion that he underachieved? I’d say no. This is 40- and 50-year-old Shaq looking back with the benefit of hindsight at his 20- and 30-year-old self and seeing areas in which he could have improved. It doesn’t mean that he *should* have done more or been better. He accomplished what he did in the package he embodied at the time. That’s all you can ask. 

Judgment can cut both ways. Consider a certain sixth-round draft choice quarterback who received his big break when the starter got hurt. Tom Brady, he of the drawer full of Super Bowl rings and longtime engine of the Kraft Family Football Collective, certainly qualifies as an overachiever, yes? Again, I’d say no, that he accomplished what he should have. Just because few outside his cerebral cortex foresaw his career doesn’t mean that he didn’t think it possible and simply made good on it. 

That’s another part of the judgment equation. Those doing the appraisals are usually older and supposedly wiser, filtering their opinions through years and experiences that their subjects haven’t had – a tactic that increases the opinionator’s winning percentage but adds little to the discussion. I don’t bring all this up to dampen anybody’s enthusiasm for spirited debate on athletes past and present. I won’t even try to convince you that I’m correct. It’s simply what I think. If you spin your barstool in the opposite direction and engage elsewhere, well, I can’t fault you for wise choices.