Something in the Water: Where Do Great Athletes Come From? | Good Sport
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on TED Talks Daily we’re excited to introduce TED’s newest podcast, Good Sport, hosted by veteran sports producer Jody Avirgan. What can sports teach us about life – and each other? Good Sport brings you invigorating stories from on and off the field to argue that sports are as powerful and compelling a lens as any to understand the world – from what happens when you age out of a sport, to how we do or don't nurture talent, to analyzing how sports arguments have become the mode for all arguments. Good Sport launched on February 8th and you can find it anywhere you’re listening to this. TED Audio Collective+ subscribers on Apple Podcasts can hear the whole season early and ad-free.
"Muck City," Florida. Kinston, North Carolina. The courts of New York City in the 80s and 90s. These places share one unique trait: they found a way to produce a particular kind of great athlete, over and over. Is there something in the water – or is it something else? In our first episode, Jody talks to sports journalist Bomani Jones and Olympic table tennis coach Rajul Sheth about talent "hotbeds," the role opportunity and access play in crafting success, and the important distinction between having talent and achieving greatness.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Ted Talks Daily, I'm Elise Hugh, and today we've got something different. |
| 0:09.0 | Another Ted Audio Collective podcast called Goodsport with Jody Overgan. |
| 0:13.8 | It's a show that's really making the case for sports by exploring how much sports and |
| 0:18.2 | competition reveal about being human. |
| 0:22.0 | Here is an episode we thought you would particularly enjoy, and to hear more episodes, follow Goodsport |
| 0:27.1 | wherever you're listening to this. |
| 0:31.9 | Bommani Jones noticed something. |
| 0:37.5 | That's one of the best things about Bommani. |
| 0:39.4 | He's one of the most popular sports journalists around. |
| 0:41.5 | He watches games, he has takes, he has an HBO show, he has a podcast, we all have a podcast. |
| 0:47.3 | But more than anything, Bommani is a notice. |
| 0:51.9 | I kind of picture him watching a football game on a Monday night, standing a little off |
| 0:56.1 | to the side, arms crossed, head cocked, thinking about the players, the players, the sport |
| 1:00.8 | as a whole. |
| 1:02.1 | And then he notices something about some of the players on the field, especially the |
| 1:08.0 | wide receivers, especially the white wide receivers. |
| 1:13.3 | It's very interesting if you note the like really good white wide receivers, they seem |
| 1:19.9 | overall to have one thing in common, which is they all seem to grow up in places that |
| 1:26.4 | are almost exclusively white, or at the very least don't have black people. |
| 1:33.1 | Now this, this is an intriguing observation. |
| 1:36.2 | If you've watched any football over the last 40 years, you've probably noticed that most |
| 1:40.8 | of the top wide receivers are black, but there are the occasional white pass catchers |
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