Kobe Bryant is known for being arrogant, cocky, and a ball hog. He is also known as an excellent basketball player, and arguably the best player in the NBA today. Even though Bryant may have an ugly attitude, the only part about him that is worth looking into is how he has become so great.
Bryant is an elite athlete who is an expert on improving his game. His days start at five in the morning with a work out, he sticks to a specific diet, and he studies videos of past and present players. With Nike, he discusses technological improvements for his shoes to help lessen his reaction time on the court, and he has asked the company to design a warm up suit that will wick heat away from his knees to enhance his recovery time. When he had fractured his shooting hand a few years ago, he took it as an opportunity to train his opposite hand to shoot. He is known for shooting jump shots with either hand. After recovering from his injury he noticed his shot was off. As a result, he went to the gym and made one hundred thousand shots to make up for the loss training in his hand. In the summer after his first year as a pro, he trained himself to stay mentally involved in the game, so he would be prepared to contribute coming off the bench the next season.
Certainly, Kobe is highly task and ego goal oriented. He practices beyond what is expected, and looks at improving his skill from all angles. He is obsessed with understanding the technique of other players because they serve as a sort of standard for him to surpass. Actually making one hundred thousand shots is quite an accomplishment in one day. He must have been worried that his recovered hand was not good enough to compete with in a game. Therefore, his fear of being ill-prepared serves him as a great source of motivation. In the summer after his first year as a pro, he developed a way of staying in the zone even off season. This is an important tool he has used to stay focused on his goals. Bryant has clearly demonstrated that he understands how to be great, and his ultimate goal must be set beyond greatness because he has already achieved it. But still he’s no Michael Jordan.
Scott Shironaka
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I’m really tired of hearing so much about professional athletes personal lives. Whats going on now with Tiger Woods is all too similar to Kobe’s situation just a few years ago. I agree that they are professional athletes and therefore role models, and I do acknowledge that cheating on your wife is morally impermissible, but in reality its our societies fault that their professional lives and personal careers have to be mixed. When I turn on the sports news I want to hear about who won games, who had outstanding performances, and other SPORTS related material. I don’t want to hear about who slept with who, who crashed into a fire hydrant, and about texting scandals. Its our fault that we give programs that report on this type on “news” such high ratings. If we simply changed the channel every time these bs stories came on the ratings would drop and they might actually be forced to find some real news to report on. If we did this then kids would turn on the TV and hear about how great Kobe and Tiger are, and it would be left at that. We wouldn’t have to worry about what type of examples these “role models” are setting.
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