Outliers Argumentative Essay

Growing up, I loved sports, watching, playing, and listening. It didn’t matter how or where, if there was a game on I was most likely watching it. As I grew even older I began to play the sports that I loved so much, football, basketball, and baseball. Being a three sport athlete my entire athletic career, I have seen the benefits that one sport brings to another. It also brings a certain level of sanity being a multi-sport athlete. Doing the same thing every day can become a grind and the brain has an amazing tendency to become uninterested or bored. That is why, in today’s world, when I see or hear about kids specializing in a sport at an early age I question the thought process behind it. What are the benefits? Does this really help in the long run? All of these questions lead me to one conclusion: Children should not specialize in one sport so early in their lives. We will begin with the thought process behind specialization in sports. In 2008 Malcolm Gladwell came out with a book titled “Outliers.” In the book Gladwell speaks of a 10,000 hour rule for mastery at any subject, or for out purposes sport. Stating that in order to become an expert one must spend 10,000 hours practicing or studying that subject. In the book he uses research done by …show more content…
This basically boils down to the fact that, like most things in life, there are multiple ways to reach the goal. A great example in sports is Dennis Rodman. As he grew up he was only average at basketball and wasn’t a stand out athlete of any kind. He was an awkward child and didn’t even attend college initially. He started working as a janitor at an airport. It was there where he experienced an other worldly growth spurt. He went back to college and found his way to the NBA. He is now considered one of the greatest rebounders ever and played a long time. A perfect example of how there is more than one way to the