Sports

Pure potential and insufficient talent

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Nessley: less conditioning

Martin Nessley was a 7’2 “280 lb. heavy coaster from Whitehall-Yearling High School in Columbus, Ohio. In addition to his size, he brought impressive credentials such as McDonald’s All-American and Parade All-American. What’s not Can you like it? Coach K went after him and got engaged to Duke in 1984. The coach likely believed he could take Martin into weight training and conditioning and speed up the guy, give him a vertical jump of at least several inches.

Nessley was put on a strict diet. Alarie remembers that the guy hardly ate anything but maybe a salad at the training table. However, he couldn’t even drop a pound. Marty didn’t play much as a freshman, too slow. Then knee surgery limited him as a sophomore.

Sumner describes a night between 1:00 and 2:00 AM Amaker, Nessley’s roommate, was awakened by a knock on the door and then a muffled conversation. When Amaker tried to fall asleep, he heard movement coming from across the room. He turned on a lamp and found Nessley gobbling a large pizza under his blanket. Surely Nessley had to know that Duke’s trainers would have satiated that hunger with lots of protein drinks and protein-packed low-fat meats. But maybe his drive to excel wasn’t powerful enough.

Finally, since senior Nessley played every game, he started four, blocking 24 shots, not bad. The best game of his career was at Harvard with 25 points and 8 rebounds. But that was the extreme exception. It looks like that 7ft 2 frame of yours could have accomplished so much more. He played a little NBA ball for a year.

Randolph: Bad breaks or bad attitude?

Shavlik Randolph instantly became a star at Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. His record of 56 points in a game broke Pete Maravich’s record at the same school. With that kind of play, it should come as no surprise that he was a McDonald’s All-American, a two-time Associated Press North Carolina Player of the Year and a two-time Parade All-American.

The kid got off to a great start at Duke with 23 points and 7 rebounds in the first game against Army. Two days later he had a double-double against Davidson. Then all of a sudden Shavlik is almost out of sight. He scored in double figures just five more games that season and struggled a bit with injuries. During the summer he had to rehab after a successful hip surgery. In his sophomore year he played in all 37 Duke games, averaging 7.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game. He then seemed to come to life for the NCAA tournament run, playing very well against Alabama State and UConn.

During his junior year, his averages were slightly lower than his sophomore statistics, but he missed four games recovering from mononucleosis. Still, he averaged nearly 20 minutes of playing time per game. Then, inexplicably, after his mediocre junior year, Randolph decided to exclude himself from his senior year and declare himself for the draft. Over the years, he has come and gone between brief stints with NBA teams followed by games in European leagues.

Price: A fabulous year

Ricky Price played three years of high school basketball at St. Anthony and his senior year at Serra High School in Gardena, California. One thing that became apparent during Price’s high school career and later at Nike camps is that he was fully capable of taking over games and carrying a team on his back. Champion of the McDonalds All-American Slam Dunk, he was unanimously named one of the top 5 USA Today / AP / Parade players in the nation.

Price started 14 games as a rookie during that nightmare season without Coach K. He then had a great sophomore season with 29 starts in 31 games. He stood out as the guy to go to in close matches and won several in the closing seconds. Against Virginia he went crazy with 28 points. It was all rosy for Price until just before his junior year preseason when he broke a finger and began struggling with his outside shooting. He only started 11 games that year. Definitely a disappointment.

Then as he entered his fourth year, this should have been his golden opportunity to far surpass his stellar sophomore stats and make NBA scouts salivate. However, he was caught plagiarizing and declared academically ineligible after his third year. He had to sit down the fall semester as a senior. In December, when he was able to resume play, Coach K was apparently not very impressed because he only had one start on Senior Day against UNC. Price ended up playing professionally abroad.

Pure talent is not enough

Nessley, Randolph and Price came to Duke with accolades and awards that rival some of the greatest recruits in history. Veteran scouts raved about them and were voted high school All-Americans. His sheer potential seemed almost limitless. Some may blame the injuries, but many Duke players have struggled with injuries and still have an excellent career at Duke. When guys show up at Duke, success isn’t even inevitable. They have to stretch par excellence, fight for minutes, enslave strength, speed and conditioning. They have to play for the team, learn from the coaches, and outperform their opponents. Nothing is guaranteed in sports. That is why it is fierce competition until the end.

Arts Entertainments

52 Blocks: The True American Martial Art

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When it comes to the various martial arts and fighting styles from around the world, the little-known urban system of 52 Blocks, a variation on the broader Jailhouse Rock style, has to enter the conversation. Researchers Daniel Marks and Kammau Hunter have argued that Jailhouse Rock may, in fact, be America’s only “native martial art”. With an African influence and believed to have originated in the 17th and 18th centuries by slaves, 52 Blocks evolved on the streets of Brooklyn and American jails. The style focuses on closed-space techniques, similar to self-defense situations found in settings such as prisons, bathrooms, alleys, and hallways where movement would be limited.

As mentioned above, 52 Blocks, also called “52 Hand Blocks” and “The 52’s”, is part of a larger collection of fighting styles known as “JHR” or “Jailhouse Rock”. 52 Blocks and their variants are similar to the martial arts of capoeira and savate, which were fighting systems associated with urban criminal subcultures, which underwent a gradual process of codification before establishing themselves as mainstream accessible martial arts. Other variations of the JHR collection are Comstock, San Quentin style, Mount Meg and Stato, each name referring to the prison in which it was started. As it gained popularity and exposure in the early 1970s, Jail House Rock appears to have first appeared in the media in an article on martial arts in prison titled “KARATE IN PRISON: Threat or Means of Spiritual Survival? “, In black. Belt Magazine from July 1974.

Despite widespread belief, 52 Blocks is not a Western boxing style, nor is Wing Chun mixed with Western boxing. Considered a defensive style that creates opportunities for offense through constant movement, the fighter blocks / catches blows with the forearms and elbows. Short power shots, fluid movement, and backlash are aspects of 52 that are emphasized, while using sharp and elusive footwork. Unlike boxing, but similar to Muay Thai, the elbows are commonly used to hit the opponent.

Much of the argument and conflicting information about 52 Blocks stems from whether or not the style has been influenced by “uprocking” or what most of us call breakdancing. Some believe that this link is the aspect of some of the fighting techniques inspired or copied from the “distortion movements” borrowed from Brooklyn Rock or the uprock style of breakdancing. It seems that you can find as many sources indicating these links between 52 and urban dance as possible to the contrary, making it the 52 topic with the most conflicting information.

As many 52 practitioners have felt that their system has long been overlooked, it is now beginning to take its rightful place in martial arts history, a product of growing media coverage for a long time. weather. Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight, is one of the high profile boxers to endorse 52 for the first time, and professional boxers including Mike Tyson Zab Judah and Bernard Hopkins have testified to the existence of the style, giving him a voice of legitimacy of the true fighters. Rashad Evans, a former UFC light heavyweight champion, has also promoted 52 and his ERA.