How silly to throw away gains through vanity
Athletes should be brave rather than shunning unorthodox methods that work, writes Daniel Schofield
‘I felt like a sissy, shooting underhand. I know some of the best shot that way but I couldn’t do it’
With so much at stake in the outcome of elite sport, large sums are invested in seeking what Dave Brailsford termed the “one per centers”, whether that be the most aerodynamic helmet or the coldest cryotherapy chamber.
Yet, what if there were 10-15 per centers openly available? Organisations should be falling over themselves to adopt them and yet, in some cases, they are shunned. Why? Because players do not want to appear silly.
This issue was addressed by Malcolm Gladwell in an episode of his podcast Revisionist History about free throws in basketball. Free throws are awarded when there has been a foul, giving the fouled player two unopposed shots 15ft from the basket.
The focus of the episode is on Wilt Chamberlain, who despite being considered one of the greatest-ever players, was hopeless at free throws. The exception was the 1961-62 season, when he changed his technique from the traditional overhand to an underhand method pioneered by Rick Barry, who finished his career with one of the NBA’S highest-ever free-throw result percentages.
Chamberlain’s percentage rose nearly 20 per cent over the course of the season. In one game in which he scored a record 100 points, Chamberlain made 28 of his 32 free-throw attempts, another record. And yet at the end of the season, Chamberlain abandoned the underhand method and went back to being a terrible free-thrower.
“I felt silly, like a sissy, shooting underhanded,” Chamberlain wrote in his autobiography. “I know I was wrong. I know some of the best foul shooters in history shot that way. I just couldn’t do it.”
Studies have since shown the underarm technique is the more efficient method as it offers a larger crosssection of the basket to aim at as well as increasing the amount of spin on the ball. There is both theory and evidence, but today only one player, the Houston Rockets’ Chinanu Onuaku, employs the underhand method. Shaquille O’neal, another all-time great who was lousy at free throws, spoke for many of his contemporaries when he said: “I would rather shoot zero per cent than shoot underhand.”
This can be applied to other sports as well. An Israeli University researcher called Michael Bar-eli analysed 286 penalty kicks in major football championships. He found that 30 per cent were placed in the centre third of the goal, but that goalkeepers dived left or right 94 per cent of the time. If the goalkeepers stayed still, they would increase their chances of saving the penalty from 13 to 33 per cent.
Yet, interviewing individual goalkeepers, Bar-eli found that they would much rather dive than be seen to do nothing if the kick ended up going to one of the corners. In short, they, too, did not want to appear silly.
Before an Arsenal match against Burnley last season, a senior club executive explained how he had tried to persuade Petr Cech of this very point. Lo and behold, Burnley were awarded a penalty in the game and Andre Gray scored straight down the middle.
However, this curious form of groupthink can be broken. When Jonny Wilkinson started a kicking routine in which he took four steps back and five to the side before squatting with his hands clasped together, he was roundly mocked. Then that prayer stance won England a Rugby World Cup and the laughing ceased. Now virtually every rugby goal-kicker has devised his own idiosyncratic routine to centre himself before a place-kick, from the “Biggarena” to Owen Farrell’s evil-eye stare.
All it took was one individual who was prepared to look silly.