Athletic Mobility

Abstract

This essay considers the competing ideologies of hard work and natural talent when talking about sporting greatness. Dispelling the myth of the “racial gift” is one of the aims of Scott N. Brooks’s 2008 ethnography, Black Men Can’t Shoot, a study of Philadelphia high school basketball that suggests athletic mobility has more to do with mentoring and networking than skill, aesthetics or self-expression.

Keywords

• basketball
• coaching
• ethnography
• work
• talent