ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The sports world is full of lazy narratives.
Fans, broadcasters, and yes, your friendly neighborhood sports writers, often conflate causation and correlation and find ways to attribute meaning to random occurrences.
So it鈥檚 fitting that former NBA player John Amaechi, whose professional sports career defied convention in many ways, is spending his post-playing days helping people break down the kinds of assumptions that lead to those faulty conclusions.
There is a tendency, especially in Washington, to view many people through the prism of their job, something even more pronounced when it comes to professional athletes. Considering the years of practice required to refine their skill enough to reach the upper echelons of the sport, it can be an easy crutch to look at them as just athletes, with any other aspect of their personality ancillary at best to who they really are.
To say that Amaechi isn鈥檛 your average former NBA player isn鈥檛 simply an understatement 鈥� it鈥檚 almost entirely beside the point. He鈥檚 English. He鈥檚 gay. In a , Dan LeBetard called Amaechi the smartest athlete he鈥檚 known 鈥渋n two decades of journalism.鈥� Amaechi turned down a $17 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000, in their heyday, to play for $600,000 for the Orlando Magic, because they were the team that discovered him playing in Europe and gave him a second chance in the NBA. But perhaps the biggest difference is that, from a young age, he always wanted to be a psychologist 鈥� basketball was just a temporary detour.
鈥淚 try to do as little as possible with sports. I find it a bit soul-destroying, mostly, because it鈥檚 so antediluvian, for the most part,鈥� Amaechi told 草莓传媒 after a recent talk at .
鈥淪ports are deeply anecdotal. They love to use anecdotes as evidence, and anecdotes aren鈥檛 evidence. Just because something has worked in the past a certain way doesn鈥檛 mean it will work that way in the future, unless there is a real theory of change.鈥�
That certainly sounds like the approach of a psychologist, rather than a prototypical athlete. Amaechi rejects many of the trappings that sports fans would associate with their games of choice.
鈥淔ans are interesting, because they are peripheral,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a terribly narcissistic person that believes that their voice is a component in the performance of a stranger, but that鈥檚 what fans do. I get it. I understand why they do it 鈥� The guy chomping on a hot dog and swilling beer behind the bench is not actually causing the free throw to miss. Because we鈥檝e done this before.鈥�
One of Amaechi鈥檚 lessons for organizations involves understanding the difference between a group and a team. A group is simply a collection of individuals, while a team actually lifts each other up and improves everyone鈥檚 performance. And while conventional wisdom might say that diverse team is better than one that isn鈥檛, the answer isn鈥檛 that simple.
With better management, a diverse team can generate greater results. But diversity can actually create more frustration than homogeneity. If only certain people get to speak, animosity can build. So a diverse team actually requires better management than a non-diverse one. A failure to do so creates what Amaechi calls a dysfunctional diverse team. And it鈥檚 hard to think of a better example than American professional sports franchises.
鈥淭hese are broken organizations, deeply homogeneous in their thinking, and also traditional in every bad way that traditional is possible,鈥� he said. 鈥淧layers are cattle, in many of these institutions, to literally be traded, bartered with, damaged and discarded for no care to what happens to them after they鈥檙e in it. I would doubt very much whether you could characterize anything outside of the actual units of players as actual teams. I don鈥檛 think anything about the management of the NFL, for example, whether it be the overall, overarching management, or the individual teams, for the most part, can be considered part of the mix of a team.鈥�
Amaechi also rejects the tenuous affirmations that extend to the larger questions of the value of sports in molding young men.
鈥淭he evidence that sports teaches these kinds of lessons are equivocal at best,鈥� he said, suggesting that the most we could say is that it鈥檚 possible that they do so. 鈥淏ut we don鈥檛 normally do stuff on the basis of could be, couldn鈥檛 be. 鈥楾his pill could either make you well, or kill you.鈥� You usually don鈥檛 take that pill, and you certainly don鈥檛 start touting its benefits.鈥�
He doesn鈥檛 buy into the idea that football has any inherent qualities that create better leaders or more responsible men, or any of the other tropes that proponents of the sport tout.
鈥淢ake no bones about it 鈥� football is no more powerful at changing a young person鈥檚 life than Zumba, which is no more powerful than chess club,鈥� said Amaechi. 鈥淏ecause the component that is important in all of that is the relationship that person has with the coach or teacher.鈥�
He credits his high school coach Ed Heintschel, who is still coaching today, with providing that relationship in his own development, as a fundamental building block of who he is today. And it鈥檚 not like Amaechi avoids sports entirely these days. He鈥檚 spoken to the NHL, is still an NBA ambassador, and works with other organizations on the mental health aspects of sports.
鈥淚鈥檓 happy to do it. I don鈥檛 hate sport, as a whole thing,鈥� he said. 鈥淓verything my organization does is based on a theory of change. We do things because the science tells us that taking these steps is likely to lead to a set of specific outcomes.鈥�
One of Amaechi鈥檚 favorite sayings is that 鈥減eople make choices, choices make culture.鈥� It would behoove the power players in the sports world to listen and think about what that means for their organizations now, and especially in the future.
