Free High Price by Carl Hart Page B

would ultimately develop a serious cocaine habit, and a 1982 conviction for dealing (later overturned) put him in prison for a mandatory fifteen-year sentence. He served three years.
    But for me, watching him was bittersweet long before that ever happened. I could see clearly in his experience how race had an effect on the careers of even the most talented athletes. Although sports are the most meritocratic pursuits I have ever known—sadly, science is still a bit more marred by racism 1 —even someone as profoundly hardworking, talented, and proven as Morris was not unscathed.
    For example, it was clear by 1971 that he was Miami’s best halfback. He could obviously outplay his teammate, the white Jim Kiick. Nonetheless, it was Kiick who started at halfback that season. Kiick and Larry Csonka, another white guy and Miami’s star fullback, were not only teammates but also best friends and roommates. They were known for hanging out together off the field, picking up women. Their drinking and carousing was so notorious that they were soon labeled by sportswriters as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (Kiick was Butch). Not surprisingly, they wanted to continue their on-field partnership the next season, even as Morris’s performance clearly showed that he was better for the team.
    The rivalry and the obvious racial undertone to the choice of starter was a huge topic of discussion among my male relatives and friends that year. Morris would have led the NFL in rushing yards average per attempt with his 6.8 and 5.5 yards in 1970 and 1971, respectively—but he didn’t get enough playing time to attain the needed number of carries to qualify. His performance in training camp was so outstanding, however, that coach Don Shula finally moved him up to sharing the starting halfback position in 1972. That year, he and Csonka became the first two players on the same team to rush for a thousand yards in a season. All of the brothers were cheering him on. His persistence in being the best and its ultimate recognition on the field, where it really mattered, had a huge impact on me.
    I knew that I’d never be the biggest guy—but like Mercury, I could aim to be the fastest and the smartest. I might not ever be able to overcome race entirely, but if I worked hard enough, those problems could be minimized. I’d been taught that practice and grit mattered above all, whatever sport you played. That was another lesson that translated into success for me far beyond athletics. I always pushed myself to do more. Unlike genetic factors like height or size, practice was something over which I had total control.
    I’d heard NBA Hall of Famer George “the Iceman” Gervin talk about shooting at least five hundred shots a day—that was practice, not some genetic quirk. Larry Bird also mentioned working till he hit one thousand free throws exactly the way he wanted them every day, not stopping until every one of them landed perfectly to return to him at exactly the angle he desired. And Magic Johnson said that when he heard that Bird did a thousand, he’d be sure he did at least two thousand. I could see that the more I practiced, the better I got, and the more time I put in, the better I was on the field when the pressure was on.
    Data now confirms that believing in the importance of practice, rather than innate ability, gives people an edge. It turns out, in fact, that some of the praise that parents give their children is not simply benign. When children believe that they were “born smart,” they may actually take on fewer intellectual challenges or risks. They become afraid that if they fail, it will prove that they were incorrectly labeled. For example, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and her colleagues have shown repeatedly that children praised for natural intelligence perform less well after failure, are less persistent, and choose to take on fewer challenges, compared to those praised for hard work. When they are taught to