[biggieshellz]

I think the author misses the point.

As a beginner jazz musician, I saw Pat Metheny in concert -- he killed, of course -- and afterwards, I asked him what he thought about when he played. His reply? "I don't think; I just play."

Clearly, Pat Metheny is not devoid of insight. He put in years and years of preparation so that when the time comes, he can go for it. If you asked him after the fact to analyze one of the improvised solos he played that night, he could write it out on manuscript and go through what he was doing harmonically and melodically at any given point. But improvising it live, in real time, is a different thing. And having the chord changes, the instrument mechanics, and so forth down to muscle memory doesn't make for a shallow player; it clears the way for operating on higher levels of abstraction like emotion, language, and motivic development.

Maybe Tracy Austin is really that boring. Or maybe she and her ghost writer focused on what people think they want to know about rather than where the depth really is. You want to really learn what makes a great athlete? Sit with them as they watch the game video afterwards and see how they analyze things. See how they translate those insights into practice, into actionable items that you can deploy at a moment's notice during a game.

[w0de0]

With respect, I think you rather missed his point. He is not making an argument that "Tracy Austin is really that boring," though he does set the reader up for this thought, so that he can playfully turn on it on the way to his conclusion.

Your analysis is a gesture towards his conclusion: "And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius, must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it - and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence."

Moreover, DFW speaks of the cliches evident in the internal narratives of athletic genius as, perhaps, perceived by their speakers as simple truths, imperatives to be acted on or ignored, not reflected on.

He also specifically calls out as foolish the idea that gifted athletes are dim, citing examples of technical analysis similar to the ones you've mentioned.

Finally, this piece is very specifically about the physical techne of athletes in relation to their internal and external narratives, which I, and I think DFW based on this piece, do not find of a kind with musical genius.

[sdwr]

Hard not to read defensiveness into the piece. DFW failed at becoming a tennis pro and he's covering that territory from his intellectual sanctuary. He's watching from the bleachers here.

People who do, don't need fancy words or justifications, the proof is already in the pudding. Fetishizing language is the province of the thinker, the ponderer, the stay-at-home-and-read-er. Just like a seasoned pornography enthusiast, the shine of the base experience wears off.

"I immediately knew what I had done, which was to win the US Open, and I was thrilled."