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I mentioned this earlier but here is the full story. Some years ago, I heard John Fontanella, author of The Physics of Basketball, interviewed on NPR and he said something which blew my mind. So I picked up the phone and called him. “Professor, I heard you say you shoot with your middle and ring finger leaving the ball last,” I said. “Did I hear you correctly?” “Yes,” he answered. “That is correct.” “But I was taught to shoot with my index finger being the last finger to leave the ball. I wasn’t even aware you could shoot that way.” “Well, I started shooting that way back in college,” he answered. “During my freshman year, I hurt my index finger and I experimented a bit and found I could shoot better releasing off my middle and ring fingers. So that is how I shot from then on.” I paused a moment, digesting his words. Fontanella’s book was groundbreaking and I had a great deal of respect for him. The fact that one year he had led the country with a free-throw average of 92.2% (in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) added credibility as well. Might this be the missing link to the secret of shooting? “Well,” I said. “It is disheartening to think for 49 years; I have been shooting the ball the wrong way.” I will never forget Fontanella’s reply. “It is not the way you were shooting was wrong. It is just shooting that way is not very biomechanically friendly.”
Straight Shooter
Bob Fisher
It’s safe to say that The Origin of Species (as it became known after Darwin himself dropped the On from a later edition) is one of the most influential books ever written. What printed works surpass it in reach and impact? Maybe the Bible, the Qur’an, the Mahabharata, and a few other scriptural texts that have inspired millions of people to piety and bloodshed. What stands in the same category? Maybe De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Copernicus, maybe Newton’s Principia, and maybe, if you count journal articles, the two papers of 1905 and 1916 in which Einstein described special and general relativity. Unlike those other great works of science, though, The Origin is a book written in plain everyday language and meant by its author to speak to any attentive reader.
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
David Quammen
Without a sense of urgency, it’s hard to sustain the effort it takes to tolerate the unpleasantness of growing pains. I often remind people that we spend a lot of our time vacillating between boredom and anxiety.
The Mindful Athlete
George Mumford and Phil Jackson
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