Mike Who?!? Mike Harris, NBA Forward and DST Athlete

Mike Who?!?

Mike Harris former Rice University All-American and current professional basketball player is who.

One of the most enjoyable parts of training elite athletes at the professional level is analyzing what makes them different from one sport to the other. Justice wouldn’t be served if I sat here and detailed the things that make Mike unique. I guess it’s because it’s a belief that I see far too often. We as educators/coaches put too much of our own biases on what physical components it takes to achieve success in sport, and therefore, we place limitations on a player (I’ve previously been guilty of this). I believe our role as educators/coaches is to facilitate our athletes current and future needs and to provide them the optimal tools necessary for them to be as successful as they possibly can be (That means we need to work at it as hard as our athletes).

First and foremost, Mike stands out most in his insatiable desire to improve. It’s one thing for a player to understand what needs to be done but entirely different to exercise action daily to achieve improvement. Having had the opportunity to get to know and work with Mike, I realize that he is fueled by failure. It’s not that he looks forward to setbacks, but it’s obvious that he uses them to catapult himself further. Last but not least is his competitiveness. He not only took great pride in coming into a tough strength training session, but he did so having just spent two grueling hours on the court and watching the bulk of other players go home to relax and play X-Box or PS3. His uniqueness lies in the fact that he doesn’t want to be normal. He wants to be great, and he knows that the path to greatness is a road less traveled and that is why he and DST make a perfect team!

To check out how Mike is doing go to www.eurobasket.com, go to Asia and click on China (Team: Shanghai Sharks).

The following are some clips of Mike’s training sessions here at DST.