The fallacy of "The Best Drivers in the World"

If this story is true and not apocryphal, then Michael Jordan in basketball was noted to have said that some of the most amazing players he’s ever seen were stuck on playgrounds and public courts, bereft of the opportunity to play in the big league.

Now, in Jordan’s case, he’s reputed to have made this claim in the context of discipline and drive, not luck, so admittedly it’s not an exact match. His point was that there are many great talents on the playgrounds and public gyms who could play in the NBA if they had the desire and drive to relentlessly practice and hone their craft. But it’s still close; the point is that as good as pro sports is in identifying and bringing in talent (it has to have gotten good; money depends on it), there are always some who are missed. And had all factors aligned, they’d be names known to the average guy in the street, not unknowns toiling at a day job while indulging their sport anonymously for no pay.

But, at the same time, you don’t know if that’s wishful thinking or glossing over failure. There are definitely cases where professional prospects are identified and called the prodigy of the future, but when actually given the chance, when getting that lucky break, ended up showing that they couldn’t cut it. The New Yorker did an article that touched on this phenomenon:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell

In it, they compared the issue of identifying both NFL and school teaching talent. Ignoring the superficial ludicrousness of comparing the two professions, it ended up that there are some striking similarities in the problem of identifying talent that will succeed in a given field. Regarding a now ex-NFL quarterback:

In 2002, it was Joey Harrington’s turn. Harrington was a golden boy out of the University of Oregon, and the third player taken in the draft. Shonka still can’t get over what happened to him.

"I tell you, I saw Joey live," he said. "This guy threw lasers, he could throw under tight spots, he had the arm strength, he had the size, he had the intelligence." Shonka got as misty as a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound ex-linebacker in a black tracksuit can get. "He’s a concert pianist, you know? I really—I mean, I really—liked Joey." And yet Harrington’s career consisted of a failed stint with the Detroit Lions and a slide into obscurity. Shonka looked back at the screen, where the young man he felt might be the best quarterback in the country was marching his team up and down the field. "How will that ability translate to the National Football League?" He shook his head slowly. "Shoot."

This is the quarterback problem. There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired. So how do we know whom to choose in cases like that?

To a degree, this is just a talent problem. You can call it a “driver problem” in autosports: Who’d have guessed that Sam Hornish would not make a splash in NASCAR? Or Dario Franchitti? And that’s after accomplishment in another league; what of the dirt track, carting, and midget drivers out there who’ve never even taken a shot at the upper crusts of racing either in Indycar, NASCAR, or any other league (F1, ALMS, etc.)? I’m certain there are some guys out there that today’s top league drivers get misty eyed in remembrance of, but would those “left behind” fellows truly make the ranks of the top competitors? Or would they end up being a Steve Kinser: A dominator on the sprint car World of Outlaws circuit who even showed he could race with the big boys in IROC, but who’s unfortunately considered a flameout in both Indycar and NASCAR?

Sometimes, you just can’t tell.

There’s got to be a grain of truth in the notion of undiscovered talent. You can’t think that so many successful professionals would be inaccurate in identifying a player here, a driver there, who just didn’t end up having their stars align. But at the same time, you wonder in each cited case if it were truly a hidden gem of a prospect, or simply a case of nostalgic remembrance. It’s true that many of today’s top shelf drivers are there by luck. But it’s also possible that many of those remembrances Tony’s talking about are simply comparisons of prodigious past potential to those now pro drivers talent levels at the point they used to be at back when they, too, were amateurs, and that today’s pros simply surpassed yesterday’s talents because their ceiling was higher. You simply can’t tell. It’s illogical to think that those guys are right about every one of those prodigies from the past.

But at the same time, they can’t be wrong about all of them. And it’s just the luck of life that those guys are there on dirt tracks, or maybe not even racing anymore, simply because their door never got the knock of opportunity like Jeff Gordon’s or Dario Franchitti’s did. And you wonder “What if?”. And rue the loss of potential because of the capriciousness of the sport. Sure, some of those might have been busts. But like the NFL teaches us, for every Ryan Leaf or Todd Marinovich, there’s a Peyton Manning or Tom Brady who makes the whole process of trying to identify those gems all worthwhile.

Is that so often the drivers who reach the top classes of racing get there not just with talent but because of the sponsorship money they can bring with their name. IndyCar was so married to this system that many of the more talented drivers began flocking to NASCAR and personally I feel played a large if not widely covered part of the IRL-CART split. It’s ironic because NASCAR has began using this model now and picking drivers based on their marketability and what sponsors they can bring. It will be interesting if many of the talented young drivers begin turning to IndyCar or other classes because of this.

It happens in other sports as well. The only difference is the ladder in other sports is much clearer. But getting your chance to climb it is the crap shoot.