THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

Near the small town of Grottoes, Virginia, a narrow dirt road goes from the house of Stephen Curry's grandfather to the woods nearby. A far cry from the bright lights and shiny courts of the National Basketball Association (NBA),   it was along this road that Stephen's grandfather built a simple basket by attaching a piece of plastic to a telephone pole.

Like his father, basketball star Dell Curry, Stephen spent many childhood hours playing on this muddy basketball court. He probably didn't realise it at the time, but it was where he learnt to be creative and flexible as a player. You see, with every shot, the weak plastic backboard gave way. The bumps and rocks that lined the road under the basket caused the ball to bounce in all directions. Knowing where the ball would go wasn't easy. He had to adjust his own playing style as a result. Shooting with great accuracy was another thing he learnt. Only shots perfectly aimed at its centre went into the heavy, thick basket. In this way, practising day in and day out helped Stephen sharpen his skills.

Despite his father's successful career, Stephen was thought by many people, including his high school teammates and coaches, to be too short, too thin and too weak to follow in his father's footsteps.   But Stephen carried on. Playing basketball was his dream. He would not give up. He finally ended up playing college ball at a small, little­known school, Davidson College, not too far from where he lived. His creativity and perseverance made him Davidson's star player.

Selected for the NBA in 2009, Stephen joined the Golden State Warriors. He performed beyond everyone's expectations with his accurate shooting and continuous efforts. In 2015, Stephen won his first NBA championship, and he led the Warriors to their first championship since 1975.

After receiving the Most Valuable Player award for two years in a row, Stephen explained his philosophy, “I never really set out to change the game... What I wanted to do was just be myself... I know it inspires a lot of the next generation, a lot of people who love the game of basketball to value the skill of it, value the fact that you can work every single day to get better. You've got to be able to put in the time and the work. That's how I got here. That's how I continue to get better every single day. ” Inspiring others to believe in themselves, Stephen Curry is living proof that what other people think of you does not have to influence what you become. Through self­belief, hard work, perseverance and some help from an old hoop, he has shown that anything is possible.

LIVING LEGENDS

Help us choose some “Living Legends of Sports”. They must be athletes who are masters in their sports and also set good examples for others. Here are our first two choices.

As a player, Lang Ping brought honour and glory to her country. As a coach, she led the China women’s volleyball team to medals at world championships and the Olympics. As a person, Lang Ping is loved by fans at home and abroad. When the Chinese team was preparing for the 2015 World Cup, her determination was tested. The team that Lang Ping had built was falling apart. One of the best players had been injured, and the team captain had to leave because of heart problems. Losing two important players was a big challenge, but Lang Ping did not lose heart. She had faced difficulties before, and she knew that her young players could win if they worked together as a team. Two weeks later, they were world champions! Then in 2016, Lang Ping led her volleyball team to Olympic gold in Brazil.

When Michael Jordan’s feet left the ground, time seemed to stand still. The player who became known as “Air Jordan” changed basketball with his graceful moves and jumps. Jordan’s skills were impressive, but the mental strength that he showed made him unique. In the final seconds of a game, Jordan always seemed to find a way to win. Jordan says that the secret to his success is learning from his failures. “I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” Losing games taught him to practise harder and never give up. In life, Jordan has learnt to share his success with others. The Boys and Girls Club which he started in Chicago has been helping young people since 1996.

Send your suggestions for “Living Legends of Sports” to LLS@sports.net.

9 . Growing up in Joilet, Illinois, in the 1930s, George Mikan often felt everyone was staring at him. Tall and awkward (笨拙的), with thick glasses, he tried to hide by lowering himself when walking and sitting. But someday, everyone would know his name, The Tall Kid. By age 16, Mikan made the high school basketball team. Now 6 feet 8 inches tall and broad-shouldered, his specialty was guarding the basket and blocking shots.

At 6 feet 10 in a sport then dominated(主导) by much smaller men, George Mikan was the model for the dominating tall players of later decades. Towering over most of his competitors, he was one of the most effective scorers of his day, averaging 22.6 points over a professional career that lasted nine seasons. How dominant was Mikan? In his nine seasons, his teams won seven titles and in 1950 he was selected the greatest player of the half-century.

One of the legendary stories about Mikan concerns a game played on Dec. 13, 1949, between the Lakers and the New York Knicks. The grand screen over Madison Square Garden read: “Geo. Mikan vs. Knicks”. When Mikan walked into the locker room before the game, he found his teammates sitting around in their street clothes. One of them greeted Mikan by saying, “They’re advertising you're playing against the Knicks, so go play them. We’ll wait here.”

Mikan was so dominant that the NBA made two big rule changes during his career. They tried to make it more difficult for him to score by expanding the width of the key from 6 feet to 12 feet and they started the 24-second clock after a game in 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons decided that the only way they could win was to hold onto the ball and not let the Lakers have it. They ended up winning, 19-18, in the lowest-scoring game in NBA history.

Mikan was in the first class elected to the basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. “Frankly, without George Mikan, the Los Angeles Lakers would not be the organisation we are today,” Lakers owner Jerry Buss said. Magic Johnson also paid tribute to Mikan: “He started the championships. You’ve got to start with Mikan first before you name any Laker. He paved the way for all of us who came after him.”

10 . He is a lesson to every boy who ever picked up a basketball and dreamed that it would change his life.

The lights were never brighter and the crowds were never bigger for a home-grown sports hero than they were a quarter-century ago for Ray Hall. But his athletic achievements, as impressive as they are, are to my mind not what is most admirable about the man. Known as “Sugar Ray” in his teens, Hall was rated among the country’s top 25 high school basketball players. An inner-city kid from a solid family, Hall took on the challenge of lifting Canisius College—still recovering from its failure—back to respectability, rejecting more favourable offers. His status brought more pressure than any 18-year-old should have to handle. However, I watched him mature into the player who led Canisius back to daylight.

After college Hall played professionally in Italy and Greece for over 10 years until a car accident at 32 ended his basketball career. The news that he would never play again shocked Hall but unlike so many others he was ready for life after basketball. When I met Hall—still fit at 46—for lunch Monday, he wore a cut-sharp gray suit, designer tie and blazing white shirt that screamed Success. “That was always the question—when the cheers end, where do you go? Who do you turn to?” he said. “It starts and ends with that person in the mirror.”

Hall got the concept of academics—first from his parents. He graduated from Canisius a semester early. “No matter how good an athlete you are, you are just one injury away from losing it all,” he said. “But if you take care of things academically, you are prepared until you leave this Earth.”

For the past 14 years, he has been in a computer sales job at Ingram Micro. He married his college sweetheart. They have three kids and a nice house in the suburbs. He figured out early what others learn too late: Athletics is part of a journey, not the destination. Congratulations, Ray, you made it. In more ways than one.