Do you know who Roman Šebrle is? Probably not. Do you know who Usain Bolt is? Probably so.
Roman Šebrle is considered one of the best decathletes of all time. He holds the record for most points ever scored in a decathlon at 9,026 points. These points mean nothing if you don't understand the point system so I'll try to explain as best as I can without going overboard. Decathlons are scored using a set of formulas. One is for track events and the other is for jumping and throwing events. Basically, the better the result the more points one gets. For example, Usain Bolt would have received 1,202 points for his world record 100m time of 9.58 seconds. The best ever decathlon 100m time stands at 10.22 seconds and received 1,042 points. Difference between the two being 161 points. So after ten events, the scores are added and the one with the most points wins. Simple.
Like I mentioned earlier, Roman Šebrle holds the record of points gained with 9,026 points. So for a decathlete, this is the gold standard: get over 9,000 points. However, if you take the world record results of each event that make up the decathlon (so picking the best results of all time, ex. Usian Bolt's 100m time and Michael Johnson's 400m time) and add up all those points for the 10 events that make up a decathlon, it would add up to 12,544 points. That is a difference of 3,518 points compared to Roman Šebrle's record! Even if you take the best performances by individual decathletes for each event and add up all those points, it totals to 10,485. Still a difference of 2,059. So what I'm trying to get to is that even the best of the best decathletes cannot keep up with athletes who specialize in one or two events. The best ever decathlon 100m time would not have even gotten the athlete out of the 2nd round of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
But me? I love these decathletes. They're not a sexy athlete and are typically overlooked even though they are given the title of "World's Greatest Athlete". Don't expect Usain Bolt to be hanging out with Bryan Clay (Winner of the 2008 Olympic decathlon) at a celebrity's after party. But I personally would rather be good at a handful of different things than be amazing at just one or two things. Jack of all trades and a master of none? Sign me up. Maybe I feel this way because I can't identify with anything that I'm really good at and I like to think that I'm decent at a lot of different things. I can fill in, fit in, and perform decently at whatever, but I always know there is going to be someone who can overtake me.
Perhaps it's easier to want to be just good enough at a lot of different things because it doesn't take the sacrifice and risk of putting it all on one skill. Just think about professional athletes. If a NBA player blows out his knee bad enough, there goes his entire career. So yeah, I'd say there is more risk in trying to master one skill. Maybe you need to be more gutsy to want to do something like that. But for me, it's not about guts or grit or whatever; it's just the life of a Subaru.
