Nature versus nurture: hockey edition

From Yahoo!, 9-year-old Oliver Wahlstrom:



According to this bio, Oliver's father Joakim (pictured below) was a pro hockey player for seven years in his native Sweden. If they ever make a movie about this guy, Stellan Skarsgård could play him if he beefed up for the role.

Nature Versus Nurture

Hat tip to J.K. for these two items.

First, this article on Barry James Sanders, 14 year old star high school running back and son of NFL Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders. Excerpt:

"There are a lot of similarities especially in the way they cut," [BJS's High School Football Coach Andy] Bogert said. "Some of the plays - you could probably superimpose them running together, and they'd look really similar."

Those similarities are inherited rather than learned.

Barry Sanders says he has focused on being a father instead of a coach to his son. He views Sanders hanging out with good peers and continuing to avoid negative influences as a far more important goal.

"I can't think of anything I've given him advice on as far as (playing) ball," Sanders said.

"There's going to be a lot of advice he's going to need, and probably the thing that he'll need the least help with will be football.

Here's a clip of Barry James Sanders breaking one the way his Dad used to:



Next we have this article on Moshe Kai Cavalin, an 11 year old who just graduated college with a degree in astrophysics. Are his smarts inherited, as the author of the previous article writes Barry James Sanders's running back skills are? Young Moshe (pictured below) demurs:

"I don't consider myself a genius because there are 6.5 billion people in this world and each one is smart in his or her own way," Cavalin told Wood TV.

[...]

Cavalin's parents avoid calling their son a genius. They say he's just an average kid who enjoys studying as much as he likes playing soccer, watching Jackie Chan movies, and collecting toy cars and baseball caps with tiger emblems on them. He was born during the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac.

Cavalin has a general idea what his IQ is, but doesn't like to discuss it. He says other students can achieve his success if they study hard and stay focused on their work.

As J.K. facetiously noted in the comment thread of a previous post, both boys clearly have a lot of grit.