Kevin Durant a Myth?

This is the video of Kevin Durant, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA accepting his MVP award in the 2013-2014 season. This award is the most prestigious award in the NBA aside from the NBA title. Only a handful of people have ever won this award throughout the history of the game. During his acceptance speech, Durant uses one of Larson'y myths to create an effective consequence. The myth he creates is that of "Wisdom of the Rustic" which implies that Americans value humble beginnings, and that difficulty teaches".

In this video Durant begins talking about how people doubted him and that no one believed in him, which he said from an early age created much difficulty for him to succeed. He talks about all the long days he spent at the park playing pick up games against older people and people that were bigger then him. All because he was trying to get better at basketball with the tools that he had available to him at the time. In the next portion of the video he talks about how it was just him and his mom. He didn't have a Dad that was there for him to support him. His mom had to work two jobs, day and night in order to provide for the family. The family never had any money and they were always in need.  Durant talks about how his humble beginnings taught him appreciation for the value of money, the appreciation of his mom, and the appreciation of hard work. He said that he saw how hard his mom had to work for him and that it inspired him to be a better person and a harder worker.
Durant talks a lot in the speech about how not having certain things, and having to adjust to being poor or his mom being a single parent, made him work harder, it made him want to be better and to have a more successful life for him and his family.

In the video, Durant uses the myth many times throughout the speech suggesting that because of his humble beginning, he is the man he is today. Whether on purpose or not, he is making it out to be that for him, that was the only way he was going to turn out this way, and I guess that is where the myth arises. Do Americans really value a humble beginning and think that difficulty can be a good teacher? In Durant's case he obviously does think that and he does a good job of portraying this myth as anything BUT a myth. For him, that was the way, for him, that's how he was able to turn out the way he did, and for him, that's why he is successful in the NBA now.

Durant uses his words in such a way that it appears he is persuading the audience to believe that because of the humble beginning, he turned out this way, which to me as I watched the video is trying to tell me that there is no other way to come about success. You have to have a humble beginning and you have to have to face much difficulty and much adversity in order to succeed. However, there are many people in the world, and since we are speaking specifically about Kevin Durant in the NBA, there are many NBA players that came from money from the beginning, they were able to go to all the camps, all the clinics, get all the professional help they needed,  and many of them would argue they turned out just as successful and hardworking as Durant did.

What Durant is saying is that for him personally, he buys into this myth. He believes that because of the difficulty he faced growing up, the poverty, the one parent home, the lack of money, all of those things made him who he is today. If you were to take a man like Christian Laetner, who was born wealthy, went to Duke university, had everything given to him according to many people, he would likely say that it is just as Larson suggests, a myth. He came from money, went to the nice school, was an NBA superstar, and though he may of had his own difficulties growing up, he definitely wasn't poor, he had two parents, and lived a very privileged life, yet he would still consider himself hard working and successful. So really, it all comes down to how you were brought up, to some people it is obviously a myth, for others like Kevin Durant, its the myth that made them who they are today.