This is from The Ringer article upthread. For context, Nicol is his mom, Eric his dad. This part really jumped out at me:
"Then, as a freshman, he broke his right wrist. The stretch of time forced Mobley to slow down and confront what was in front of him. “It was an opportunity for him to take the challenge to say, ‘OK, what else can you do in this moment?’” Nicol says. “His intake of information, it’s just high and fast. So you have to keep him busy, keep his mind occupied, because he’s a thinker and he’s always processing.” Knowing he also loved a challenge, Nicol, an elementary school teacher, told Evan about kids she knew who could write with both of their hands. He soon became ambidextrous.
I’m a very mental person. I feel like if you can master your mind, you can master your body,” Mobley says. “It’s perspective. A lot of people think things are harder than what it actually is. I mean, a lot of things are easy.”
Mobley could be referencing any dozen of the incredibly difficult on-court responsibilities he pulls off without breaking a sweat, but his specific example here is … something else. “Last year, I picked up bowling and then started being super good at that. I saw some of my teammates that were good at it,” he says. “Once I see how easy it is for someone else, I’m like, ‘Why can’t I?’ That’s what I think.”
His list of random skills could fill a talent show’s playbill. Most are acquired from YouTube tutorials. He can juggle and do yo-yo tricks. Recently, Mobley wanted to crack the Rubik’s Cube. It took him a few days to figure out how. “Now I can do it in probably, like, a minute,” he says. As a child, Mobley trained himself to play Beethoven on a baby grand piano.
"I don’t want to say he’s weird. He just has superpowers, so to speak,” Eric laughs. “What I mean by that is, like, everything is self-taught....
What makes Mobley so special is between his ears.
