It pays to be scrappy!

"In January of 1971, the Fordham University Rams played a basketball game against the University of Massachusetts Redmen. The game was in Amherst, at the legendary arena known as the Cage, where the Redmen hadn’t lost since December of 1969. Their record was 11–1. The Redmen’s star was none other than Julius Erving—Dr. J. The UMass team was very, very good. Fordham, by contrast, was a team of scrappy kids from the Bronx and Brooklyn."

And guess who won? In last week's New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell takes a look at the ways in which underdogs - the scrappy teams - exploit conventions and win. I'm not a Gladwell fan, but this is a good read.