And the greatest athletes have had faster forty yard dashes and reaction times than the average person. If you are better than an average pro athlete in these metrics, is that enough to make you Michael Jordan or Tom Brady? I think not. To wit:

The highest IQ holder now is great at word puzzles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant

The greatest of all time, what did he do?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_sidis

But Steve Hawking doesn't like the idea much: http://www.extremeintellect.com/ei2007/geniuses/hawking/hawk...

Just saying, it is a factor, but I don't think it's the end all and be all.

High IQ is necessary but not sufficient in certain areas such as math and science. Of course you need to put in the effort to succeed.

Agreed, I just think the the effort portion is deemphasized far too often.

Citation?