I don’t know, I’m not sure how good his performance would have been since he had already been dead for about 3 years at that point.

I agree with OP, and I think you may as well but are stating it differently. Hardships and difficulty so indeed provide the opportunities to better oneself, but that shouldn’t come from contrived abuse like bullying or hazing. Those are instances of someone using their previous difficulty as an excuse to make it harder for someone else which I don’t believe is morally correct.