Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight has had a sign in his team’s locker room since he began coaching at Army in the 1960’s and that sign is still present in his Texas Tech locker room in 2007. It simply reads: Victory Favors the Team That Makes the Fewest Mistakes.
You won't hear any disparaging remarks coming from me when the subject of Coach Knight is brought up. What I’ve learned from Knight about not only basketball and competition, but about character and integrity, I could talk about for hours. But as a coach and player, there are no words in my opinion, that say more about being able to compete in any team sport, better than these nine words.
A few years back, I read a comprehensive study on the effects of positive reinforcement in the educational system, and how this approach ultimately was found essentially to be a failure. Our society has become one where children, and young men and women, are brought up to “feel good” about themselves. We were told we needed to build their self-esteem, to nurture and promote individual expression. All the while, demand, discipline, correction, and accountability were being replaced with choice, intemperance, defiance, and justification. And this has extended into the sports world as well.
From grade school on into high school, you often here an abundance of “Good job”, “Nice try”, and “That’s okay”, at the expense of “You can do better”, “That’s not good enough”, and “Your effort is poor”. Consequently, too many young athletes of today don’t develop the necessary tools in handling adversity or how to take and use criticism to better themselves in their selected sports. Instead, when adversity or confrontation does appear, they will tend to feel personally attacked or they become unable to thrive when they find themselves in a difficult situation. A vast perspective and philosophy among many parents and coaches today goes something like this: “Okay, Billy, you’ve missed on twelve shot attempts, but when you see that next one, don’t hesitate, you go ahead and shoot it.” I’ve personally always preferred this approach: “Now Billy, you’ve taken two bad shots already. If you take one more, I’m going to strangle you first, and then I’m going to bench you.”
Mental vs. Physical Mistakes
In team sports, less talented teams are able to compete with better skilled opponents by one reason more than any other: eliminating mistakes. A prime example of this is the New England Patriots first Super Bowl victory over the Los Angeles Rams in 2002. In just about every statistical category, the Rams shelled the Patriots. But the highly favored Rams committed three costly turnovers while the Pats committed none. A deliberate and mistake-free game by the Patriots proved that talent alone doesn’t decide wins and losses. Mental discipline, smart play, and execution does.
Lacrosse is not a game of great plays or great acrobatic moves. It’s a game of mistakes and errors. The team that makes the most mistakes will invariably be the team that gets beat—almost without exception. No team, in any sport, will ever play a perfect, mistake-free game. But minimizing mistakes will always allow a less talented team a chance to beat a more talented team.
In general terms, there are two types of mistakes in lacrosse and any other sport: physical mistakes and mental mistakes. Taking an open shot at the cage and missing is a physical mistake. Taking a shot from 15 yards out instead of passing to an open teammate five yards away from the goal is a mental mistake. The former will happen from time to time. Skill can be a variable from moment to moment, player to player, game to game. This happens to even the best of players from time to time. Even Michael Jordan had a few nights when he couldn’t hit the ocean from a boat. The latter is unacceptable, however, and should be looked upon as so. A mental mistake has absolutely nothing to do with physical skill. It has everything to do with playing smart, playing within your capabilities, and playing unselfishly.
Lacrosse skill, like in many other sports, can be improved upon. However, a plateau is usually reached at some point in a player’s career, and then any improvement in individual play depends mostly on the mental part of that player’s game. The mental part of sport never plateaus, thus improvement in play is always possible. This component is what separates the very best players from the rest--those that excel at using both their physical and their mental skill. It is also where players and teams can compete against a more talented opponent, one who relies solely or mostly on athletic talent.
The Mental Side of Sport
One doesn’t have to look much further than the great state of Massachusetts to see this point proven. Most would never consider Tom Brady, Larry Bird, or even Ted Williams athletic phenoms. But nobody would argue that all three are among the all time best at their sports. None possessed the speed or size or natural talent that many other players did, but each one willed himself to compensate for his deficiencies by outsmarting the opposition. Each one excelled with what I consider essential components within the mental side of sport: Concentration, anticipation, and recognition (CAR).
There’s nobody better than Brady at maintaining concentration during a long drive, or from becoming frazzled in a hurry-up offense. Bird’s anticipation of passes, cuts, and rebounding position was second to no one. Williams’ recognition of pitches and what was being thrown to him allowed him to almost never swing at a bad pitch. All three, with their fully-fueled CAR, helped drive their respective teams toward that all-important end all: execution (CARE). Moreover, the best players, like these three, are not the ones who just only put up big numbers, but are those who also have the capability to make all the other players around them better. That is where the mental game can make a player better, or no better at all.
Evaluating Your Play
Too often, lacrosse players rate their own game performance based on what they did: “I scored three goals”… “I made 15 saves”… “I had three takeaways”. Instead, in order not only to improve your game, but to improve your understanding of the game, I believe rating how well you played is most indicative by what you didn’t do: “I didn’t get stripped” … “I didn’t force a bad pass” … “I didn’t get beat on defense”… “I didn’t take a bad shot”.
Focusing and evaluating yourself on what you did during a game (scoring three goals) won’t help you improve as a player. Focusing on the mistakes and bad decisions you made (taking a bad shot) will improve your game. But this improvement will only come if you’re willing to improve that mental part of your game; if you’re willing and able to understand and recognize what mental errors are, and try hard to minimize them.
Better Team Play
Like Brady, or Bird, or Williams, they understood the demands and rewards of cerebral play and how it helped them become great players, and consequently, great teammates. Too many selfish and sensitive players of today have been influenced way too much by the positive reinforcement of parents, coaches, teachers, and society, who have all been telling them how wonderful they are without the slightest of demands or expectations placed upon them. These are the types of players who struggle at improving their game, and who struggle within team play. They are resistant to what’s uncomfortable or difficult to handle, whether it be criticism of their play, adapting to a change in method or philosophy, or the understanding that what’s best for the team is what dictates how they should play, not the other way around.
Victory does indeed favor the team making the fewest mistakes. Just ask the 2002 New England Patriots (and the 2004 & 2005 teams).
No comments:
Post a Comment