Handling Success as Important as Handling Failure

Over the weekend, several NFL television commentators discussed the issue of parity in the league.  As a result of a topsy turvy first 3 weeks of the 2013 season, these experts felt that many teams, coaches and players were not preparing themselves adequately from week to week.  The number of upsets by underdogs was considered as evidence of a lack of focus on the part of the favorites, not just the parity between teams. Their take on it was that many teams were having a difficult time dealing with early season success. Complacency and arrogance were likely to derail the most talented teams. according to the commentators. Early season success was followed by thoughts that all these teams had to do was show up against weaker opponents to take home the win.  It was pointed out that every NFL team can be beaten by every other NFL team on any given Sunday. Taking a team lightly is risky for any team at this point in the season.  

It is easy to see how early season losses can be demoralizing or, perhaps, help re-orient a team; however, on the surface, it is more difficult to see how winning can derail or stop momentum and distract a team as well.

My experience is that many elite athletes and teams have as much or more difficulty bouncing back from a win as they do bouncing back from a defeat.  Both wins and losses are risky in that they each require athletes to refocus equally after a game or any competition, regardless of the outcome.

Some athletes are more likely to understand that they can learn more from a loss than any win than others. Too often, complacency can occur when players feel post-game satisfaction but do not feel motivated to seek to improve on a win.  A defeat is often able to get our attention much more effectively than winning is able to do.  However, it is important to learn from success as well as failure.

Emotional resilience (which I have written about a great deal in recent blog posts) is typically associated with the adversity of defeat.  For mental conditioning to be optimally effective, we must consider true emotional resilience to also include how to deal with success.  How to sustain focus in the wake or success is more difficult that we typically think.  Complacency after a win is as commonplace as demoralization after a loss.  

Next time you feel the exhilaration of success; celebrate, enjoy, relax, and then, get back to work, analyze, debrief, learn and focus on the next challenge.

Mental Conditioning: Teaching Resilience and Recovery

The common notion is that sports psychology and mental conditioning are about developing athletes' mental toughness and designing the perfect athlete.

Practically speaking, my experience with the most effective techniques in working with athletes involves the development of the proper mindset for success.  For an athlete to develop total mental toughness, he/she must be able to deal with adversity effectively.  This ability is less about striving for perfection and more about developing emotional resilience.  This coping skill includes the ability to use mistakes, failures and losses as learning opportunities and moments for improvement and growth.  This is particularly true of the activities involved in the training and development of young athletes.  

The ability to learn from setbacks and recover from failure is a key component of a champions' mindset.   To understand this aspect of mental conditioning, one must understand the key difference between practice and competition.  During practice as well as game situations, athletes must be able to bounce back quickly; however, during practice, athletes must be encouraged and be willing to be more vulnerable to mistakes and failures as various drills and rehearsals are attempted.   Practice is the time to get out of one's comfort zone.   Practice is the time for learning.  Games are the time to perform.

Practice is a time for expectations to be about rehearsal, refinement and adjustments.  Game situations and competition should be about execution.  Too often, coaches as well as athletes maintain the same expectations for games as they do for practices.  This can create much confusion and anxiety in both coaches and athletes.

Coaches must take the time to understand the difference in situations and take into account when they are developing and shaping performance versus when they are in execution mode.

Are you always clear about the distinction between training goals and performance goals?      

Resilience: Embracing the Past, Anticipating the Future, Enjoying the Moment

After watching the first playoff game of the NBA Western Conference semifinals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors, I began thinking of the significance of this series.  It was an extremely exciting game that included a career-defining performance by the Warriors' Steph Curry, a characteristically masterful and successful comeback by the San Antonio Spurs, and game-winning shot by Manu Ginobili.  The Spurs relied on their championship pedigree to maintain home-court advantage if only for the moment.  Some have said that it has been the game of this years' playoffs.    

However, what was more striking were the many similarities and only subtle contrast in playing styles of the two teams and individual stars, the personalities and philosophies of the teams and organizations. This comparison has led me to share with you an interesting snapshot of the NBA at this moment in time and, perhaps, what has contributed to my appreciation of the sport.  

The San Antonio Spurs continue to remain at the top of NBA franchises in winning tradition, success, results, and longevity.  During their long-time competitiveness, they have evolved from a tough-nosed defensive-minded team to a more well-rounded team with a more balanced approach. This approach has incorporated a speedier, smaller, more European style of play that not only incorporated that style but intelligently scouted and drafted European players to execute for them. As other franchises experience ups-and-down over the years, the Spurs consistently compete, excel and win as the times change.

By contrast, without the same tradition of winning as the Spurs, the Golden State Warriors have been become a media and fan darling this season as Steph Curry has emerged as a fearless shooter who has unlimited range and uncanny accuracy, releasing quick jump shots from distances that past players have only tried in desperate, buzzer-beating situations.

The Warriors play an up-tempo, quick-passing, quick-shooting style also mimicking the Europeans.  Unlike the Spurs mix of veterans and young players, most of the regulars on the Warriors team are quite young and inexperienced.  The Bay area fans of the Warriors seem more like a crowd one might see at a international soccer match, loud and on the verge of coming unglued after every Warrior basket or opponent mistake.  Though the Spurs fans have always been loud and enthusiastic, the Warriors fans have taken it to another level.  

What I see is the evolution of the NBA in microcosm.  Though the Spurs may or may not win this series, I can see the future of the NBA in the Warriors.  The Warriors, perhaps by design, have taken the Spurs approach one step farther than the Spurs.  While not quite equaling the discipline, structure, flow and consistency of the Spurs, the Warriors have begun to use more of the court and increase the overall range that the offense can comfortably utilize use to run, pass and shoot.  The youth, athleticism, and vision of the Warriors, modeled and led by Curry, allows for that increase. It appears more haphazard, spontaneous and chaotic than the Spurs, but that is what evolution looks like, at first.    

This process of evolution has also increased the possibilities, potential and long-range resilience of the teams in the NBA. The downside is that is has also increased the risk as more individuals playing in this environment are being felled by crippling injuries.  This is also a part of the evolution of the sport and the league.

This series could be a long, highly entertaining, competitive, contested, back-and-forth affair, with highs and lows for both teams.  The winner will be the team that can be more resilient.  The winner will be the team that can:

1.  Embrace the past and understand where they and other teams have learned from champions and where they have come from.
2.  Display flexibility and be able to adapt to what their opponents are doing, the fans are reacting to, fatigue, injury, etc.
3.  Anticipate the future and be at least a step or two ahead of their opponent.
4.  Enjoy the moment by effectively dealing with the pressure and stress of the demands and expectations of a championship playoff series.

Prediction:  Spurs in 7 games.

Texas Longhorn QB Colt McCoy Finally Learns to Relax

In his last home game, Colt McCoy, the University of Texas Longhorns' quarterback, burned the Kansas Jayhawks for 396 yards and four touchdowns. He connected on 32 of 41 passes, one incompletion short of 80 percent.

In that game, McCoy set a record by winning more college football games than any other quarterback in the history of the sport. He has completed a higher percentage of passes in one season (76.7, in 2008) than any other quarterback in the history of the sport.

The 6-foot-3, 214 pound McCoy, from Tuscola, Texas, has led the No. 3 Longhorns to an 11-0 record and the Big 12 South championship. He is 3-0 as a bowl starter. He is 3-1 against Oklahoma.

Until recently, however, McCoy never satisfied; and driving himself crazy.

"You come back for your senior year after a good year," McCoy said. "You have the opportunity to go to the NFL. You win a bunch of awards. You almost win the Heisman. All those things you accomplish, and you come back as a senior, and you have to do this and do that and play perfect."

Offensive coordinator Greg Davis has preached for five seasons, that McCoy could be a better quarterback and leader by relaxing.

McCoy not only set that completion percentage record last season but also led the Longhorns to a 12-1 record and a No. 4 finish in the final poll.

"I called him in January," Davis said. "I said, 'Look, you just completed 77 percent of your passes for the season. I just completed 36 years of coaching. I've never had a guy do that.

"'Now, let me go a step further. Nobody who has ever coached quarterbacks has had a guy do that. So to think you're just going to walk back out here next year and it's going to go to 80 is unrealistic.'"

But, McCoy entered the 2009 season trying to be perfect, do everything right, but ended up playing too cautiously. The team continued to win, but wasn't playing well, and most certainly wasn't having fun. The entire team was tight and underperforming.

"I was playing good and giving my team its best chance to win," McCoy said, "but at the same time it was not fun. I was beating myself up. I kept digging myself deeper and deeper in a hole that I couldn't get out of."

"You put so much pressure on yourself and expectations on yourself to be the best, to complete all your passes and throw three or four touchdowns and throw for 300 yards," McCoy said. "When you don't, and you decided to come back for your senior year and come back and have an up-and-down year and you don't do all that, it hurts you mentally. You end up not having fun. You stress out all week. You think, 'I'll do better next week.'"

"It's easy to say, 'I'm going to get out of it,'" McCoy said. "But to get out of it, physically and mentally and completely, was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

"I wasn't losing it on anybody else but myself," he said. "I wasn't being myself around the facility, around my teammates. I was most pissed off at myself. When you're a quarterback, a leader, you've been here for four years, you can't do that. That's something I know. I wasn't trying to act that way. I was in a hole. I was concerned."

Nevertheless, Texas kept winning. The Longhorns went into Dallas to play Oklahoma with a 5-0 record.

"I could have been so much better," McCoy said. "I could have been such a better leader and teammate. … I was frustrated and trying to figure out what was wrong with me instead of helping the young receivers, staying after practice, making sure they knew where I want them to be."

McCoy had his worst statistical game of the season against OU. He completed 21 of 39 passes for only 127 yards. He lost two fumbles, one at the Oklahoma goal line. With Texas trying to extend a 16-13 lead, he threw an interception to Sooners cornerback Brian Jackson at the Oklahoma 9. McCoy chased Jackson down and made the tackle.

That might have been the play that saved McCoy's season. After Davis broke down the video of the game, he called McCoy into his office.

"I said, 'Of all the records you've broken, of all the things you've done, I'm probably more proud of you for this ballgame than I am for any ballgame,'" Davis said.

"He said, 'Why?'

"I said, 'Just because of the way you competed and the way you put the team first. You throw the interception, and a lot of guys would have been over there kicking the dirt. And you went and made the tackle. We ended up getting the ball back. You competed for 60 minutes against a quality defensive football team, and because of that, we won the game.'"

"The week after Oklahoma, I let myself go," McCoy said. "Forget about everything. I walked up to Coach [Mack] Brown and Coach Davis and said, 'As far as I'm concerned, we're 0-0. This is going to be my first game. I'm starting over completely.'

"I've been so much better since," McCoy said. "I can feel my teammates following me, responding to me, and I'm feeling confident."

In the past five games, McCoy completed 77 percent of his passes for 1,487 yards and 12 touchdowns and threw only two interceptions. Again, aainst Kansas on Saturday night, McCoy threw for 396 yards and four touchdowns.

So, what happened?

"He relaxed," Davis said.

Excerpts from ESPN.com, November 23, 2009.

For more on peak performance and mental conditioning, click on The Handbook of Peak Performance.