The real Super Bowl lesson wasn’t about revenge - The Boston Globe

The real Super Bowl lesson wasn’t about revenge - The Boston Globe

This article nicely captures my feelings about the New England Patriots' incredible come-from-behind win over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI. As a Pats fan it was sweet to have them win despite Brady's suspension for the first four games of the season due to allegations that the Pats lowered the pressure in their footballs.

But the satisfaction of getting this win (with properly inflated balls) pales to the spectacle of watching the Patriots methodically, relentlessly and calmly chipping away at the Falcons' lead. Meanwhile the Atlanta team could have easily added a field goal to put the game even further out of reach but succumbed to some head-scratching decisions. There easily were half a dozen or more plays that would have thwarted the Pats' comeback if any one of them had not worked in the Pats favor. 

It seems that everything is politicized these days. We know that Robert Kraft (the team owner), Bill Belichick (head coach) and Tom Brady (quarterback) are Trump supporters. We know that some of the players have said they will not attend the team meeting at the White House for political reasons. Yet it's great to see that both sides could set aside these differences (at least publicly) to work toward a common goal.

It was as if everything our parents, our teachers, our coaches had tried to teach us transpired in the last 18 minutes of this magnificent spectacle, this Super Bowl. In the end, it wasn’t about revenge. It was about not giving up, about perseverance, about not panicking, about having a backup plan if the original plan isn’t working, about believing in yourself and your ability and in one another.

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The roots of the comeback were embedded in another of our parents’ mantras: that you lay the groundwork for success in ways you often can’t see, simply by persevering. Even after they had fallen behind by so much, the Patriots were controlling possession and running the Falcons defense ragged. In the fourth quarter, and especially during the winning drive in overtime, the Atlanta defenders were gassed, exhausted. 

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So many of us had assumed that Tom Brady wanted to win this game so he could rub it in Goodell’s face. But it turns out he really wanted to win the game to put a smile on his mother’s face. There’s something much stronger, sweeter, and more satisfying than revenge. It’s called love.

Mia Hamm Interview

I found this interview with Mia Hamm to be interesting. I like her comment (quoting a coach) that parents should be parents. "As a parent myself, I can pay other people to do their job in terms of coaching my kids. I don’t want anyone but me and my husband to be their parents."

Do Sports Build Character or Express It? Yes!

I’m sure this isn’t an original thought but it is something I’ve concluded based on my ten years of experience coaching soccer. The common saying is that sports build character. I’m sure at young ages when kids first get involved this is true. They’re being taught the importance of teamwork, doing your best regardless of the circumstances, respect for teammates, coaches, your opponents, officials and yourself and the discipline needed to get good at anything.

Having coached kids from 10 to 18 years old I’ve concluded that participation in sports for older ages is an opportunity to express one’s character, to show what one is made of. I’m sure the coach can still exert some influence on older kids but I think these kids are fairly set in their basic principles and beliefs by the time they enter the later teenage years.

Talent is Overrated Review

I posted this on my Flourishing blog but the ideas also apply to coaching youth sports.

Most of believe some people “have it” and some people don’t. What the people “have” is talent. Gobs and gobs of talent that allows them to be world class level competitors. People like Tiger Woods or Alex Rodriquez. CEOs like GE’s Jack Welch. Many of us believe that these people come into this world equipped with talent that allows them to beat the competition and that we who don’t have it will never be able to reach these lofty heights of achievement.

Geoff Colvin disputes this in Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else . He claims that the top performers in sports, business, the arts and other areas share something in common: the use of “deliberate practice.”

- The gifts possessed by the best performers are not at all what we think they are.
- Even the general abilities … are not what we think.
- The factor that seems to explain the most about great performance is something the researchers call deliberate practice.
- Most organizations are terrible at applying the principles of great performance.

What is deliberate practice? The elements are, as Colvin explains.

It is actively designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help. Identify elements that need to be improved then work intently on them. It can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally; … and it isn’t much fun. … We insistently seek out what we’re not good at. Then we identify the painful, difficult activities that will make us better and do those things over and over.

Speaking personally, I heard about the concept of deliberate practice in my research on soccer coaching in which I stumbled upon an article on the subject. I applied the concept to tennis, my sport of choice. By working diligently on my weaknesses (primarily the serve) I have been able to transform my serve from a liability into a weapon.

Colvin also addresses another misconception. We’ve heard many times that we with repetition we’ll get to the point where we don’t have to think what we’re doing. While it is true we can automatize complicated movements to the point where we no longer have to consciously guiding these movements. In fact, we can thwart smooth performance by thinking too much. However Colvin shows that:

Great performers never allow themselves to reach the automatic, arrested development stage in their chose field. … Ultimately the performance is always conscious and controlled, not automatic.

In other words, top performers maintain a constant awareness of whether their actions are producing desired results. When these results don’t occur, they modify what they are doing to improve their results and use this input to refine the design of their deliberate practice.

In addition to being constantly aware of what they are doing, top performers perceive more. How?

- They understand the significance of indicators that average performers don’t even notice.
- They look further ahead.
- They know more from seeing less.
- They make finer discriminations than average performers.

And top performers “had more knowledge about their field.” They “have better organized and consolidated their knowledge, enabling them to approach problems in fundamentally different and more useful ways.”

In addition to explaining how top performers use deliberate practice to distance themselves from their competitors Colvin shows how we can use the same principles in our own lives.

They approach the job with more specific goals and strategies, since their previous experience was essentially a test of specific goals and strategies; and they’re more likely to believe in their own efficacy because their detailed analysis of their own performance is more effective than the vague, unfocused analysis of average performers. Thus their well-founded belief in their own effectiveness helps give them the crucial motivation to press on, powering a self-reinforcing cycle.

Finally, Colvin explores the role of two kinds of drive: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to his research creative people focus on the task (How can I solve this problem?) and not on themselves (What will solving this problem do for me?). This is an example of intrinsic motivation, being driven from within. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand depends on outside factors like rewards or penalties.

Does Colvin argue that extrinsic motivation plays no role? No.

Extrinsic motivators that reinforce intrinsic motivation could work quite
effectively. Like what? Recognition that confirms competence turned out to be effective. … ‘constructive, nonthreatening, and work-focused rather than person-focused,’ in Amabile’s words. That is, feedback that helped a person do what he or she felt compelled to do was effective.”

Feedback from coaches and teachers focused on the task and doing it better.

Lastly Colvin reveals that the majority of childhood prodigies don’t grow up to be top performers and that top performers are rarely child prodigies. This gives us hope for improving how we perform. “[B]y understanding how a few become great, anyone can become better.”

Getting it wrong on player development

I’ve coached youth soccer for about 10 years. Started out as an assistant for the town team that my twin daughters were on when they were younger. Eventually I started educating myself, read books, bought tapes and DVDs, watched games on Fox Soccer Channel, took the D, E and F licensing courses, watched other experienced coaches, and even played in a men’s pickup game for a couple of years until a severe leg injury ended my career. (I now referee to get my soccer fix.) Eventually I moved to coaching in a club with teams in the Mass Premier League (MAPLE) and Mass Soccer Conference (MASC). As the years have passed I realized that our youth soccer programs do things backwards. We appoint or accept parents who might have never touched a soccer ball in their life and let them coach kids at their formative years when they need a good foundation in technique. The higher licensed coaches whom I have met typically are working with older club teams when the kids are already past their formative years in terms of technique. Occasionally I’ve run into a town coach who played as a kid and/or has a license of some kind. I felt that the kids on those teams were lucky to benefit from this coach’s technical foundation. (Note: I recognize that having a license doesn’t automatically makes you a good coach. But it is an indicator of some commitment to coaching education. Many of the coaches I’ve met in the license course have good technique.)

From what I understand the structure of youth soccer in some states like Virginia is vertically integrated so that the town programs automatically feed into their premier programs. Here in Massachusetts the towns and clubs are mostly independent of each other. As a result some towns resent the clubs who they perceive are stealing kids from their programs. Therefore the towns do not actively promote moving on to club soccer. I’m not saying this phenomenon is true for all town programs. From visiting the web sites for many of the towns in the Boston Area Youth Soccer league (BAYS) I’ve noticed that some have a Director of Coaching, insist on minimum licenses for coaches, run clinics for the coaches, have ties to a local club or are involved in teaching technique to the younger age kids. Their teams seem to do better overall than towns that do not.