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The Cleveland Browns Myles Garrett has been suspended for swinging at Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph. Garrett maintains Rudolph used a racial slur in the final minutes of the game. But evidentially the powers who control disciplinary action in the NFL believe otherwise.
So who are you going to believe?
It reminds me of something I once read in a book by the late Israeli Child Psychologist Haim Ginott. According to Dr. Ginott, if you have two young children who get into a confrontation in their upstairs bedroom and you arrive to find out who started the problem so you can discipline the guilty child, when you ask who started the fight each blames the other. And so you have to find a way to come up with the truth. You hand each of them a blank sheet of paper with a pencil and tell them to write down exactly what happened. The one who is telling the truth will immediately vigorously begin writing his side of the story, while the one who is not telling the truth will almost always say: “That’s stupid. I’m not going to do that.” And throws the paper and pencil on the floor and stomps out of the room.
Ginott, by the way, never had children of his own, but did possess a great amount of insight and creativity.
Frank Robinson’s Death
Posted on: February 16, 2019
Frank Robinson’s passing reminded me of a time back in 1988 when he was in Kansas City and manager of Baltimore. His team was 0-20 and about to play the Royals. As a sport psychology consultant I called him and asked for a meeting. He agreed and when I walked into the room at Royals stadium where he was flanked by two of his assistant coaches, I explained my program to him and everything went well until I mentioned a part of the program where players were to hug each other and when I made that statement he held up his hand and said “Hold it. This meeting is over.” “Why?” I asked. And he replied “There’s no way in hell you’re gonna get Major League Baseball players to hug each other.” On my way home I thought about what I should have said: “Hey, what about Tommy Lasorda? He hugged everybody.” 😊 Soon after they won their first game of the season.
An increasing number of college baseball teams are delving into Analytcis when coaches want to know about “a pitcher’s velocity or spin of the ball out of his hand or a hitter’s exit velocity and launch angle off the bat.” It all sounds very good but what Analytics doesn’t do is look into an athlete’s personal life to find out if he (or she) is experiencing personal problems such as an anger issue or a bad relationship with his girlfriend (or boyfriend) or internal problems with a coach or a teammate. That’s why I believe it’s important that teams are transformed into support groups where they can get things off their chests which helps them feel better about themselves and increases their feelings of self-worth. Over the years I’ve found that when athletes are happy and their lives are in harmony they perform close to their skill levels on a consistent basis.
Beliefs Have Power.
Posted on: October 6, 2017
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I’ve often said that what you believe to be true is true for you, no matter how it plays out in the real world. A good example is Kansas City Chiefs’ running back Kareem Hunt, who has this belief that he gets stronger during the second half of games. In an interview Hunt said he’s always been someone who gets stronger as games wear on. This is a powerful belief that has helped to make him the NFL’s rushing leader through the first four weeks of the season. Hunt believes he gets stronger and because of this belief he actually does get stronger.
A number of years ago, Missouri University’s football team was playing Oklahoma University and Oklahoma was a huge favorite since they had an All-American quarterback. With just a few minutes to go in the first half, Oklahoma was winning 21-0. But on the last play of the first half, Oklahoma’s All-American quarterback was injured and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher and was out for the rest of the game. When the second half started, Missouri seemed to have a different mindset. Even though they were still competing against the same Oklahoma defense that held them scoreless in the first half, they were able to score three times in the second half but eventually lost the game by a point, 21-20. What made the difference? Their “belief” they could win once the Oklahoma quarterback was out of the game. And the Oklahoma team more than likely believed that with their quarterback out of the game, they could lose…and they almost did.
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While watching the Chiefs-Patriots game on tv this evening I noticed an ad for Crown Royal and it reminded me of an interview I conducted with former NFL player Dr. Tommy Burnett. Dr. Burnett has spent more than 40 years as a professor at Missouri State University. He has a PhD in Sport Psychology and is also an expert in Sports Law and Risk Management. He told me that based on his experience and knowledge, he’s found that the consumption of alcohol interferes with an athlete’s oxygen supply making him or her more susceptible to injury. Here’s how it works: The consumption of alcohol interferes with the transportation of oxygen to the body’s muscle cells and is not being delivered to the ligaments and tendons. When the muscle fibers are deprived of oxygen, the athlete is more prone to injuries. This is pretty common knowledge among personal trainers who work on college and professional athletes but it’s a fact often hidden from public view since there is a close association of the marketing of alcoholic beverages (ala Crown Royal) and sports, especially professional sports. So when you read where an athlete is experiencing muscle and ligament problems, there’s a possibility that particular athlete is consuming a substantial amount of alcohol in his or her personal life.
