Watching the 6^th ranked Golden Bears get blown out by the Ducks on Saturday left me shaking my head.  What happened?How can such a competent team suddenly look so incompetent?

Broadcasters talk about the “Big Mo” in sports.  Momentum.  Athletes can feel it on both sides of a big play, teams feel it when they come back late in a game and fans feel it when their team catches fire or goes cold as ice.  I sure felt it on Saturday.

There are a lot of opinions in the sports science literature about the existence of momentum.  It’s a difficult phenomenon to nail down cause it’s difficult to measure.  As a coach, I’m much more interested in what to do about it than I am in its measurement.

I like the Multidimensional Model of Momentum proposed by Jim Taylor and Andrew Demick.  They define psychological momentum as “a positive or negative change in cognition, affect, physiology, and behavior caused by an event or series of events that will result in a commensurate shift in performance and competitive outcome”.  They go on to talk about the six key elements to what they call the “momentum chain”.

1. Precipitating Event.  Examples include an interception or a fumble.  The impact of these events on athletes varies depending on how they perceive it and their level of self-confidence.
2. The precipitating event leads to “changes in cognition, physiology and affect.”
3. A “change in behavior” stems from these internal perceptions of the athletes.
4. Next comes a “change in performance”.
5. Momentum is a two-way street and needs a “contiguous and opposing change for the opponent.”  In other words, if after a fumble, the recovering team celebrates and increases their psychological momentum, but the opposing team does not experience an equal negative psychological momentum shift then the immediate flow of the game should remain unchanged.
6. Finally, if momentum gets this far, there will be “an immediate outcome change”.

My question is how do we break the “momentum chain”?  Well stuff happens in sports so there’s no stopping “precipitating events”.  It appears to me that the key to breaking the chain lies in step 2.  It’s the old stimulus – response phenomenon.  The brief moment between a stimulus and our response to it is the key to maintaining one’s Game Face under pressure. Top performers learn to control their reaction in the moment no matter what’s just happened.

Part of our coaching responsibility is to train our athletes not only in the “X’s” and “O’s,” but also in how to adapt, shift, and respond to stimulus or game-time situations. The window of training time between stimulus and response is short but there are a multitude of training opportunities through out the day – on and off the playing field. We must be vigilant with our athletes and train them to respond to all potential negative stimuli (mistakes, comments, grades, teachers, parents, weather etc) as challenges not problems.

The more we can get our athletes to respond to “life’s stuff” with their Game Face, the easier it will be for them to handle the ups and downs of competition.

Do you want your athletes to believe in themselves? Easier for some than others. Why is this such a struggle for some of us?

I’m re-reading Noah St. John’s book The Secret Code of Success. St John talks about our “head trash” or the subconscious roadblocks that keep folks from acting on their real hopes and dreams. His “fun-house mirror” concept explained why some of my most talented athletes unconsciously sabotaged their own success.

Remember what it is like to look into a fun-house mirror? What happened? You’d see a weird, distorted view of yourself. It kind of looked like you, yet it wasn’t you.

Looking back at my coaching career I now see how some of my players were raised with fun-house mirrors. The self-image reflected back to them growing up was distorted. They failed to receive accurate information about who they really are. This negative reflection formed the basis of the “head trash” they are still carrying around.

It’s the little voice in their head that says things like:

“You’re not good enough”

“If only you had more talent”

“What were you thinking?”What’s missing for these athletes is a true reflection of their real self or what St. John calls a “Loving Mirror.” A loving mirror is a person who gives unconditional support – sounds like a good coach to me. Nearly every successful person has someone in their life who believed in them when they didn’t believe in themselves.

St. John summarizes the evolution of success into the following stages:

1. Someone believes in you.
2. You believe in someone.
3. You believe in you.

So instead of telling our athletes to believe in themselves, we need to start with believing in them! Look for greatness within each of your athletes, find the things they may never see in themselves. Encourage them: “I know you can do it,” “I see a great leader inside of you,” etc.

Remember, according to St John:

Human beings perform best in an environment of unconditional support. That happens when someone looks at you and sees your full capacity, potential, and greatness. That person knows that you can do it, and holds you to it.

As coaches, we want our athletes to develop their skills to the point where they become automatic, especially under pressure. Although nothing can replace the endless hours of practice that are required to make physical skills automatic, athletes can enhance their ability to perform sport skills automatically by using visualization.

Visualization or imagery is a proven tool of top-level athletes. Many successful athletes use imagery to create the perfect performance, seeing and feeling themselves perform at their potential. They also re-create past successful performances, calling to mind what they saw, felt, and thought. This kind of visualization allows athletes to create their performance twice: once in the mind and once when they actually perform the act they have visualized. In addition, visualization can help athletes manage their emotions, build confidence, refine their skills, improve focus at practice and prepare them for competition.

I like to think of visualization as mental movie making. Here’s a sample ‘script’ to help you introduce visualization to your athletes:

Picture yourself sitting in a theater watching a favorite movie. What images do you see as you look at the screen? What colors do you see? Who are the main characters? Who are the actors playing these characters? What are they doing? Now imagine yourself watching a different movie, one in which you’re the star. This movie will feature you performing at your absolute best at your sport. Imagine what you look like on the big screen. What are you wearing? How are you standing? What expression do you have on your face? Picture the opponent, the playing area, the fans, your coach, the referee. Make your images as vivid as possible. Engage all of your senses as you fill out the scene: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Watch yourself as you perform at your highest potential. Bring up all the emotional pieces as well: how it feels to perform well, the connection with your teammates, and so on.

In order to realize your potential as an athlete, make this movie again and again in your mind until it is vivid and believable. Remember, you learn new skills faster using a combination of physical practice and mental imagery than using either one alone.

 

Coach, visualization is a great tool for you as well. Incorporate it as part of YOUR preparation routine. See yourself running practice exactly the way you’d like to; coaching your best during competition; handling a difficult meeting or conversation with grace and integrity.

In addition, you can change your emotional state in the moment, by evoking the appropriate images during visualization. The chemistry of billions of cells within your body changes in response to what you imagine. In other words, you can change your emotional state by evoking the appropriate images during visualization. So if you need to calm down or psyche up prior to a practice, competition, meeting, phone call etc., take a few moments to visualize the appropriate images.

 

Enjoy the show!

Mistakes are inevitable, even with the most accomplished athletes make mistakes. Great athletes and great teams have a common mindset about mistakes: they don’t fear them, they put mistakes immediately behind them, and they learn from them. To help your athletes develop this mindset, adopt a simple concept popularized by the Positive Coaching Alliance, known as the “mistake rituals” (see ideas below). This simple action normalizes mistakes and allows players to quickly “reset” for the next play. Teams that play without fear of mistakes are more assertive and instinctive, and that translates to winning more.

Here’s a comment I received from a coach yesterday:

“Kathy, I downloaded your book via US Lacrosse.  I could not help but be struck by the connection between what I saw yesterday in Boston at the NCAA LAX finals and the material in your book.  Syracuse was down by 3 with 5 minutes to go. They were down by one with 5 seconds to go.  They tied and then won in overtime.  The last five minutes of that game were a living example of  what should and should not be done inbetween plays – the mental toughness.  The game demonstrated beautifully the value of haivng a mistake ritual. If only Cornell had read your book!

Timothy Donley
GHS High School Lacrosse
Bowling Green, KY

 

Develop rituals that allow players to quickly move on after making mistakes.

You’ve seen this scene countless times during school competitions: a player makes a mistake, and the coach reacts with exasperation or disgust. The player, acutely aware of the coach’s reaction, immediately becomes tentative and ineffective, afraid to make another mistake.

Now imagine a similar circumstance with a different team: a player makes a mistake, and she quickly wipes her hand across her forehead and glances to the bench, where her coach and several teammates also wipe their brow. Then the athlete confidently moves on to the next play with the same focus and intensity she had before making the mistake.

What’s the difference? In the second scenario, the coach had developed a simple ritual, used in practice and in games, to remind her players to bounce back from mistakes. In this case, the tactile mnemonic of wiping her forehead with her hand symbolizes how the team quickly “wipes off” a mistake, forgets about it, and moves on to the next play. The “wipe off,” or “no sweat,” symbol is used whenever players need to be reminded to put a mistake behind them.

In addition to the “wipe off,” here are other variations of the mistake ritual:

• Flushing (basketball, baseball, softball): This originated with Mike Legarza, formerly the men’s basketball coach at Canada College in Redwood City, California. When a player makes a mistake, his teammates and even the coach make the motion of flushing a toilet (symbolizing that mistakes stink and you need to get rid of them). Many other teams, including the 2004 College World Series Champions, Cal State Fullerton, successfully use variations of the “flush” ritual.
• Walk Away (tennis, volleyball, baseball, softball, golf): In the first few seconds following a mistake, the player turns their back on the mistake and “walks away” from it. It’s important to maintain a strong, confident posture while walking away.
• Bounce Up (football): Anytime a player finds themselves on the ground (tackled, tripped, missed a catch, and so on) they immediately “bounce up” off the ground as quickly as they can. This signals them to get up, move on quickly, and get ready for the next play, as opposed to languishing on the ground and lamenting the mistake.
• Double Clap (football, basketball): Often when athletes make a mistake, they slap their hands together in frustration and say “shoot” or an expletive. A “double clap” ritual punctuated with a “Come on!” helps them keep their head up and focus on what’s next.
• Throw it Away (soccer, lacrosse): The athlete actually mimics the motion of throwing the mistake away. In soccer, it’s usually a low throw on the side as they are hustling back. In lacrosse, a player may make a quick over-the-shoulder throwing motion with their stick.
• Snap (All sport): Athletes wear a rubber band on their wrist that they snap after a mistake, which reminds them to “snap back” into action and prepare for the next play.

Remember – it’s not the mistake that matters, it’s how you respond to it!

Coach, speaking from over twenty years of experience, I know that we expect our athletes to show up for both competition and practice with their Game Face on. We want them to maintain their Game Face on the playing field no matter what. Do we hold ourselves to the same standard? The great ones do.

I believe the saying “A team is a reflection of its coach.” The best coaches lead by example, so if you want your athletes to have great Game Faces, you need one, too.

What does your Game Face Routine look like on the sidelines? How do you:

1. react to things that happen on the playing field?

2. recover between plays and during time outs, penalties, and intermissions?

3. get ready mentally for the action to resume?

4. use rituals to stay focused during the action?

I told you how I learned about my coaching Game Face the hard way. For a refresher check out the post “Caught On Tape” posted on 4-8-09.

What your athletes see when they look toward the sideline during competition. Do they see Game Face, or do they see upset, frustration, and negativity? You set the tone for your players. Be sure to reflect back to them what you want to see on the playing field.

I just finished my first book, Get Your Game Face On! The book teaches athletes (and coaches) how the get their Game Face on and keep it on under pressure. My vision is that “Game Face” training becomes a normal, everyday part of sport training.  Although I will be publishing the book in paperback, I am making the e-book version available free to all coaches for a limited time as a way of giving back and contributing to the overall coaching body of knowledge.

Watch for the email announcement coming soon to get your FREE copy of Get Your Game Face On!