"Slow it down"

I've been chewing on this topic for several weeks, a month or two, wanting to post some thoughts on it.

You hear sports people talk about how savvy or veteran players "slow the game down". They may say, "So-and-so actually slows the game down," in the sense that this athlete, when the heat is on, is able to think through the demands of the late-inning situation calmly and methodically, so as to respond well.

Having monitored my own non-sports reactions under pressure lately, and observing athletes perform when the stakes are high, I have concluded the following.

One, it is good to have energy, or adrenaline, when the game is important.

An athlete, or dancer, or student taking an AP exam, or anybody else, will be flat and lacking the necessary gumption if they go into the big event blasé and neutral.

I tell my high school students, it's okay to be nervous for an oral presentation. That means you have energy to use in your service. (Use it well.)

They have been kidded by their classmates, and told that being nervous is a sign of weakness. Balderdash.

Second, related to slowing the game down, this means that the athlete who delivers is able to harness that energy to act with strength under control. (Anybody heard the word "meek" lately?)

It is mental. "Slowing the game down" often means the performer has lots of experience doing what they do, and has grown and learned how to be analytical and thoughtful under pressure. You have to recognize a situation to know how to respond to it. Having just written a story on baseball before this, I'm thinking of a first-and-third situation, for example. You are alert, your coach has told your team what approach you're going to take, and you respond as the play develops.

Now, I could be quibbled with a little on this. Gary Frank, the baseball coach at La Jolla High, told me early in the just-completed season that he doesn't want his players working on technique during the game. That's what practice is for. "They need to let their natural abilities take over" during the game, he said.

That can mean not over-thinking. I get it.

The ability to "slow the game down" in one's psyche--in other words, control the pumping veins so as to play at a high level--has got to be both mental and physiological. You train yourself to stay under control. It's like biofeedback: you learn how to use the energy you have.

Some coaches lead their teams to play on a ton of emotion. I'm thinking of the football team.

John Wooden used to say he wanted his UCLA basketball team to play without emotion. Bill Walton came in as a meteoric player. We watched him play our local junior college team, Moorpark College (Ventura County), when he was on the UCLA freshman team with fellow high school All-American Greg Lee. We looked at Walton, who was red-headed, slamming the ball but totally unpredictable as he rode highs and lows during the game (the UCLA frosh decimated lowly Moorpark), and wondered, "He's going to follow Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the UCLA varsity team leader?" (Kareem was still Lew Alcindor at that point.) It looked like no way.

"Slow the game down." I wrote an earlier entry on Steve Booth, one of La Jolla's assistant baseball coaches, huddling with three players and telling them this during the Vikings' CIF final. In the old days, we would have said, "Calm down. Take a breath." Now we say, "Slow the game down." Interesting.


Copyright 2015 Ed Piper