TAKE THE STAIRS!
For most of us, the motivation which pushes us toward important goals requires daily recommitment. It takes conscious effort to develop the habits that will take us from where we are to where we want to be. Looking for short-cuts is an ever-present temptation.
University of Texas Arlington men's basketball coach Scott Cross knows a bit about that. Cross has led his 2016-17 team to a 47-8 record, 14-4 in conference play. After falling in the Sun Belt Conference championship and losing out on a spot in the NCAA Tournament, the Mavericks were invited to the NIT, where they have beated BYU on the road 105-89 and taken down Akron at home 85-69, with hopes of making it to the final games in Madison Square Garden.
Two years ago, Cross happened upon a number of his players taking an elevator to go up one flight of stairs. He called them out, told them that guys who take the elevator are looking for shortcuts, and "that's not who we are."
Says Cross, "There's no reason to wait 30 seconds for an elevator when you could be moving your feet. It's the same way you have to treat the game of basketball. If you're looking for the easy way in basketball, to not sit in a defensive stance for a possession, or not block out, or not sprint back in transition defense to get the win ... it's going to catch up with you. That's the mindset and mentality I want our team to have."
Writes Sam Vecenie of The Sporting News, who spent some time with the UTA program, "That workmanlike outlook has infiltrated the program in other places, too. Every game the coaching staff puts together a hustle points chart on the white board in the locker room and uses it as a tool to motivate the team. They assign a point value to every offensive rebound, defensive rebound, steal, block, dive, grabbed loose ball, deflection, charge, and-one and non-hustle play per game. If the team loses hustle points and then loses the game, the coaching staff implements "championship conditioning" at the next practice."
When noted sport psychologist Terry Orlick was asked some years ago by the NHL to look at factors that might best predict success in the league, he found that "desire, determination, attitude, heart and self-motivation were often the crucial ingredients that tilted the balance in favor of making it or not at the professional level." (In Pursuit of Excellence: How to Win in Sport and Life Through Mental Training)
Orlick cited the example of former hockey great Bobby Clarke and what a member of the Philadelphia Flyers front office said about him at the time:
"We drafted Bobby Clark on our second round, but there was a boy we drafted on our first round who was bigger and stronger, could skate and shoot better than Clarke, but Clarke made it and he didn't. He wasn't willing to sacrifice that little extra you need to be a professional hockey player. In practice Clarke would be there 10 minutes longer and he would work harder. In a game he got himself mentally prepared to give extra ... the other player didn't do that. Result - one went ahead, the other fell behind."
Lance Allred, the first legally deaf player in the NBA, who recently ended an 11-year global basketball career, has written, "I never won a lot of trophies. Never won an MVP award. And I never let it break me, as I never felt entitled to it. Entitlement is a vicious disease. Instead, I woke up every morning and kept grinding, while those who were far more talented, yet more entitled than me, drifted away. Being 'right' never got me more playing time; in fact it only lessened it."
Good thoughts to reflect on next time we push that elevator button.
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