Friday, August 10, 2007
Just a minor point.
Stop talking about "Team X". You know your Team X. In your message boards and team emails you keep talking about how you're going to pound them in the showcase game, how you're taking them down in finals.
"I'm going to shut down John Doe, man!"
"Fuck yeah! I'ma point block the shit out of Joe Smithy, dog. They're going down in finals, fo' sheezy."
Ahem. Cough. Excuse me, I have a question. What if they don't make finals? Will you be prepared for your opponent then?
It may not seem or feel like it, but all this talk about how you gotta beat Team X is just another way of joining the worldwide dick-suck on that team. Your mouth says, "We're gonna trounce 'em in Finals in front of friends and family," because you're psyching yourself and your teammates up. But what you're really telling yourself, deep down in your primitive cerebellum is, "Team X is 100% making finals. Hope we beat them if we get there."
Talking about that shit is inconsistent with the "it's about us" philosophy. I don't care if it's Finals, the showcase game, or pool play and I don't care if it's Bad Larry, Observer Dave's summer league team, or NYNY in their prime, I wanna squash that bug. I wanna play my best and hardest and I wanna do it by sticking to our team strategies and executing everything that's asked of me as flawlessly as possible relying on solid fundamentals. I'm gonna keep it boring.
But if you're telling me how we gotta take down Team X, you're just getting yourself overworked about that game. Relax, think about what our game play should look like all weekend, and put something in your mouth. 'Cuz I don't want to hear it.
2 comments:
Excellent post. I've been on teams that have gone down to rivals at several levels because, i think, of this kind of thinking. Well said.
blw
or, on the flip side of your point, there is sheppard.
he and i hit a workout or two every week (mostly the huge Santa Monica outdoor stairs) all season in '01. he envisioned getting a block on one dude all year. i asked him once if he thought he should focus on more than one guy and he said "no." in the finals of nationals, he got TWO huge layout blocks back to the disc on the guy he thought of at every workout. one of those blocks was at 16-15 us and we won, 17-15, to repeat as national champs.
you think he wishes he'd thought about getting blocks on different people at each workout?
corey
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