Clearly Serena Williams has gone through a lot in the past year and a half. From the confrontation with a line judge at the US Open, to cutting her foot on glass last summer, (and the two surgeries that followed), to the recent pulmonary embolism in her lung and the [...]
Obviously there is no single reason that applies to all the upsets we see. One common denominator is that some of the teams that finish in the lower half of their conference begin to gel and play their best basketball at the end of the regular season. Therefore they enter [...]
I think it’s great that Cam Newton is planning on going through all the drills at the combine. I also think he has little to lose and a lot to gain in doing so. Make no mistake, Cam Newton is a physical beast and will likely shine this week at [...]
Many people are calling the Heat’s third loss this season to the Celtics, this past Sunday in Boston, proof that the Miami Heat players have a mental block about Boston. Let’s look at the two losses that were played in Boston. Not a lot of teams win games there to [...]
It’s been a rough week for Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. Not only did his season come to an abrupt end this past Sunday when he was knocked out of the NFC championship game, but his team was ultimately knocked out of the Super Bowl. On top of that the [...]
We all learned in science class that what goes up must come down thanks to gravity. However, few of us learned that there’s a force almost as strong as gravity known as human nature that has the same effect on people. How many times have we seen athletes and others [...]
Recently we have seen an increase in the number of news stories about trash talking. Whether it’s Kevin Garnett and Charlie Villanueva or Laron Landry’s taunting of DeSean Jackson and his Philadelphia Eagle teammates during warm-ups this past Monday night, these stories are popping up everywhere. What’s new is not [...]
The NFL undoubtedly has their heart in the right place in wanting to protect players from vicious illegal hits. But as English poet John Milton first said back in the 17th-century “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” In this case it appears that those good intentions caused the NFL to overreact in levying $175,000 in fines to three defensive players for illegal hits in last weekend’s games . In fact one of those players’ hits, though vicious, was clearly legal under the leagues current rules . Clearly the league wanted to send a message, but the message it delivered was so unclear that it is sure to ripple through the league causing unintended consequences.
Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay’s no-hitter in his first MLB play-off game last night was directly attributable to his preparation and routine. When I say preparation and routine I am referring to both the physical and mental aspects of his game. Clearly when you throw a no-hitter you have to physically be coming at batters with your best pitches, but what allows you to keep coming at each successive batter with your best stuff, pitch after pitch and inning after inning, is an entrenched routine that allows you stay out of your head.
Vision is one of the most underrated traits in sports, as well as in life and business. I do not just mean your eyesight when I speak of vision (although that is hugely important as well) I mean the vision in your mind. When our ego gets out of control it works like blinders that stand in the way of our seeing what we need to see. Imagine a quarterback that has blinders on which block his peripheral vision. Will he see the field better or worse? Will he make more or less plays? Will he get sacked more or less often? The answers to all of the above are obvious. Blinders inhibit our personal learning and growth. Yet many players/people never reach their true potential because they get in their own way and block their own progress in this way. They are no different than the teenager who “knows all there is to know” already. Unfortunately, the player or person that let’s this happen has to learn the hard way and unlike the teenager they do not have their whole life in front of them to recover from this avoidable mistake. Sadly most players and people that get to this point do not recover and have no one but themselves to blame.