Bravado part of players’ method for success

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/08/2011 (5197 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If sports psychologists truly believe that at the highest levels of athletics the games we play are 10 per cent physical and 90 per cent mental, then I sure have been wasting a lot of time at the gym over the last decade and a half when I should have been working more on Sudoku puzzles and exercising my brain.

While I suspect this reference is more aptly tuned for Olympic-level athletes where qualifying and industry standards group participants that are whisker hairs away from one another in terms of performance, I’m sure the mental components in our industry still greatly outweigh the physical.

And as we have seen here in “Swaggerville” of late, there is no shortage of mental jousting and rival players and opponents that have stepped outside of the physical realm and tried to assert themselves or intimidate via their own mental cognitions. The question is whether and why these outbursts are necessary components for some and not as utilized by others.

Just last week, one of the players I respect most in the league, B.C. Lions defensive lineman Brent Johnson, quipped in jest that the players on our team should sell as many “swagger” shirts as they can. Two weeks prior to his comments, Lions slotback Paris Jackson guaranteed a victory against us at home.

More recently, Hamilton Tiger-Cats defensive lineman Stevie Baggs (a former Bomber) spoke to the media and expressed his opinion to Bombers DL Odell Willis that he was still “the best defensive end in the league,” (via his own internal poll) and that “Steeltown is gonna do our talking on the field.”

So what is up with all the bravado and boasting coming from not only Winnipeg opponents but our locker-room as well?

To someone that has never played this dangerous game at a high level, most of these comments and shots of “swag” probably sound like incendiary and pompous remarks. But to many who are involved in this sport, these guarantees, verbal volleys and name generations are a fixture and almost necessary part of the environment we play in where confidence is a huge ingredient for performance. Much of what you hear is merely the vocalizations of how players are forced to think in order to succeed at their jobs, and in this game of high drama and even higher attrition, an inflated self-image is often a critical component.

Back in the golden years of my era in blue and gold, I used to take great pleasure in pitting the talents and egos of Milt Stegall and Bobby “Gorgeous” Gordon — both all-star receivers — against one another. I would ask Bobby who was the best receiver in the CFL and he would unflinchingly answer that he was, without question. I would then take that claim over to Milt and tell him that, “Bobby thinks he is the best receiver in the league,” to which Milt would reply something along the lines that, “Bobby has gone and lost his dang mind again.”

But one day Bobby and Milt finally got to the crux of the matter with me. They said in the grand scheme of things it didn’t really matter on the outset, and in reality, who was the consensus better player according to everyone else’s measures of performance. To play at the pinnacle of each one’s own abilities, they both had to believe in their own minds and in themselves that they really were as good as it got. In order to play at a level that was unattainable by so many others, part of their process was to walk with that swagger and confidence that they could not be covered and that no football thrown to them was beyond their reach or ability. Many players think it, you just don’t always hear it to the extent that is going on now.

And it works.

As distasteful as it may be to hear, and contrary to the teachings of humility that so many of us were coached with, when was the last time you actually heard a player that really wasn’t any good spout bravado over the airwaves? They may all think they are the best and only one of them may be right, but their performances are for the most part exceptional. Many players need to have that gauntlet thrown down to stir their competitive fires and bring out that elusive “A” game that happens when they are in their zone. They need to challenge one and all and be so outwardly confident in their abilities that they perform and buy into everything they are broadcasting.

Of course, others just keep this self-confidence to themselves. Fewer still have mental processes that completely work the other way, where they think they are so marginal and inferior they utilize their insecurities in sport to motivate themselves to work harder and elevate themselves to their own expectations they will never reach. That’s another column altogether.

So the next time you hear a player regale that he or she is the greatest thing since Swaggerville came to town, just remember, it’s more for their own assuredness, confidence and part of their process for success, than necessarily as a barb to incite and inflame the masses.

 

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.