Geoff Miller

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The use of the term “prodigy” with youth athletes

In Uncategorized on October 19, 2010 at 11:57 am

Should youth athletes be described as prodigies?  I was interviewed on the Golf Channel this summer to discuss a young female golfer named Amari Avery, who at 6 is already drawing comparisons to Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie.  I’m reposting my blog entry from www.sandiegosportspsychology.com here because I think this topic is an important one for families of athletes in all sports and I believe my commentary isn’t just for golfers.

Golf Channel Feature on Golf in America

I’ll have some new baseball content for the blog just in time for the beginning of the Hot Stove season.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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High School Draft Picks: Chapter II, Review of Literature

In First Year Player Draft Pick Research, Uncategorized on June 17, 2010 at 5:27 pm

In 1998, for my Master’s Thesis at San Diego State University, I chose to study the “Decision-Making Factors Governing High School Players’ Choice of a College or Professional Baseball Opportunity.” I wanted to know what factors were most important to high school seniors who were drafted and had to choose between signing or going to school as I had known many players who regretted their choices years after they made them.  I revisit my research and discuss my findings with friends and colleagues each year as the First Year Player Draft draws near.  Last week, as the Draft was taking place, I decided I would post my entire thesis in an effort to learn more from coaches, parents, and players who have recently been involved in this decision.  I’ll be posting a new chapter every few days and will also include pages and pages of subject answers to open-ended questions, which are very interesting and shed lots of light on this process.  I’m going to leave out the statistics, surveys, tables, and most appendices, but if you’d like a full electronic copy of my thesis, please just email me and I’ll be happy to send to you.

Warning…a few of these sections can be a bit dry, to say the least, but most of the reading is interesting stuff and I would be glad to discuss my past and current thoughts on the draft process either on the blog or offline.  And please keep in mind that these data are 12-13 years old, so some of the dollar amounts need to be taken in context.  I would encourage anyone and everyone who would like to offer feedback and stories so we can all learn more from each other. Chapter II is a review of the literature that provided structure for designing my surveys.

Click Here for Chapter I, Introduction

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Decision-making was defined as “a process by which a person, group, or organization identifies a choice or judgment to be made, gathers and evaluates information about alternatives, and selects from among the alternatives” (Carroll & Johnson, 1990, p. 19).

For the subjects studied in this thesis, the choices have been identified.  One of two alternatives had to be selected: playing college or playing professional baseball.  It was important to understand more about how subjects gathered and evaluated information about these alternatives.  Exhaustive searches of baseball texts, popular media, and academic media were conducted to locate important selection factors.

No academic studies were found that examined career choices in baseball.   Informational searches were performed on the following databases: ERIC, MLA bibliographies, PsychInfo, Uncover, and Dissertation Abstracts OnDisc.  Key words used included the definitions relevant to the thesis as well as sport-career decision-making and similar combination phrases.  When sport and decision-making were cross-referenced, some studies emerged that could be linked indirectly to the topic.   One thesis studied a similar decision making process.  Reed-Draznik (1988) surveyed job applicants to determine which job attributes and recruiter characteristics were important when selecting an employer.  A player who signs a professional contract has made a career selection.

Blum (1993) believed that the Amateur draft has “put pressure on young athletes who spend months soul-searching about their education and career plans and negotiating with professional teams” (p. A36).  Therefore, it would stand to reason that a college scholarship opportunity or professional offer would include job attributes and recruiter characteristics as the bases for decisions.

Emmett (1990) studied factors for career decision-making in 30 academically gifted students from a prestigious college preparatory academy.  These students were not only asked which factors were involved in deciding on a career, but what difficulties and learning experiences were associated with those factors.  Twenty factors were identified, including sensitivity to others’ expectations, finances, ability, and geographic location.  The importance of that study is the derivation of the subject pool.  The baseball players in the present study were gifted young adults, but in the athletic arena, not an academic one.

Career decision-making in baseball has been studied in a post-hoc fashion (Haerle, 1975; Sowcik, 1990).  Haerle (1975) surveyed 335 retired major league baseball players to assess whether or not athletic scholarships had any bearing on post-retirement careers.  He found a negative correlation between baseball success and college education.  It was attributed to a later start to careers as well as earlier retirement decisions.  He concluded that college educated players were less attached to the game and possessed more versatility when choosing a career upon retirement.

Sowcik (1990) conducted three case study interviews on current major league baseball players to determine their levels of post-career planning.  All three players had attended college and two held bachelor’s degrees.  Furthermore, each player’s parents had attended college.  However, only one of these subjects had engaged in any post-retirement career planning.  That player had specific plans related to the degree he held.

In summary, indirectly linked topics offer evidence that learning more about the decision-making process is a vital necessity, but is normally overlooked in this dimension.  Studies have determined selection factors in job applicants and gifted youths, but not baseball players.  Studies devoted to baseball career decisions focus on after the baseball career has ended, not before it has begun.

Anecdotal Literature

Anecdotal literature revealed a diverse subject matter devoted to high school seniors who had been drafted.  The signing bonus was a common topic (Curtis, 1990; Doyel, 1997; Shaiken, 1997).  A signing bonus is the amount of money an athlete is offered to sign a professional contract and relinquish other options.  The average bonus awarded to 1997 first round draft picks was $1.2 million, five times that of the average at the beginning of the decade  (Shaiken, 1997).  If a high school athlete cannot qualify to attend college due to poor grades or poor standardized test scores (Yim, 1997), he loses the option of receiving a college scholarship.  Many players enter into pre-draft negotiations (Manuel, 1997; Price, 1997; Schwartz, 1997) with high signing bonus expectations and their scholarships as bargaining chips (Blum, 1993).  Some athletes play more than one sport and use the chance to play multiple sports in college for leverage while negotiating (Simpson, 1997).

To counter the trend of increasing signing bonuses, major league teams began to evaluate players based on “signability” in addition to physical skills (Schwartz, 1997; Shaiken, 1997).  Signability is best described as the likelihood that an athlete will sign with the club that drafted him.  Schwartz (1997) noted that teams selected less talented players “specifically because their bonus demands were low” (p. 1).

To summarize, the signing bonus demands of an athlete determine his signability.  The more money an athlete is expected to demand, the less willing a team is to draft that athlete.  Differences in skill level are less important than the compatibility of a draft pick’s demands with the organization’s resources.  Test scores, grades, and scholarship offers enhance options for high school seniors and potentially lower their signability.

Social influences are commonly cited in the literature as directly affecting an athlete’s signability.  Many high school seniors are less than 18 years old and are neither legally nor socially independent.  Parental influences loom large in negotiations both before and after the draft (Curtis, 1990; Price, 1997).  Price (1997) related a talented high school player whose bonus demand was so high that he slipped to the second round instead of being drafted in the first.  The athlete’s father was present during negotiations and was even interviewed for the story, stating, “No matter what round he goes in we’re not going to change our tune” (p.3).  Curtis (1990) revealed that he did not even speak with scouts before the draft, referring them to his father.  Financial advisors and coaches shape opinions and decision strategies with more influence, sometimes, than parents (Blum, 1993; Doyel, 1997; Price, 1997).  However, an athlete cannot acquire the services of an agent or he surrenders his amateur status and is, therefore, ineligible to play college baseball (Filter, R.; personal communication, 11/20/97).

In basketball, Snyder (1972) investigated the influence of high school coaches on their players’ choices of whether or not to attend college and which college to attend.  He found that when correlated with educational backgrounds of players’ mothers and fathers, the coach ranked just behind parents as persons cited as most important during the decision-making process.  This may also be the case with this sample of baseball players.

It is certain that the choice made by an athlete is not autonomous even when complete freedom is given by parents and coaches to make independent decisions.  These people have shaped the lives of the athletes in question and influence how a decision is formulated.

A final set of factors involves the benefits of playing for a reputable college team and/or coach (Blum, 1993; Nolan, 1995; Price, 1997).  Nolan (1995), while interviewing a prominent college coach, reported that aside from developing baseball skills and earning an education, college players could display their talents in the College World Series and the Olympic Games.  The coach saw these as attractive selling points for players to choose to play college baseball before playing in the professional ranks.  Playing for school or national colors would then have to be factored into an athlete’s decision.

The decision to play college baseball and turn down a signing bonus or forgo college and play professional baseball is a career decision.  The reviewed literature pointed to signing bonuses, educational abilities, signability, social influences, and college influences as possible decision factors.  No evaluation tools or guidelines for making this decision exist.  Because of the paucity of research on this topic, any developed tools would have to include the opportunity to add extra factors that have not been covered in the literature.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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San Diego Sports Psychology

In Uncategorized on January 18, 2010 at 12:03 pm

Winning Mind, LLC has launched a new site at www.SanDiegoSportsPsychology.com.  This new site is meant to be a resource to athletes, coaches, and parents in San Diego and the Southern California region.  Our work at Winning Mind takes us around the globe, but it is important to us to support the athletes in our local communities.  To that end, we are offering free workshops on building mental toughness to high schools and clubs in San Diego County.  If you are a parent, coach, or athlete in San Diego and you are interested in learning more about our free workshops, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.  If you are interested in scheduling a workshop, but not located in San Diego County, please contact us anyway and we can discuss cost-effective arrangements to support your athletes.

Check out the new site at www.SanDiegoSportsPsychology.com

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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Leadership and Life Lessons

In Mental Game Info, Uncategorized on November 10, 2009 at 9:23 am

As we celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, I thought I’d include a story that was told to me by a great coach this summer (who you’ll hear from in an interview soon.)  Each of us was assigned a day to discuss leadership in any manner we chose.  This coach found a story about the legendary Georgetown basketball coach, John Thompson on Eric Musselman’s blog.  I’m including a link to Eric’s blog as it is filled with interesting content like this story, which is transferable into any sport setting (and into life, too.)

Eric Musselman’s Basketball Notebook

It’s a Big World Outside of Basketball

Interesting story in Alonzo Mourning’s book “Resilience” about an incident involving John Thompson at a 1989 Georgetown basketball practice (pp. 69-70):

On November 9, 1989, the Georgetown basketball team was, not surprisingly, at practice. The session was physically and mentally demanding. John Thompson towered over every small detail of the game.

Then, for no apparent reason, he sent his players to the sideline bleachers. No one was sure what was up.

Thompson is a serious and intimidating man, who for decades made college players cower. It was no different that day, as he made eye contact with his players.

“Can somebody tell me what happened today?” he barked.

None of the players knew what he was talking about. Did he mean what happened at practice? Had someone screwed up off the court?

No one said a word.

Thompson pressed on, feigning surprise.

“No one? Who read the paper today? Raise your hand if you read the paper today.”

None of the players raised his hand; none had read a newspaper.

Thompson wasn’t happy.

“Can somebody at least tell me what happened on the headlines today — something of historical significance? Did any of you even bother to glance at the headlines?”

Still no one had any idea what Thompson was talking about. Finally, one of the student trainers, Markhum Stansbury, raised his hand.

“Coach, they tore down the Berlin Wall.”

“Right,” Big John said. “They tore down the Berlin Wall.”

Then he turned to his team, almost all black kids, most from poor backgrounds, all receiving the opportunity of a lifetime to attend one of the elite institutes of higher education in this country.

He shook his head.

“That’s a shame. You guys go to Georgetown University, a prestigious, world-renowned university, and not a single one of you can keep up with current events?”

Then his voice got louder, turned into that powerful blast that Thompson was famous for.

“The damn world could be at war, and you wouldn’t even know about it.”

The players were humiliated, which was the point. Thompson was relentless in pushing his players off the court. But it was about more than just earning diplomas, which virtually all of them did during his nearly three decades at the school.

It was about making them grow intellectually, socially, and spiritually. It was about setting up the habits that would continue that growth through the rest of their life.

It was about pushing them, maturing them, and making them aware of the big world outside of basketball. Thompson just could not tolerate anything less.

There are no small lessons with him — just lessons.

Not knowing what was on the front page was no more acceptable than failing a class or not trying for a rebound. It might seem minor to many (plenty of college kids are blissfully unaware of the world at large), but it wasn’t to Thompson.

There was no excuse for an educated adult not to know that the Berlin Wall had been knocked down, so he sure wasn’t going to accept such ignorance from his players.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

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Mental Skills Manual, Part II

In Tips for Improving Performance, Uncategorized on November 9, 2009 at 11:05 pm

The Mental Skills Manual is meant to teach players how to answer the following:

  1. Know who you are
  2. Know what you want
  3. Know what to do when you don’t get what you want
  4. Know what to do in the meantime before you’ve mastered these concepts.

Part I of this series of posts offered an introduction to the manual and a framework for developing mental skills.  Part II begins the process of “know who you are” with ideas for developing self-knowledge.

Knowledge

Know who you are

The first step to using mental skills in baseball involves acquiring knowledge, including an understanding of who you are and what you need to work on.  There is no point to learning a breathing technique if you aren’t having problems managing intensity level or staying focused.  There is no point to working on developing a positive attitude until you know which situations cause negative thinking.  So step one is learning about yourself in a simple way. This section includes some easy questions and lists designed to help players learn more about who they are as players and people.

Key ideas:

  1. Know yourself
  2. Know your comfort zone
  3. Keep it simple

Know Yourself

There are three easy ways to get to know yourself better.  Your coaches already encourage these methods and you may see as you read on that you already practice them in one way or another.

Track Your Performance

Tracking performance is the best way to learn from success and failure on the field.  In many ways, the tracking of performance is the backbone of the history, spirit, and nostalgia of our game.  Compiling statistics, charting pitches, watching video, and pre and post-game meetings are all methods used to track performance.

The following list of questions offer a simple way for you to track your performance in a way that may connect your collection of plate appearances, chances in the field and pitches thrown with the learning moments you must be able to find by yourself if you are to be successful over a long period of time.

Tracking Performance Processes

(write down your answers to these questions once a week)

  1. What did I do well this week?
  2. What areas of my game do I need to improve?
  3. What is the one most important thing I need to do to keep performing at a high level?

Another way for you to develop self-knowledge is to rate yourself on how well you did at carrying out a process goal.  For example, let’s say you are a hitter that needs to develop better plate discipline.  You know this as a player and your coach can identify this need as well.  So your answers to the questions listed above look something like this:

Tracking Performance Answers

  1. What did I do well this week?

I was aggressive at the plate and saw the ball well.

  1. What areas of my game do I need to improve?

Better plate discipline.

  1. What is the one most important thing I need to do to keep performing at a high level?

Stay patient and wait for pitches I know I can drive.

In this case, we have a player that knows himself well.  You know exactly what you need to do to improve and your coach agrees that your self-assessment is correct.  Now you need a way to know if you are making progress.  So you rate yourself on plate discipline.  And you measure a specific process that produces plate discipline.

Rating Performance

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is best), how did I do this week at staying patient at the plate by waiting for pitches I knew I could drive?

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9          10

If you focus on this process and rate your performance each week, you should see measurable progress in walks and extra-base hits (or at the very least, hard hit balls) in the weeks that earn high ratings.  And you should produce your own learning moments by tracking this area of performance.

Ask Someone

Some players aren’t as good at making self-evaluations as others.  Sometimes this is because the player doesn’t have much awareness.  Other times, a player has plenty of awareness, but gets so tunnel-visioned during competition that he doesn’t see the big picture.  In some cases inaccurate self-evaluations have nothing to do with focus and everything to do with too much or too little confidence.  A cocky player may not think there is anything he can do better.  An insecure player may be so afraid to confront his weaknesses that he refuses to take accountability for his failings.  And many times, hard-working, confident athletes don’t think enough of themselves so what coaches see in their performance and what they see don’t match.

If you are a player who consistently rates himself in a way that is different than others see you, you should ask someone (whose opinion you trust) what they see in your performance.

If the player from the last section rated himself a “10” on patience at the plate when his coaches saw him as a “3”, then that player needs help developing a better feel for rating himself.  You can do this by simply telling your coaches what you thought of your performance and then listening to what they thought.  If you are truly asking for your coaches’ opinions, not just seeking their approval, and you are willing to listen to their feedback, this can be a worthwhile process.

A Note on TAIS Assessment

The most important reason we use TAIS (The Attentional and Interpersonal Style) inventory to assess the psychological characteristics of athletes is to directly measure and learn about how they see the world.  We are able to understand how people concentrate, where they get distracted, decision-making styles, learning styles, leadership styles, and communication styles, including how people set expectations and what they say to themselves when they feel pressure.  By giving athletes feedback on their profiles, we can provide them with starting points for knowing themselves and knowing how to learn more about themselves.

For more information about TAIS inventory, click here: http://taistest.com/

Tell Someone

One of the great benefits that many people experience when they go to therapy is a sense of clarity around their issues. The ability to think about yourself and put those thoughts into words can work wonders in changing perspectives, dealing with fear and anger, and confronting tough issues.  It’s a good idea to communicate with your teammates and coaches anyway, for lots of reasons.  And many people in the game find the social aspect to be the most rewarding part of their jobs.

Players can learn more about themselves by telling people around them what they are learning and how they are making progress.

Coaches should take every opportunity that they can to find out what their players are learning.  It will help them understand their players better and it will help make the lessons they are teaching become permanent.

To be continued…

Click here to view Part I of the Mental Skills Manual.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com

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Baseball IQ vs Basketball IQ

In Mental Game Info, Uncategorized on November 8, 2009 at 6:39 pm

LZ Granderson wrote a column on ESPN.com’s Page 2 on Nov. 6 on the topic of Basketball IQ.  The theme of the article, entitled “Dumb Words About Hoops Smarts”, was that there were social and racial connotations when a player was categorized as having a “high basketball IQ”.  I found the column to be thought-provoking on a number of levels, but I can’t completely agree with the argument that Mr. Granderson has made.

Here’s a link to the article if you haven’t seen it yet:  Dumb Words About Hoops Smarts

Granderson argues that when players like Gilbert Arenas, Jason Kopono, and Thabo Sefolosha are labeled as having high basketball IQs, it means that the people making those assessments are either knowingly or unknowingly making a judgment that this is a rare occurrence.  He quotes Robert Thompson, the founding director for the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse with the following evidence, “The term ‘high basketball IQ’ suggests two things: that the athlete is only smart about basketball and nothing else, and that there are players in the NBA with a ‘low basketball IQ,’ which is silly.”

In setting up the column, Granderson asks, “Shouldn’t every player in the NBA have a high basketball IQ?” The answer to this question is my point of contention with the column.

Yes, every player in the NBA should have a high basketball IQ, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they all do.  I don’t have any experience in working with NBA players, so I’m not qualified to make an assessment on how much variability there is in knowledge of the game between players in the NBA.  But I can tell you with great certainty that professional baseball players differ on their Baseball IQs, a term I believe most people use to mean their specific knowledge of the game and application of that knowledge in the appropriate game situations.  I have a few thoughts that might help Mr. Granderson investigate the concept of Basketball IQ, but mostly, I’m interested in explaining my thinking on Baseball IQ in hopes that there are some similarities between baseball players and basketball players so that a player who has been told that he has a high basketball IQ can accept this as the compliment I believe it is meant to be.

I started studying Baseball IQ in 2005, my first season as Mental Skills Coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  As I was getting familiar with players in the system from Rookie Ball all the way up to the big leagues, I assumed when a player threw to the wrong base, or tried to beat an inside fastball hitter with an inside fastball, he was so affected by the pressure of the moment that he made a poor decision.  My assumption was that professional players should know that they should throw to second on a single with a man on first and no real chance to get the runner going from first to third because that trail runner would advance to second on such a play if they threw to third.  But I kept seeing mistakes like this happening.  As I surveyed coaches and scouts, I kept getting the same answer…that players today don’t really know how to play the game the right way.  It wasn’t that players needed to make better decisions under pressure, it was that they didn’t have the answers to make good decisions.

Most players had grown up practicing the game, but they hadn’t played catch with their friends, hadn’t played pick up games on sandlots like the generation of kids before them.  So while they knew the mechanics of hitting and they threw bullpen after bullpen with a private pitching coach, they hadn’t faced enough hitters, hadn’t had to improvise on the field, hadn’t learned the valuable lesson of throwing to the right base to keep a buddy from advancing.

We decided to begin a program to measure just how much our pitchers and position players knew about the game and we focused on teaching situational awareness in drills, meetings, and intrasquad games.  We tested players specifically on their Baseball IQ, creating an exam for pitchers and one for position players made up from critical information the coaches in the organization thought was important to know if a player were to be ready to play in the big leagues.  We found great variability in Baseball IQ levels between players.  Of course, there are also great differences in the experience levels of professional players, with some being drafted from high schools, some from junior colleges, and some from colleges.  But the greatest determining factor in our results seemed to be years of experience playing professional baseball.  So a Caucasian infielder who had just been drafted from a Pac-10 school the year before might have a lower Baseball IQ, according to our measures, than an African-American outfielder who had signed out of a high school in North Carolina and had two years of professional experience.  These results gave us evidence that the teaching our coaches were doing in the organization was having a positive effect.

A quick note to mention that we did not cross-reference scores for race, but that most of the players sampled were Caucasian (we created a test for Spanish-speaking players, but chose not to score their results as educational standards are different between the US, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, which are the two countries the majority of our Latin players hailed from.)  It is widely known that fewer African-Americans are playing baseball and making it to the big leagues than a generation ago.  As an estimate, I thought that the Pirates had more African-American players in their system than the professional averages.  And there could be pages and pages of sociological discussion on reasons why there are fewer African-American players in the game, a trend I hope is being reversed as more attention is drawn to it.  The relevant point in reference to Mr. Granderson’s column is that we would not hesitate to label a player of any race as having a high or a low Baseball IQ and that there certainly is a knowledge base for playing baseball that can separate one player from another in terms of on-field performance.

So in returning my thinking to the article, here are some questions I considered while reading:

1. What do the experts think?

Has anyone asked NBA coaches if they think the general Basketball IQ of players is lower today than it once was?  Has anyone asked if they experience frustration during games because they have players who don’t know what they are doing on the court?  Do most players become smarter as they gain experience in the league?  Maybe Gilbert Arenas DOES have a higher Basketball IQ than the average NBA player.  Maybe he finds a way to avoid getting picked off his man on defense or knows how to disrupt the triangle offense better than most of his peers.  Maybe he knows how to find an open spot on the floor when his opponents have game-planned specifically to stop him.  Maybe he has learned Flip Saunders’ system faster than any player Flip has ever coached.  Just because there are people in the world who may let their prejudices bleed through in their description of players shouldn’t diminish the possibility that there truly are some basketball players who demonstrate greater knowledge of the game day in and day out on the court.

2. Pick up Games

Maybe the same reason coaches think there are differences in Baseball IQ levels is an explanation for why there would be similarities in Basketball IQ levels.  If there aren’t differences, I would wonder if the amount of time basketball players spend playing pick up games gives them the understanding they need to play the game at the highest level.  But without answering my first questions and finding out if there really is a difference in Basketball IQ levels among NBA players, we couldn’t explain why there is or isn’t.

3. A Paradox in the Argument

I don’t mean to diminish Mr. Granderson’s argument with respect to racial judgments, as I would not deny plenty of overt and implied racism still exists in our country.  But if his reference to the history of African-American quarterbacks in football followed, wouldn’t coaches and analysts only be mentioning the high Basketball IQs of Caucasian players?  Granderson notes accurately that historically NFL coaches and executives had described “black quarterbacks in terms of their physical skills, while white quarterbacks are described in terms of their intellect.”  This is a horrible disservice and I am certain it kept many African-Americans from playing QB before great players like Warren Moon and Doug Williams led a change in culture.  But if the term “high Basketball IQ” were being used in a similar fashion, why would it be used to describe Gilbert Arenas and Thabo Sefolosha?

My gut tells me that when people are using the term “high Basketball IQ”, they are doing so with good intentions.  I’m not naïve enough to believe that some people in the world aren’t comfortable with people whose skin color is different or whose religious beliefs or political views aren’t the same as theirs.  But I don’t believe we should deny smart basketball players (who I’m sure are also smart people when they are not playing basketball) the credit they are due as smart basketball players.  I think that athletes in every sport should be celebrated for their dedication to studying their games, for their willingness to learn, and for the balanced approach they take in working just as hard on mental skills as physical skills.  If we truly valued the IQ of our athletes as much as we did their stats, maybe there wouldn’t be so much controversy.  I look forward to continuing my research in baseball and I hope that others will question my thinking as well…so we can all continue to learn together.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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College Baseball Coaches Discuss The Mental Game, Part III

In Mental Game Info, Uncategorized on November 6, 2009 at 4:04 pm

Part III of our series on College Baseball Coaches and the Mental Game:

Before the 2009 season began, we asked 42 Head Baseball Coaches at Division I universities to help us better understand how the mental game of baseball is perceived and used in college baseball. Our goal was to learn more about how coaches taught the mental game in their programs, the biggest mental game challenges their players faced, and where mental skills training could make a bigger difference in the future.

We asked a series of questions to find out how coaches view sport psychology and where they see their roles in teaching the mental game:

Q: Do you think there are still negative associations with sport psychology?   Do you think people still don’t understand what it really is or how to use it?  Do you think most coaches think they are responsible for teaching the mental game themselves?

Are there negative associations with sport psychology?

Yes – 15

No – 11

Yes, but fewer now than in the past – 12

These quotes help to explain the current state of sport psychology in baseball:

  • “Yes, there are negative associations, but coaches use it whether they call it sport psychology or not.”
  • “I am trying to teach the mental game but I don’t know if I am doing it right.”
  • “Most coaches are not qualified to teach the mental game but they do it based on what they were taught and what worked for them.”
  • “Many coaches are responsible for mental game instruction because there is little access to qualified baseball sport psychologists.”
  • “I think many coaches are not willing to embrace the mental side of the game because they do not know how to go about discussing it and implementing into their program.  I like to take the responsibility of reminding our players what mental toughness is and making the mental game part of our daily habits.”
  • “Whether I want to affect the mental game or not, I do.”

Certainly, there is an element of psychology in coaching…understanding how to motivate players, communicate with them, helping them turn repetitions in practice into automatic processes that they use in games. However, there is disagreement among coaches on where the line is between using psychology in coaching and teaching the mental game.  This may be a big key to why it is misunderstood or underutilized.

Q: If you are teaching the mental game in your coaching, where have you learned the lessons you are teaching?

The most common answers to this question involved learning from experience.  Second on the list were mentors that coaches had either played for or coached with and learned from when they were assistants.  The most commonly referenced books were not surprisingly Harvey Dorfman’s Mental Game of Baseball and sequels, and Ken Ravizza’s Heads Up Baseball.

Look closely at the second most popular answer to this next question:

Q: Can you give some examples of some athletes you’ve had that developed mental toughness over time? How was this achieved?

  1. Learning from Failure
  2. Mental Toughness can’t be developed…players either have it or they don’t.
  3. Overcoming Adversity
  4. Preparation/ Hard Work
  5. Different for each player based on individual character factors
  6. Practice mental skills (routines, intensity level, attitude, positive self-talk) just like they practice physical skills.
  7. Set standards and expectations that raise level of discipline and accountability.

There is a strong contingent of coaches who believe that mental toughness cannot be developed.  A player either has it or he doesn’t.  For coaches who do not believe that it can be developed, there must be great importance placed on identifying and measuring mental skills in players as part of the recruiting process and sport psychology consultants can be helpful in evaluating these factors.

For coaches who do believe that mental toughness can be developed, the top two answers, learning from failure and overcoming adversity, are overlapping answers.  Coaches believe that players have to fail in pressure situations and extract lessons from them so they will be able to adjust when in those tough spots again.  That’s the benefit that experience brings us.  Failure was a common theme throughout our interviews and clichés on the topic of failure in baseball are frequent.  The best players are the ones who learn from their failures and those players are viewed more often as mentally tough players.  Their learning produces correct processes and leads to better results.

Click Here to go to Part I.

Click Here to go to Part II.

Part IV will conclude this series and will be posted next week.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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Interview: Zach Duke, 2009 NL All-Star

In Interviews, Uncategorized on November 2, 2009 at 2:44 pm

Zach Duke: LHP, Pittsburgh Pirates, 2009 National League All-Star

Zach Duke is a 26-year-old Left-Handed Starting Pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  He was drafted in the 20th Round of the 2001 draft out of Midway High School in Waco, Texas and turned down a scholarship offer from Baylor to sign with the Pirates. He has been a fixture in the Pirates rotation since striking out nine Milwaukee Brewers in his major league debut on July 2, 2005.  His career highlights include an 8-2 rookie season with a 1.81 ERA, a 22 inning scoreless streak during that 2005 rookie season, fifth place in the 2005 Rookie of the Year balloting, two 200 IP seasons, and a place on the 2009 National League All-Star team.  Zach’s answers in this interview demonstrate the intelligence, adaptability and tenacity that have made him a successful major league pitcher.

Geoff Miller: You’ve done such a great job in overcoming adversity in your major league career.  How do you deal with failure at the big league level?

Zach Duke: I think the thing you have to remember is that every player that has played this game has failed at one point or another. It doesn’t mean you are a bad player, it just means you have more work to do. You have to be as even-keeled as possible and not put too much weight on one bad outing or one bad season. You have to look back and think about the things that made the results turn out the way they did and try to rethink your plan or work routine and remember the things that made you successful in the first place.

GM: Can you describe how you use your thought process to your advantage without thinking too much when you’re out on the mound?

ZD: The trick there, I have come to realize, is that you think outside your own personal actions, and focus on the game or at bat. For example, if you find yourself thinking about mechanics or release points, get outside your head and focus on a batter’s feet or hand position with the bat, and remember what you were taught to look for to combat a certain batter’s tendencies.

GM: How important is your confidence level to your success?

ZD: As simply as I can put it, if you don’t believe in your own abilities and talent, you are going to be thinking about what you are doing the entire game. You have to trust the work you have put in and have confidence that from all the repetitions you have done executing each pitch, your body will remember how to get the ball to a certain spot. You must know that even if a hitter beats you in one at bat, you will get him the next time by using what he just showed you.

GM: How would you describe your leadership style and how do you serve as a leader to your current teammates, most of whom have less than one year of major league service time?

ZD: I am not a “get in your face” type leader. I am still a young player, I have just gone through a lot in my young career and try to help the newer guys out by relaying my experiences and how I dealt with them, whether I did it right or wrong. I truly want every teammate, or player I have known for that matter, to be as good as they can be regardless of how it affects my career. Because to me, those memories will last in my memory longer than anything I accomplish on the field. The greatest way I can think of being a leader is trying to help everyone I come in contact with as much as I can. If I can help a younger player avoid some of the missteps I made, I know it will only help that player and my team.

GM: What advice would you give yourself if you could go back and talk to yourself as a high school pitcher?

ZD: I would tell any high school pitcher to always have the mind frame of this: “When I look back at my career, no matter what level I get to, I want to be able to look in the mirror and honestly say to myself that I did everything I possibly could to become as good as I could be.” And every day you are either getting better or getting worse. You are never in neutral.

GM: What is the most important mental game lesson you have learned in your career?

ZD: The most important mental game lesson I have learned is that the most important pitch and the only one that matters is the one you are about to throw. If a hitter gets a hit, have a short memory because you can’t change the past, but if your next pitch is a good one, the bad one won’t be remembered.

If you would like to receive new posts from The Winning Mind in Baseball by email, please CLICK HERE.

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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College Baseball Coaches Discuss the Mental Game, Part II

In Mental Game Info, Uncategorized on October 26, 2009 at 9:56 pm

Part II of our series on College Baseball Coaches and the Mental Game:

Before the 2009 season began, we asked 42 Head Baseball Coaches at Division I universities to help us better understand how the mental game of baseball is perceived and used in college baseball. Our goal was to learn more about how coaches taught the mental game in their programs, the biggest mental game challenges their players faced, and where mental skills training could make a bigger difference in the future.

The need for better education is reinforced in the answers to this question:

Q: “It seems that a strong mental game is listed by many athletes and coaches when thinking about what makes a winner, but we can’t figure out why sport psychology hasn’t made a bigger breakthrough… Why do you think that is?“

  1. Lack of knowledge/understanding of what sport psychology is and how to use it.
  2. Ego and/or fear on the part of players and coaches.  Afraid to let others be involved.  Afraid to admit weaknesses. Afraid to admit that they don’t know how to help players in this area or afraid to ask for help.
  3. No budget for it.
  4. Lack of credible resources who know the game of baseball, can relate to players, and provide simple useful information.
  5. Hard to quantify the value of what you’re getting and measure whether or not you got what you were paying for.
  6. Trust.  Most coaches we polled do consider this an important part of the game and are confident enough in themselves that they can admit that they don’t know enough about it or how to teach it.  But they have a difficult time finding people who they trust to teach them more and to help their players.

The lack of understanding of what sport psychology is and how to use it may increase the fear of some coaches and players to reach out and try it.  And coaches saw both of these factors as greater contributors to the slow progress of sport psychology in baseball than a lack of funds or credible resources who they can trust to help them.

Click here to go to Part I.

Part III coming soon…

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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College Baseball Coaches Discuss the Mental Game

In Mental Game Info, Uncategorized on October 21, 2009 at 11:32 pm

Before the 2009 season began, we asked 42 Head Baseball Coaches at Division I universities to help us better understand how the mental game of baseball is perceived and used in college baseball.  Our goal was to learn more about how coaches taught the mental game in their programs, the biggest mental game challenges their players faced, and where mental skills training could make a bigger difference in the future.

Over the next few weeks, we will be releasing excerpts, survey data, and our thoughts on our interviews.  Part I of this series of posts includes the full list of coaches who agreed to participate (with thanks again to each coach for his opinions), lists of most popular answers on two key questions, and a bit of our commentary.

Thanks to these coaches for their participation:

Patrick Anderson, Hofstra

Elliott Avent, North Carolina State

Greg Beals, Ball State

Bob Brontsema, UC Santa Barbara

Tod Brown, North Dakota State

Pat Casey, Oregon State

Brian Cleary, Cincinnati

Tim Corbin, Vanderbilt

Jack Dahm, Iowa

Jim Foster, Rhode Island

Mike Fox, North Carolina

Nick Giaquinto, Sacred Heart

Billy Godwin, East Carolina

Dennis Healy, Marist

Gary Henderson, Kentucky

Rich Hill, University of San Diego

Tim Jamieson, Missouri

Joe Kinney, Lafayette

Vance Law, BYU

Monte Lee, College of Charleston

Kevin Leighton, Manhattan

Andy Lopez, Arizona

Scott Malone, Texas – Corpus Christi

Rich Maloney, Michigan

Spanky McFarland, James Madison

John Musachio, Oakland University

Bobby Pierce, IP Ft. Wayne

Chris Pollard, Appalachian State

Steve Rodriguez, Pepperdine

Jim Scholssnagle, TCU

Daron Schoenrock, Memphis

Mike Scolinos, Coppin State

Dan Simonds, Miami, OH

Doug Smith, UC Riverside

Steve Smith, Baylor

Jason Stein, Eastern Kentucky

Mike Stone, Massachusetts

Turtle Thomas, Florida International

Jim Toman, Liberty

Jeff Waggoner, Marshall

Bill Walkenbach, Cornell

Bob Whalen, Dartmouth

The first question coaches were asked was:

Q: “What is the number one mental mistake that you see your players make?”

The following list displays the most common answers given by our sample of coaches.

Number One Mental Mistake

Issues with Focus: 12 (22.7%)

Trying too hard; putting too much pressure on themselves: 7 (12.9%)

Dealing with Failure: 7 (12.9%)

Fear of Failure: 4 (7.4%)

Focus on Results instead of Processes: 4 (7.4%)

Lack of plan or approach: 4 (7.4%)

* 42 Coaches provided 54 responses to this question.

The last interview question coaches were asked mirrored the first one:

Q: “If there was one thing that you could get a sport psychology consultant to

do to help your team win, what would it be?”

One Thing

Staying in the Moment; One pitch at a time: 8 (10.6%)

Improve Focus: 6 (8%)

Improve Confidence: 6 (8%)

Help each individual one-on-one: 5 (6.6%)

Help players deal with failure: 5 (6.6%)

Help players develop routines: 5 (6.6%)

* 42 Coaches provided 75 responses to this question.

It is interesting to note that while we asked what the number ONE mental mistake players made and the ONE thing that a sport psychology consultant could do to help, many coaches gave us more than one answer.  Even more interesting is that there was much more agreement on the challenges their players faced than on the solutions that sport psychology consultants could provide to help their players.  This reinforces the need for better education for players and coaches so the mental game can be simplified and methods for addressing and strengthening mental toughness can be more commonly applied.

Part II coming soon…

For more information, please contact Geoff Miller at miller@thewinningmind.com.

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