The mental, emotional, & relational side of athletes is far more important than the physical.
“If you care about sports performance, you must care about all elements of performance.
Sports performance has little to do with the perfect training program or practice plan.
Sports performance has a whole lot to do with the mental, emotional, & relational side of people.”
-Ray Zingler on X
Imagine being a self-proclaimed “car guy” and only caring about the exterior condition of the vehicles’ body.
Not the engine, not the transmission, not the starter, axles, shocks, tires, or anything else.
Your main concern is that shiny red paint job.
Ask most car guys out there about this guy, and they’ll quickly tell you, he’s the furthest thing from a car guy.
Now let’s roll over to the sports world.
You have a sport (or strength) coach who is acutely focused on HIS stuff. The coaching staff, meeting structure, practice plans, & play calling.
And hell let’s go a step further and say that he’s GREAT at all the above.
Does guarantee that this coach is going to be successful?
Lord have mercy not even close.
Do you know how many coaches can interview well and write up plans on paper? Just about every single one of them who know their asshole from their elbows (trust, sadly, there are plenty of those out there who don’t.)
But that’s the easy stuff, right?
That’s the exterior shell of the car, if you will.
But it surely aint the meat & potatoes.
The meat & potatoes are the other side of the equation. The wildly more important side… the athletes.. the kids.
And it’s not as easy as putting the “best” players on the field.
Plenty of teams and programs have great athletes and still lose a lot of games.
The game is about trying to reach the person, not the player.
See many coaches focus on the jersey and what the jersey can do for themselves (job security), but the great ones are acutely focused on who is wearing the jersey.
They know that to get the most out of number 11, you have to focus on who Ben is.
The mental, emotional, and relational side of Ben.
What makes him tick?
How do we help him regulate his emotions in suboptimal circumstances?
What kind of teammate is he, and how can we help him improve his leadership qualities?
You want to talk about culture on social media? Or do you want to create culture?
That’s how you do it.
Performance is far more mental than it is physical.
You must prioritize all aspects of performance.
