http://www.strimoo.com/video/10553600/A-Shot-at-Glory-Track-Tyson-Gay-MySpaceVideos.html
Before Tyson Gay came in 5th at last year's Olympic 100M semi-finals in Beijing he prepared with gold medalist Jon Drummond. Gay was the most heralded sprinter and favorite going for USA's chances at a 100m gold medal until he was injured at the Olympic trials. If you viewed the video, you got a glimpse of the rigor of Gay's workout along with the expectations of family members close to him. What stands out, however, is not that he was favored to win and fell out of contention but rather how he prepared himself and didn't blame anyone or even an injury for the performance he would give in Beijing. Despite his own disappointment, Gay commented following Jamaican Usain Bolt's electrifying performance for gold at Beijing, "No telling what he (Bolt) could do if he ran start to finish."
It ’s never always someone else’s fault
I do not know Elmer G. Letterman but he is quoted as having said, “A man may fall many times but he won’t be a failure until he says someone pushed him.” Funny. There is still a tendency to respond to such wit, “But what if someone really did push me….isn’t that my validation?” It is not validation but rather an excuse to remain mediocre at best. The fourth lesson I have learned from not playing basketball is that, It’s never always someone else’s fault. My college coach stunned me early in my freshman year at a practice when he told us all that bad passes are the passer’s fault. I thought to myself, wait, “what if my guy has terrible hands or cuts to the basket with his head turned the wrong way? Would the inability to receive a pass not be the receivers fault at that point?” Coach said that he was tired of players blaming other people for their own poor decisions on the floor. “My teammate did not help me when I was beaten one-on-one.” Coach had a drill to ensure you did not get beaten one-on-one. “I could not take a charge because the referees called me for three early fouls and I did not want a fourth.” Coach had a drill for making charge-takers out of sissies. The concept was simple. Basketball is a game of competing. As a 17/18-year old freshman, I learned that blaming others only postponed
a confrontation with personal truth. Coach redefined “competing” as doing the right thing at the right time with maximum intensity.
To compete is to execute technique rehearsed in practice. It entails, for instance, telling a teammate he is being screened and helping on his man long enough to prevent an easy bucket. The principle of competing in every minute detail was the way in which my college coach attempted to garner selflessness in a team environment. In my college program, we did a 1-on-1 drill called “1-on-1 in the key.” The drill was simple. Stop three guys in-a-row before your defensive tenure is up. The only way out of the key was to throw a hard chest pass to an offensive player, close out on him and stop him from scoring using sound defensive principles. If you fouled him, you went back to zero stops. If he scored you went back to zero. If you missed
a blockout or gave up a rebound your stint on defense could feel like a sentence to the underworld of Greek mythology – eternal.
The lesson here is that blaming other people borders on insanity. In a game situation, you are the one guarding these offensive players so who will you blame? The technique for stopping an offensive player is not difficult to learn but feels physically unnatural. So I remember dreading this drill. I remember spending 30-45 minutes trying to stifle my fatigue and finish my sentence. It sucked. Nevertheless, I learned how to play defense. I’m 31 years old and I would challenge anybody to get by me on the first try. Blaming others does not teach us anything except how to shirk responsibility. Shouldering responsibility ensures that you get the tools needed for the game. All things equal, you should never fail in a contest if you have accepted the cost of preparation. Mastery of skills, information, concepts, etc. all lead to a performance of which one can be proud. Blaming others is a tool of deflection as much as it is a tool of deception. If we concentrated on what we control half as much as what we do not, our production would be exponentially increased. It’s never always someone else’s fault but it is always within one’s power to “compete.” That seems ironic but it is not. The someone you are blaming is often someone different and you are the one constant of every experience you have ever had in life. Surely the probability of every botched experience being the result of someone’s ineptitude must be astronomical. Again, you are the common denominator. You have private access to your thoughts and your physical abilities. You have consciousness if you are reading this right now. You are in control of far more than you realize. Humans can create the automobile, Velcro and telescopes that orbit the Earth but strangely find ourselves incapable of so much. To blame is to insult how we are created and I learned this good lesson from the best seat in the house – next to coach.
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