The athlete’s ego: Good or bad?

August, 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:  

Before he actually was the greatest fighter ever, Muhammad Ali proclaimed to anyone and everyone who would listen, “I am the GREATEST!” His brash and cocky manner made him simultaneously beloved and hated by all those who knew him. While I truly admire Ali’s accomplishments and Ali, the man, his in your face, “I am the GREATEST” attitude highlights one of the uglier sides of sports today: The athlete’s EGO. A lot of athletes and coaches consider themselves to be “legends in their own minds.” This ego problem wouldn’t be so bad if athletes kept their brash and cocky attitude to themselves. As a matter of fact, most great athletes do think that they are THE BEST! This kind of inner self-confidence is actually essential to your ultimate success within your sport. What isn’t essential to your success however is telling everyone else that you’re the best! What is downright ugly and tasteless is going around acting out this internal attitude. They say that “pride goeth before a fall.” I’d have to wholeheartedly agree with this saying when it comes to sports. Acting entitled, cocky, and like you’re God’s gift to creation will alienate those around you, make you look like you’re a lousy sport and will ultimately set you up to fail. In this issue of The Mental Toughness Newsletter we will explore the wonderful world of the athlete’s ego.

ATHLETE’S LOCKER - “Ain’t I just grand?!!!!!” 
PARENT’S CORNER - “Don’t you just love the pompous jackass?”
COACH’S OFFICE – “Just say ‘NO!’ to selfish behavior!” 
DR. G’S TEACHING TALES - “Setting the ego aside for a greater good” 

ATHLETE’S LOCKER

“Ain’t I just grand?!!!!!” 

One question I will sometimes ask athletes when I get them in my office is: “So just how good are you?” Interesting enough, the answers that I get to this question vary across gender lines. Adolescent female athletes get embarrassed and uncomfortable with my asking and initially respond as if I’ve brought up a taboo subject. When pressed to answer they continue to hesitate, claiming that they don’t want to seem “stuck-up” or conceited like “some athletes” they know. I have to really push them before I can get a self-effacing, “I’m OK” out of them. It seems that the female athlete, in general has a difficult time discussing her ability and talent level, especially if she’s good. Furthermore, she has trouble separating out the difference between feeling good about herself on the inside and broadcasting this fact to the entire world on the outside. Because the latter is so distasteful to her, and she’s so concerned with how others will view her, she’s hesitant to admit to the former. 

The male athletes I ask, on the other hand, have absolutely no problem answering this question. Without hesitation or discomfort most admit that, yes indeed they are quite good, and thanks for asking!  Male athletes seem to have the exact opposite problem as females. They tend to think that not only are they quite special, but they feel that the world desperately needs to know! In other words they mistakenly believe that being confident involves opening your mouth and acting a certain way. Enter Mr. Ego.

So let’s have an honest talk about just how good you really are. First off, understand that the very best athletes in the world, the very best college, high school and even junior athletes feel that, inside, they are better than most of their competitors. Is this wrong? Is this being conceited? Do you have an ego problem if deep down you feel this way? No! No! and No! Part of being good is having the belief, that on some level you are better than those around you. Having the self-confidence to think that you will come out on top is one characteristic mark of a champion.

In fact, believing inside that you are the best is a necessary prerequisite for peak performance. Without this inner belief, you will not be able to stay calm and focused under pressure. Since being relaxed and focused on what’s important are absolutely essential to perform your best, then if you can’t stay loose and focused, you’ll never be able to reach your performance potential as an athlete. 

So what I’m saying here is that by itself, thinking that you’re the best is NOT a problem. What is a problem is when you ACT like you’re the best around others, when you feel compelled to TELL EVERYONE just how wonderful you are, and when you RESPOND to your teammates and opponents like they are some lower life form. Why?

First, and despite the fact that you may regularly see this kind of haughty, boorish, self-centered behavior on TV whenever you watch the pros play, it’s flat out wrong! Besides being tacky, this behavior demonstrates to the world that you have absolutely NO CLASS! Instead, it shows the world that you are a BIG ASS! The mark of a true champion isn’t demonstrated by simply coming out on top, time and time again.  Winning is far more than just the outcome of your game. Being a real winner is more related to how you conduct yourself in relation to your opponents, teammates, coaches and the fans. Putting others down with your words and behaviors is disrespectful and the behavior of a loser! 

Second, if you really think that you’re that great, how come: #1 you feel compelled to tell everyone around you? and, #2 you can’t stop putting down those around you? Did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe you don’t really believe it yourself? The athlete who is a “legend in his own mind” is frequently plagued by painful self-doubts and feelings of insecurity. If you have to use your mouth to tell everyone just how great you are, then deep down you probably don’t really believe it yourself. Furthermore, if you have a need to put others down just so you can feel a little better about yourself, then you really don’t feel so hot to begin with. Overt self-confidence and bravado are usually a mask for deep seated feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. The fact of the matter is that if you really believed that you were the best, you wouldn’t feel compelled to flap your lips or dump on others!

Third, having a big ego will get you into some serious hot water, performance wise. If you step to the line, plate or blocks with your ego on the line, that is, you’ll feel significantly diminished should you fail or lose, then you are a good candidate for choking. You will always perform your worst when you have a lot to lose. If you feel like you have to back up your words with the outcome of this game, match or race, then you’ll end up being terribly disappointed. Playing with this kind of self-imposed pressure on you will consistently send your performance directly to the outhouse. It’s a fact of sports that you’ll always do your best when you have absolutely nothing to lose. This is why you have to learn to perform without an outcome focus and without your ego on the line.

Finally, athletes who make themselves out to be better than their teammates and, therefore treat their mates as inferior or less important to the team make a serious contribution to team disharmony. “I am better than thou” behavior alienates those around you and will get you a ton of disrespect in return. In fact, people will stop appreciating your talent because they will be too distracted by your immaturity. Real winners make those around them better, NOT worse! Putting your teammates down will not only undermine their performance, but the entire team’s as well. 

So what’s the point? Feel good about yourself. Believe that you’re the best INSIDE! However, on the outside conduct yourself like a winner. Be humble! Give your teammates the credit for your good performances. Respect your opponents and your teammates. Make the people around you better. Be a class act, not a jackass! Understand that there is never any room for the outward show of ego in the game of a real winner.
PARENT’S CORNER

“Don’t you just love the pompous jackass?”

I was sitting in the first class of a graduate seminar on child psychology many years back when I began to notice that I was suddenly being overwhelmed by some “subtle” feelings of rage. The target of my heartwarming feelings was the psychiatrist teaching the course. Why was I so angry? Simply because Herr Doctor was conducting himself in the manner of a pompous ass! He was haughty, condescending and demonstrated considerable skill at making those students who dared open their mouths feel like complete morons in the shadows of his great brilliance. 

He may have thought that I was a lower life form, but I was NOT an idiot! I certainly wasn’t going to open my mouth in this unsafe environment. However, the intense rage that I was feeling was rapidly bubbling up to the danger level. I strategically kept my mouth shut as long as possible until Herr Doctor finally turned to me and asked why I was being so quiet. Then the floodgates opened. I “patiently” explained to him that while he might have a lot of good information to impart to us, his manner of presentation was “rather unfortunate.” “More specifically”, I went on, “I find you to be both condescending and infantalizing.” Stunned silence filled the room. I had done the unthinkable. I had dared challenge GOD! 

Dr. Arrogant was temporarily speechless. However, being a psychiatrist, he was well skilled in the manipulation of reality. It didn’t take him very long before he went on a counterattack and accused me of having some deep-seated psychological problem that prevented me from being committed to the class. The only psychological problem I had at the time was him and his pretentious, “Ain’t I GRAND” attitude. Although I do have to admit that his behavior did have a very close resemblance to another male authority figure that I had grown up with!             

That’s right! Let’s just blame my insolent, disrespectful behavior on my father! Isn’t that the game plan when you’re having problems with one part of your life or another? Well, my father sure taught me to “see red” whenever I was confronted by pompous, know-it-all individuals. I don’t think he meant to teach me this lesson. It’s just that he himself had a tendency towards pomposity. In fact, I grew up waiting for him to catch me and my siblings doing things wrong so that he could help us see what complete idiots we were. Personally I’m grateful that he could take the time to humiliate us whenever we didn’t have the answer to one of his questions or in some other way screwed up. It was like getting beaten up by someone wearing velvet gloves: no overt bruises but a ton of long lasting pain. But hey, this isn’t my therapy session and you certainly don’t need to listen to me whine about my past. 

What you do need to know is that I have a great deal of trouble with ego-centered, pompous, “I-am-the-best-and-you-are-nothing” individuals, and you should too! Why? Since we’re mainly talking about sports here, arrogant athletes violate the heart and soul of the game. Sport is a vehicle with which we can challenge ourselves in a number of different physical, social and mental arenas. It is a way for us to learn valuable life lessons and to grow stronger and smarter. Competitive sports are supposed to embody the notion of sportsmanship and fair play. Sport and competition in particular are supposed to emphasize the importance of team goals and needs over individual ones. The real spirit of sports is about respect for teammates and opponents.   Competitive sports also provide our kids with heroes/heroines and role models. The ego-centered, selfish athlete is no role model I would want my children following. He is arrogant, immature and disrespectful. He is a master of alienation and gives the game a bad name. Unfortunately, you will find this kind of athlete at almost every age level in sports. This is where you, as a parent come in. 

It is one of your main jobs to teach your children how to feel good about themselves without, in the process, having the need to make others feel badly. You want to simultaneously build high self-esteem while teaching a certain kind of “egolessness.” You want to teach a respect for oneself as well as a healthy respect for others. It is important that you as a parent do not collude with, or turn your back on your child’s haughty or arrogant behavior. Understand that arrogance is not a reflection of self-confidence. Feeling self-confident has absolutely nothing to do with acting arrogant. Arrogance is an interpersonal communication from me to you that I think you are in one way or another inferior to me. Self-confidence, on the other hand is a very personal “communication.” It is a message from me to me that I’m good, talented, fast, strong, etc. 

You need to teach your children that the truly confident individual uses his/her good internal feelings to make those around him/her feel better, NOT worse about themselves. How you teach this lesson is no different than how you teach your children any other important life lesson. First, and most important you need to model the behavior that you would like them to adopt. This means that you have to have the strength to take a close look at your own issues here. How confident are you? How do you communicate this confidence to others? Do you empower the people that you come in contact with, including your children, or leave them diminished? Before you can get your children to really pay attention to what you have to say about this topic, you must be sure that you are congruently “walking the talk.”

Next you have to be willing to firmly and appropriately step in when your child appears to be “trying on” the wrong kind of behaviors and attitude. If you see your child putting others down from the field or bench, or broadcasting just how great they really are, then you must intervene and use this as a teaching moment. Turning your back on this kind of behavior will only serve to reinforce it. 

Think for a moment about some of the pompous people you have come in contact with over the years. Now recall your own feelings and just how “wonderful” it was to be around them, and how you couldn’t wait to get away from them. Can you imagine what it would be like if your child’s friends, teammates, teachers, or coaches felt that very same way about him/her? Yes, that’s a bit of a horrifying thought. Start today to teach your child to be a class act when he competes, to feel good about himself and respectful of those around him, to build others up rather than tearing them down. Teach him to be confident on the inside and humble and gracious on the outside. Trust me on this one. The sporting world could use a few more class acts!

COACH’S OFFICE

“Just say ‘NO’ to “team busting” behavior!”

Whether you’re aware of it or not, there are always two different games that you simultaneously have to manage as a coach. The first one, the physical/strategic game is the one most obvious and openly taught by all coaches. This is the outer, x’s and o’s game, the one where you teach the proper technique and the right strategies both in practice and at competitions. To be successful as a coach you must have a solid knowledge of this outer game and the ability to effectively convey its vital information. This is by far the easiest game for you to manage. Most coaches, however, believing this to be the only “important” game, mistakenly think that their coaching duties end here.

The second game that continuously goes on whether you choose to pay attention to it or not is the interpersonal or inner game. This is the “game” of team dynamics, of how your athletes interact with each other, of the spoken and unspoken pecking order on the team, of the cliques, alliances and scapegoating that occurs. Much of the inner game gets played out in subtle ways both on and off the field. If you don’t consciously look for this game within the game you’ll most likely miss it entirely. If this should happen, then chances are good that you’ll be less successful with your athletes, regardless of your coaching expertise and their level of talent. 

How well you coach the inner game will determine how well your athletes play together, or their level of team cohesion. Since much of your ultimate success as a coach lies with your ability to get a wide variety of diverse and sometimes-conflicting personalities to mesh together and play as one, it is worth your while to spend some of your coaching energies working with this “inner” game. What do I mean?

Think back to a past experience when you had a group of really talented athletes who just couldn’t seem to get along together. Despite the fact that your team may have had the potential, talent-wise to win Conference or go all the way, they squabbled amongst themselves the entire season and ended up being significant underachievers. Perhaps there were rumblings of conflicts and fights behind the closed doors of the locker room. Maybe there were some ego problems on the team with one or more athletes acting entitled and arrogant and picking on their less talented teammates. There may have been an undercurrent of jealousy directed at several of the starters. Perhaps there were a few selfish athletes who refused to put the needs of the team in front of their own and didn’t care if their behavior or choices jeopardized the team’s chances at success. Most likely there was a definite lack of trust among team members. Whatever the specifics were, the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the inner game both drained the intensity and diverted the focus from the outer game leading to consistently disappointing results.

As a coach, how many times do you remember seeing signs of this inner game turmoil and then deliberately choosing to ignore them? While you may initially feel uncomfortable looking at these inner game issues, they constitute an important part of your job. It’s critical that you learn to teach  and set limits around appropriate and inappropriate team behavior. When you fail to do this, one or two “bad apples” can sabotage all your hard work and the entire season with their behind the scenes “team-busting” behavior. This is especially true when you’re coaching women, who are naturally more tuned into and concerned with the social climate and interpersonal goings on of the team. When you think, “If I don’t see it, I can’t do anything about it” you are kidding yourself!

You need to make use of your instincts and “radar” to tune into your team’s interpersonal dynamics. Probably the most effective way to do this is by making use of your captains. This is assuming that you have captains who you can trust and who you’re quite confident are NOT part of the problem.  A good captain will have his/her finger on the pulse of the team and will be able to help you understand what is really going on both on and off the field. In addition, good captains can also be part of the solution, helping you model appropriate “team building” behaviors as well as reinforcing your limits on what athlete behaviors you won’t tolerate. 

If you are unfortunate enough to have ineffective captains or those who are part of the problem then you can try to enlist the aid of your assistant coaches to help you open a window into the team’s inner game. If you don’t have the luxury of assistant coaches, then the responsibility for working with the inner game falls squarely in your lap.   

So what kind of “team busting” behavior should you be on the lookout for? Arrogance; Jealousy; Scapegoating; Selfishness; and the in-group Cliques of the starters vs. non-starters. When left unchecked, these ego-related behaviors can do considerable damage to your program. It is interesting that much of this behavior is a product of low self-esteem. It’s the insecure athlete that is more likely to act arrogant, jealous and selfish. It’s also the insecure athlete that will simultaneously invest a tremendous amount of his/her energy in getting into the “in group” while trying to keep certain teammates out. 

As a coach, you need to let your athletes know quite clearly and firmly that there is absolutely no place for those kinds of behaviors on your squad and that you won’t tolerate them. Having said that, you then need to be able to back up your words with consistent action should you begin to see these kinds of behaviors sneaking into the team’s dynamics. You have to be willing, if necessary, to even bench one or two of the offending parties, regardless of whether they are the team’s top producers. If the behaviors don’t change, then you have to be able to let those athletes go from your squad. 

As you are probably well aware, being effective as a coach is never a simple case of just teaching x’s and o’s. You also have to be willing to look for and work with your team’s interpersonal dynamics. Without direct and consistent work with your squad’s “inner game”, you’ll end up losing control of the outer one.                         

DR. G’S TEACHING TALES

“Setting the ego aside for a greater good”(The following story was gotten from www.inspirationalstories.com)

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the school's students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question.

"Everything God does is done with perfection. Yet, my son, Shay, cannot
learn things the way other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is God's plan reflected in my son?" The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe that when God brings a child like Shay into the world, an opportunity to realize the Divine Plan presents itself. And it comes in the way people treat that child."

Then, he told the following story:
Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they will let me play?" Shay's father knew that most boys would not want him on their team. But the father understood that if his son were allowed to play it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his teammates.  Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We are losing by six runs, and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our
team and I'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning."

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. At the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the outfield. Although no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands.  In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team  scored again. Now, with two outs and bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base. Shay was scheduled to be the next at-bat. Would the team actually let Shay bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shay. 

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have ended the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman. Everyone started yelling, "Shay, run to first. Run to first." Never in his life had Shay ever made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.  Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!"

By the time Shay was rounding first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman for a tag. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher's intentions had been, so he
threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head.  Shay ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home.  As Shay reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third!"

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams were screaming, "Shay! Run home." Shay ran home, stepped on home plate and was cheered as the hero, for hitting a "grand slam" and winning the game for his team. "That day," said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face," the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of the Divine Plan into this world."