THE INSTANT OF COMPETITION

By Bill Neville

Your team's success or failure is dependent on That Instant when your performance determines the outcome.

The preparation for an unknown future moment is what practice and training should be all about.  Athletes, surgeons, soldiers, firefighters, high steel workers, policemen, airline pilots, hydroplane drivers, and a lengthy list of others, train for future moments when their performance will determine success or failure.

When I see young players fritter away practices knowing that they cannot bank “time” for later use, it makes me twitch.  Somehow, if coaches and trainers can get across the message of why competitive intense practices lead to performing successfully when it matters; the learning curve would arc higher.  There is a guiding cliché:  “You will play like you practice.”  It is absolutely true.  Too often the youthful affliction of “I 'm a game player” overrides the truth.

Several years ago I was talking sports and philosophy with a very good friend and colleague, Jeff Clarke.  At the time Jeff was the Head Coach of the Montana State University cross-country ski team and a member of the USA national team staff. I said, “Jeff, if you lined up 10,000 Lycra-clad, quad-bulging, zero body-fat, skiers I couldn’t pick who would win from the skier who will finish long after the spring melt.” 

They all have the same sinewy physiques.  Jeff mulled this over and said,

“The consistent winners have big engines. (Read: efficient cardiovascular machinery). But there also are many of those. The winners know when to vaporize their opponents.”

Vaporize?  There is an image you can see and feel.

“They know when to explode by a tiring skier.”  Jeff continued, “They motivate themselves while demoralizing the opponent in one instant.”

The instant of competition.

Think about it.  In virtually every activity where performance under pressure determines winning or losing, success or failure, there is always someone who stands out and produces.

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The Instant of Competition

By Bill Neville

The exciting thing about life is that we never know when we have to come up with the key performance.  It should be reviewed in every practice and training session.  In sports there are many players who will seldom get playing time whose roles are that of stable ponies to the thoroughbreds.  Then, circumstances intervene and the seldom-used player is called upon.  Have they prepared themselves for this moment in time?  They will regret

it if they didn’t?  Preparation doesn’t guarantee success but it does guarantee the best chance at success.

 

An example of the instant of competition I find fascinating was the defense of the southernmost flank of the Union army at Gettysburg near a forgettable landmark called Little Round Top.  The officer in charge was a relatively obscure Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.  He was a former professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College in Maine. He was a philosopher, a scholar and fluent in many languages.  He had no military background or anything in his past that indicated a proficiency in military affairs.

As a learned scholar he was aware of the politics and history that led to the War Between the States.  He felt he had to contribute to the Union cause.  His family, colleagues and friends were appalled when he joined.

But when he made the commitment Chamberlain studied and trained for what was coming.  For a couple of years he toiled in seemingly meaningless drill and duty.

But, during the months leading up to the decisive moments at Gettysburg circumstances moved Chamberlain to the head of the 20th Maine, a unit decimated at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Decisions by Union command placed the 20^th Maine at the end of the Federal line.  The thinking was that the Confederate Army would not focus its attack at that point.

Wrong.

The Confederates hammered the position.  The battle raged most of the day in very, humid, hot conditions.  There was virtually no water to quench the appalling thirst of both sides.  The 15^th Alabama charged repeatedly up the hill at the Maine. 

Chamberlain was very aware that if the Confederate troops could move around the flank they would get between the Union Army and Washington D.C. and likely win the war.

One more charge was coming.  Chamberlain had to make a decision that could modify modern history.  His exhausted, outnumbered troops were nearly out of ammunition.

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The Instant of Competition

By Bill Neville

He could hear the Gray troops moving up through the trees. All of his senses were on full alert. The wails of the severely wounded blended with the distant gunfire on other Gettysburg battle sites.  The smell of death mingled with sweat and gunpowder.  The humid heat was stifling and exacerbated by full woolen uniforms.  His mouth felt like everyone else's, full of cotton and sand.

“Fix bayonets!  We are going to charge!”  Chamberlain ordered.  His officers and troops were stunned to immobility for a moment.  They did as ordered.  On the command ‘Charge!’ they rolled into the equally stunned Alabamians.  It was a calculated, unpredictable, move in dire circumstances.

A decision made and action taken in an instant.  The Instant of Competition.

The Confederate troops turned and ran for their lives.  Many were captured.  They were tough, battle-hardened troops.  But at that instant they were stunned and defeated by a risky, bold, decision.

It has been speculated but, of course, impossible to prove, that if the 20th Maine did not hold that flank and the South had won, there would have been two countries in what is the United States and we would have lost World War II.

Throughout the war Chamberlain had many more instances to perform and he did very well.  But he wasn’t lucky. He was prepared.

Think on many glorious instances in sports and who came through for the victory.  The famous poem about “Casey at the Bat” is a classic example of the Instant of Competition.

The poem focuses on Casey failing at the instant. What about the pitcher who struck him out at that crucial moment? He did perform. Of course, Casey wouldn’t have even been the subject of the poem if he hadn’t performed in many prior situations.

The preparation for these life moments is in practice.  The older we get the more we appreciate these opportunities to get better. Wouldn’t it be great if we could convince our young players of this concept?