The Super Mental Training Book (41 page)

47. Zobkov, op. cit.

48. Charles A. Garfield, Peak Performance: Mental Training Techniques of the World's Greatest Athletes, (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1984), p. 85.

49. Ibid., p. 86.

50. Corky Fowler and Christopher Smith, The Hidden Skier, (Chicago, Illinois: Contemporary Books, 1977), p. 20.

51. Garfield, op. cit., p. 15.

52. Dr. Bruce Ogilvie, a U.S. sports psychologist possessing extensive Soviet and East German athletic connections, places the figure closer to 40 (see "The Eastern Bloc Comes Into L.A. With a Head Start," Los Angeles Times, January 25, 1984).

53. Garfield, op. cit., p. 63.

54. Suinn, op. cit., p. 43.

55. Garfield, op. cit., p. 29.

56. Ibid., pp. 187-191; for purposes of clarity I have slightly edited Step 3.

57. Ibid., p. 192.

MENTAL TRAINING STRATEGIES TIME LINE (FOOTBALL)

T R

A I

N I

N G

P

E

R

I

O

D

Use of Meditation

(Kevin McLain of the Rams did this 2-3 times a day; Jim Marshall; Joe Namath)

Simulation

(UCLA practices while listening to a crowd noise tape during workouts; the Rams often run plays in total silence during workouts)

Mental Training Program

(Sports psychologist Dan Smith worked with Illinois University football team, teaching imagery, goal-setting, etc.; Iowa quarterback Gordy Bohannon followed one under Dr, Gauron's guidance; Saul Miller taught imagery/relaxation techniques to interested Rams players and coaches; Dr. Nicholi serving as team psychiatrist for the New England Patriots)

Hypnosis Sessions

(Hypnotherapist Bob Davies, an ex-football coach, conducts these with football player clients)

D A Y S

L

E

A D I

N G

U P

T O

T II E

G A M

E

T H

E

G

A M E

Hypnosis Sessions

(Arthur Ellen held these with Rose Bowl teams)

Visualization

(Rams placekicker Frank Corral engaged in "visualizing the ball going through the uprights")

Visualization Sessions

(Rams great Jack Youngblood practiced visualization while driving his car; Dewey Selmon of the Buccaneers used the technique "all the time;" quarterback Frank Ryan would "visualize my receivers, imagine the ball going out," and also practiced a focal point drill during workouts; All-Pro cornerback Leroy Irvin listened to an imagery tape)

Use of Self-hypnosis

(Placekickers Uwe Von Schamann and Greg Steinke would give themselves autosuggestions before field goal attempts-"keep my head down, follow through," etc.)

FOOTBALL:

PLAYERS TACKLE MENTAL TRAINING

Each year football becomes more complicated and bone-crunching. It seems that every player nowadays lives in the weight room, striving to develop into a physical specimen that can really dish out and withstand punishment. A concurrent development is the adoption by professional, college, and high school football teams of over a hundred different formations, which result in a thousand or more possible plays. The offense has to know how to execute all these plays, and the defensive unit is expected to stop them. Obviously, the mental demands on football players are greater than ever. The player must motivate himself to attain peak physical condition and cope with grueling workouts; he must also be able to play "smart" on the field—an absolute necessity because one mental error can cost the entire team the game. It is no surprise, therefore, that many football players have turned to visualization, meditation, or hypnosis to help them deal with the demands of their sport. Some head coaches, realizing the inadequacies of outmoded pep talk approaches, have brought in sports psychologists to help their players with their mental preparation. In this chapter we shall see how wise these decisions by certain players and coaches to try out various mental training strategies proved.

Meditation

Meditation is one mental discipline which some professional football players have adopted. For instance, the Associated Press once reported that Jim Marshall, the great defensive end Hall of Famer for the Minnesota Vikings, who retired in 1979 after playing in the National Football League for 20 years, "is into transcendental meditation."[l] Marshall started 280 straight regular season games—a NFL record—though to what extent meditation helped him accomplish this feat one cannot say without talking to the man.

Another person who practiced meditation during his professional football career is Kevin McLain, who was special teams captain and reserve linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams before a knee injury ended his playing days in 1979. McLain was an Ail-American linebacker at Colorado State in 1975, and the first-round draft pick of the Rams in 1976. I interviewed him in August, 1977 during the Rams summer training camp. This period is a tense time for the professional football player, because there is always the chance he might be cut. When McLain was a rookie in 1976, he did not engage in meditation, and the pressures of training camp got to him. He informed me:

The college football system is run with a lot of emotion involved, and I tried to carry that into professional football. When that didn't work for me, I began to get frustrated.

I had problems dealing with the frustration, and realizing that all I needed to do was to not worry about making a mistake, not let it bother me, and know I'd have the opportunity to do it right. But, I got myself in a situation which kept snowballing and snowballing. The harder I tried, if I made a mistake, the more frustrating it was. I didn't have the understanding of the game that I have this year.

Finally, 3/4 of the way through McLain's first year with the Rams, he started meditating:

Say I'd come home from practice, and it had been a rough day: I'd sit down, find a comfortable place. I used to sit out on a porch or under a tree. And I'd try to totally clear my mind, and have my thoughts not focused on any one thing.

When you begin, you have all sorts of thoughts going through. Like you close your eyes and things keep popping up, firing at you, trying to get your attention. At first they do for a second. And then you learn to let them slip off to the sides.

So, you're actually training your mind to totally block everything out. And it does take practice; at first it took me a long time. But, the more I did it, the easier it was.

Not only did the meditation come easier for McLain, but it also seemed to improve his football performance and general well-being. He continued:

It's changed my outlook. Because my outlook's changed I have the ability to concentrate; my concentration in football is sharper. And because of that I'm a better football player. The whole thing is like the difference between night and day from last year to this year.

Meditation has also made me a better person. I have the ability to deal with people, and not take things personally.

According to McLain, "no coach here has ever talked to me about any kind of serious mental preparation." We know, of course, that it is a rare coach who knows much about mental rehearsal techniques. Also, some coaches at the professional level believe that money acts as the main motivator anyway. Give the athlete enough money, goes the reasoning, and he will see to it that he is always prepared to give it his best. Even the most highly-paid professional athletes, however, sometimes slack off during a game, as well as occasionally commit costly mental errors. Money is really not a mental coordinator. As McLain told me, "Some people in sports, even on the professional level, don't know what it takes to be mentally ready."

The ex-Rams linebacker, though, knew what it took to be mentally ready. He meditated two to three times a day usually. Because he regularly practiced meditation, and became good at it, McLain was able to meditate under almost any circumstance. He demonstrated this ability to me, in fact. We went out to a grassy area at the Rams compound. McLain sat down and immediately slipped into a calm and relaxed state. As I took his picture, he pointed out that he did not mind people knowing that he meditated, and no one on the team appeared to mind, either. McLain, besides showing me that he could meditate practically anywhere and any time, told me about a related incident:

I'm to the point where I don't necessarily need to be in a comfort situation. For example, today I made a mistake on a play. The coach came up and jumped on me about it, and explained it to me. I went over to the sidelines, and the second team came in to take their five plays. I sat down on my helmet during those five plays and was completely gone. But, the thing about it was, I realized I made a mistake and why, and knew what I needed to do to correct the mistake. There was no reason for me to go over there and throw my helmet down and get mad.

So, meditation really helped McLain maintain control over his emotions. According to Herbert Benson, author of The Relaxation Response, this increased self-control is one of the main benefits meditation (called the "relaxation response" by Benson) provides. He states that "you will be able to cope better with difficult situations by regularly allowing your body to achieve a more balanced state through the physiologic effects of the Relaxation Response." [2]

In professional football, the quarterback is constantly confronted with stressful situations. From Kevin McLain I learned that a quarterback teammate coped with those pressures by regularly practicing meditation. This was Joe Namath, the hero of Super Bowl III, who spent his last year in pro ball with the Rams. When Namath appeared on TV talk shows at the time, he sometimes mentioned that he meditated. Dr. Thomas Tutko, in his book Sports Psyching (1976), also notes Namath's well-publicized use of meditation. I wanted to pursue these leads, so I tried to

THE SUPER MENTAL TRAINING BOOK

(Bob Stevenson photo)

Kevin McLain, L.A. Rams linebacker (1976-79), is shown practicing meditation between workouts at the Rams summer training camp in 1977. He did this 2-3 times a day.

make arrangements to interview Namath. Joe, however, is such a great personality that everybody else wished to talk to him, too. Even Kevin McLain could not find an appropriate time to approach Namath, his own teammate, about my desire to interview him. I therefore never made the contact. In any case, it is instructive to know that professional football's most celebrated quarterback practiced meditation during his career.

Joe Namath, as football fans recall, possessed a truly magnificent arm; but, his knees were a different story. Thanks to wild-charging linemen, his knees were always getting injured, requiring surgery. When Namath was back on the field, it was all he could do to simply drop back for a pass. The pain in his knees was constant no doubt. It is likely that he used meditation to help put the pain out of his mind. One scientific study suggests that meditation can serve this purpose. In a February 12, 1979 U.S. News and World Report article, "Science Takes a New Look at Faith Healing," it is noted that:

Yogis and religious mystics have long used meditation and prayer to combat pain. Now some researchers say they are discovering biological processes that may explain how this works.

Three University of California scientists have demonstrated that hopeful thoughts can cause the body to secrete its own pain-killing drugs, a recently discovered family of morphinelike chemicals called endorphins.

In their experiment, 50 patients with painful tooth extractions were told that they were going to get a powerful pain-killing drug. Instead, they were given placebos— fake medicines, such as sugar pills—whose occasional power to cure has always puzzled physicians. Even though the patients had suffered physical damage to their jaws, one third of the sufferers felt less pain.

To test for endorphins, those patients were injected with a substance that blocks the effects of all drugs related to morphine. In every case, the pain returned. This, said the researchers, indicated that the relief may have been caused by secretion of the morphine-related endorphins, triggered solely by the patients' faith that they were getting effective treatment.

"Hopeful thoughts" can produce a beneficial physical effect, aside from their acknowledged psychological merit, a fact that wise men have known for a long time. One such man was the great Arab doctor, Yohanna Ibn Masawaih, whose illustrious career spanned the Golden Era of the Arab Empire. For 50 years, Yohanna served as personal physician to the Caliphs, until his death in 858. During these years his medical lectures in Baghdad were always well attended, perhaps because of his keen abilities as a sharp conversationalist. Yohanna, besides possessing a quick mind, also possessed the unshakeable belief that a sound body, mind, and spirit are prerequisites for good health. History records one incident where Yohanna brilliantly drove home his holistic philosophy:

A priest once came to him, and said, "I feel unwell in my stomach." "Use," said Yohanna, "the Electuarium SusianumT "I have done so," replied the man. "Use the Electuarium Diacyminum" said Yohanna. The man replied, "I have already taken some pounds of it." He then ordered him to take the Pentadicon, to which the other replied, "I have already drunk a whole vessel full." "Use the Confectio Ambrosia" said Yohanna. "I have already done so, and in large quantities." At last Yohanna grew angry, and said to the man, "If you want to get well, embrace Islamism, for that is good for the stomach!"[3]

Hypnosis

One of the more confusing sports hypnosis stories I have ever come across centers around Uwe Von Schamann, when he was a field goal kicker for the University of Oklahoma in 1977. The contradictory details can be found in a June, 1978 Sky magazine article written by Dan Lauck. According to Lauck, Von Schamann used a "meditation technique, part of a program called Relaxation Responses" to mentally prepare himself for his game-winning 40-yard field goal against Ohio State (with only six seconds to go). The crowd of 88,000 people in Ohio Stadium were screaming at Von Schamann to miss. Then, they broke into the chant, "Block that kick!" Lauck relates what happened next: