University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, August 21, 1974
7
Players Say Mental Preparation Important to Game
By BOB OATES
The Los Angeles Times
Following a game in Chicago last fall, Charlie Cowan of the Rams, an offensive tackle who has spent 13 years in pro football, was talking about the afternoon's big play.
On a fullback sweep, Cowan had pulled out of the line to knock down a Bear **J** while Lawrence McCutcheon, the man with the ball, set up the decisive first touchdown.
"How did you get out there so fast?" Cowan was asked. At 35 and 265, he had moved with the agility of a 25-year-old 250-pound guard.
"We were mentally ready for the Bears," he said quietly.
It was a remark characteristic not only of Cowan but also of athletes generally. The tellers either up or down—to hear them tell everyone's emotionally, "emotionally," or they were, or they weren't prepared "mentally," or they were. They use the expressions interchangeably.
Wonders are up, losers down.
Are these just figures of speech—or do the athletes mean it? What was Cowan talking about?
When losers say they weren't
mentally ready, are they just making excuses? Is it true that physically-awesome athletes win only when they have the right mental attitude?
Their testimony tends to be almost unanimous, and their answers may surprise those who believe games like football and basketball are tests of physical skill. In general, the evidence is that they pretty much convinced that any competitive athletic event is a brain game.
Coaches, psychologists and other scientists who work with athletes agree
“In a business like major league baseball, most of us have similar athletic abilities,” says Dodger pitcher Don Sutton. “The differences are mental and emotional, the difference is preparation. That’s where everything starts in the poise, the confidence, the concentration.”
Mental preparing. Is this what the coaches and players are talking about?
"That's it exactly," says Cowan. "You have to get your mind together before you have to worry."
Cowan spends more time on his mind than his muscles. Do other do successful football players. The mental ritual of a winning athlete may be the least understood thing
about him, but more often than not it's decisive in his performance
Cowan's mental-exercise program is typical.
"Ahead of the game," he says, "I take one or two days a week, usually Thursday and Friday, to think about what I have to do. I start by planning, visualizing myself in the first huddle."
Having memorized the game plan, I call the first play. Then I see myself move out of the huddle and up to the line of scrimmage, and I see my opponent move.
"I think back to what I saw him do in the Cowan says, referring to the movie but his name is not known."
think of what I can do to beat him. On certain plays, he does different things, and I picture myself meeting and beating him at my own tricks or my self-confinden build."
"I leave my opponent lying there on the ground," he says, smiling triumphantly, "and run back to the huddle. I call another play and run it through in my mind."
Cowan crams on Thursday and Friday because there isn't time to think Sunday.
"Let's say we're playing Dallas," he says. "That's a team with one of the best players in the league. Bob Lilly, and on some plays I'll have." Mack go after him. But on Sunday I'll be too.
basy to think about it. The only way I can help Torn on Sunday is to think the thing through Thursday and get it in my sub-conscious."
Dodger catcher Joe Ferguson makes a similar comment about hitting a baseball.
"Before the game," he says, "you visualize what the pitcher is going to throw you. As a general rule it will be the pitch he get you on last time, and so the hitter will be given an opening scene: himself at the plate, the pitcher up, the pitch leaving his hand, and so on.
"All the planning goes into your sub-
course," you say. "If you don't do it, you
young, you never give it a thought. You
bat on your shoulder, all you think about is the ball."
The better the planning, the surer the reaction, says sports psychologist Bruce O'Neill. "It's about feeling confident."
*Mental rehearsal makes game-day responses as automatic as slipping into a jacket.*
To excel, of course, takes more than this.
To excel, athlete must do well in
competitions.
"In a competitive game," Sutton says, "Motivation is assumed. Something has to be motivating you or you won't prepare yourself mentally."
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