In a close game I check my pulse. I know if it gets over one hundred it’s going to affect my thinking.
—PHIL JACKSON
Mentally I try to stay at a medium level, not too high or too low.
—TODD ZEILE
In graduate school the most important psychological concept I learned is something called the performance curve. Draw an upside down “U.” To the left draw a vertical line, and connect it to a horizontal line drawn beneath the inverted “U.” Number both lines incrementally from zero to ten. The horizontal line represents stress and arousal; the vertical line represents performance and productivity.
As athletes become stimulated their numbers on both lines increase. When they achieve peak efficiency—when they are performing at their best, physically and mentally—they are at the top of the human function curve, at the apex of the inverted “U.”
Everyone has an optimal number that corresponds with peak performance. I tell all athletes I work with that they need to “know their numbers.” They also need to recognize their early warning signs. Imagine you are a car. How many rpms should you be producing so your motor is running smoothly and efficiently, not chugging along too slowly but also not going over the red line?
An athlete’s ideal numbers—the optimal level of performance—depend upon (i) his or her temperament; (2) the time or length of the event; and (3) the nature of the task. A sprinter wouldn’t have the same number as a marathon runner because the time of the event is different. A basketball center whose job is muscling opponents under the basket would have a different number than, say, a three-point shooter. This also is true of starting pitchers and relievers. The nature of their task is different.
Athletes have different emotional makeups. Some are more high-strung than others. To use the car analogy, one athlete might be a Porsche, another a pickup truck. Just as it’s important to know what to do when your vehicle’s oil or brake light comes on, it’s important to recognize your own early warning signals.
When I was with the Cubs, I taught a class on the mental aspects of performing along with former major league pitcher Jim Colborn. To illustrate what I meant by early warning signs, I would look around the room in the church basement where we met and select one of the pitchers to come to the front of the class and read a chapter of the manual aloud. With some, all you had to do was look at them. Hoping they wouldn’t be summoned, they shrank before my eyes. One of the greatest fears many people have is the fear of public speaking.
Under stress, some people are cardiac responders—their heart rate goes up. Some are skin responders—they begin to perspire. Others begin to breathe rapidly, feel their stomachs churn, or feel their neck and back muscles tensing. These are all physical early warning signs. Mentally our minds start racing. A little voice begins whispering negative thoughts.
Not long ago I received a phone call from an executive of a National Hockey League team. He told me about one of the club’s top prospects, a promising high-round draft choice who had struggled during his rookie year.
“This guy should be making millions,” the executive said. “And he’s only making thousands.” By that, he meant the player, for whatever reason, was under-performing. He had not begun to tap his potential. I agreed to meet with the rookie before the club sent him down to the minor leagues.
In our first session, the player confessed he felt a lot of pressure being a high-round draft pick. Whenever the game started he became overly excited. During his first shift on the ice he over-skated the puck. His passes were too long. He lost his composure around the net. After we talked about the performance curve I asked him, “What number are you?”
“I’m a nine, or a ten,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m an eleven.”
“What’s your number when you’re playing at your best?” I asked.
“I’m a six, or a seven.”
When the puck dropped, the young player’s tachometer was already hitting the red line. Unhappy with the rookie’s performance, the coach benched him. Later, when the rookie returned to the game after sitting out several shifts, he said he felt a half-step slow. His legs were heavy. He missed passes. It was as if he couldn’t get up to speed.
“What’s your number then?” I asked.
“Three or four,” he replied. “Maybe five.”
To help him calm down before games, we changed his routine. In the locker room the young player began listening to slower music. During games, I instructed him to pretend he was going in with each shift change. By mentally skating every shift, he was better able to focus on the action and the opponent. Once he returned to the ice he performed at six or seven—his peak performance number.
I told him that performance is like the guitar he plays for relaxation. If the strings are too loose the music is flat. If they’re too tight, they could snap. Just as the instrument’s strings need to be at the right tension, an athlete must have his body tuned for the right performance.
Whenever I think of over-revving, I am reminded of Dexter Manley. In 1991 after his drug suspension, the former All Pro with the Washington Redskins joined the Arizona Cardinals. On the day of the Cowboys game in Irving, Texas, a team doctor came to me.
“Mack, you’ve got to go in there.” I could hear the concern in his voice. He motioned anxiously toward the training room. “It’s Dexter.”
Although we had known each other only a few weeks, Dexter and I enjoyed a good relationship. I liked him and believed he trusted me. When I entered the inner sanctum of the training room, Manley was the picture of pent-up emotion, as high-strung as a thoroughbred lathering in the paddock before the start of a race. His vacant eyes said he wasn’t at home. Dexter was in another world.
“Dexter. Dexter!” Slowly, I got his attention. As Manley began to settle down, I looked him in the eye and asked what was going on. What was he thinking about?
As kickoff neared, Manley said he pictured himself back in the Third Ward in Houston, the poor neighborhood where he grew up. “Mack, I don’t ever want to be there again.” In an attempt to “psyche,” himself up for the game, Manley had become over-aroused, which can be counterproductive in an athlete. Even though Dexter was a great pass rusher, the Cardinals didn’t want to put him into the game on third down in short-yardage situations for fear he would jump offside and give the other team a free first down.
The two cases illustrate the importance of the performance curve and knowing your numbers. A quote to remember came from former big-league pitcher Carl Hubbell, who invented the screwball. Hubbell said, “I had no chance of controlling a ball game until I first controlled myself.”
You can’t control your performance until you are in control of yourself. What you’re thinking. How you’re feeling. Most importantly, your physiology. Know your numbers and your early warning signs.