THE CREATIVE ATHLETE

Issue 11--What Is the Next Most Important Resource in Sports?

Probably mental attitude. For every talented athlete who makes it to the top, there are others who are equally talented but don't. In fact, often the most successful athletes are those who have had the most obstacles to overcome.

For example, the list of figure skating champions reads like a "Who's Who" of disabilities: Scott Hamilton suffered from a childhood disease which severely stunted his growth; Elaine Zayak cut off several toes in a lawn mower accident and had to wear specially fitted skates; Kristi Yamaguchi was born with club feet; Jill Trenary's leg was so badly damaged in a skating accident that she never expected to walk normally again. All four skaters went on to become world champions, and Scott and Kristi also became Olympic gold medalists.

Every sport has athletes who have overcome great odds to succeed. Examples:

• Swimmer Amy Van Dyken, the only American woman to win four gold medals in a single Olympics, suffers from asthma. Because of her illness, she couldn't swim the length of a pool until she was 12.

A number of other Olympians, including hepthathlete and long-jumper Jackie Joyner-Kersee and swimmer Tom Dolan, have asthma. A study of Olympians at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics revealed that 67 of the 597 U.S. competitors were asthmatics. They won 41 of the 174 U. S. medals. In 1988 at the Seoul Olympics, 53 of the 611 U.S. competitors were asthmatics and they won 16 of the 94 U.S. medals. (1)

• Simon Keith had a heart transplant and then went on to play professionally for two years with the Cleveland Crunch, a Major Indoor Soccer League team. Although he had been an outstanding teenage athlete, by the time he had his transplant at age 21, heart disease had left him with virtually no strength. "I was at absolute zero. I thought that was neat because to be at 0% and know you could get to 100%, that was a cool feeling. I thrived on it." (2) Three years later he was playing pro ball.
  
  
• Jeff Blatnick was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a form of cancer, in 1982 at the age of 25. He went through radiation and chemotherapy treatments and had his spleen removed. He went on to win a gold medal in Greco Roman wrestling at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Successful athletes are not the ones with perfect records. They are the ones who have learned how to keep going when they have lost or run into problems. Examples:

• Lynett Love, 1988 Olympic gold medalist in taekwondo, said, "I used to think that the great champions were the ones who never lost. But I realize now that the great champions are the ones who lose and have the character to come back." (3)
  
  
• Decathlete Dan O'Brien (who was the reigning world champion in his event but faltered on the pole vault at the Olympic trials and as a result missed making the 1992 Olympic team) said he learned from his experience. "My failure at the 1992 trials set the path for where I am today. If it hadn't happened, and I'd gone on to win the gold medal, I probably wouldn't even be competing anymore, and I might not be a good loser. The failure showed me how committed I really am." (4) He went on to win the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
  
  
• Scott Hamilton, who won the 1984 Olympic gold medal in men's figure skating, said that it even takes failure to know how to win. "You're not ready to win unless you've felt what it means to lose, to feel like you've failed....

"... It took me a long time to get the hang of it, to get used to the enormity of it. I blew up badly in my first international competition after the '80 Olympics.

"That's when I pulled myself together--and I was never defeated again in my amateur career. I didn't feel any pressure. I just felt the opportunity to win. My coach called it 'refined indifference.'" (5)

• Sprinter and long-jumper Willye White, who competed in five Olympics (from 1956 to 1976), said, "Defeat is an attitude, an experience for growth. You have to think, what did I do wrong so I can win the next time? Whenever you're defeated, whether fairly or unfairly, say, 'That's life,' and go on from there." (6)

In addition to being able to handle setbacks, top athletes have cited their persistence and their ability to focus under pressure as other keys to their success. Examples:

• Baseball legend Ted Williams said that his hitting ability had less to due with physical ability than "due to trial and damn error, trial and damn error, trial and damn error, trial and damn error!"
  
  
• According to tennis great Chris Evert, "There are a lot of players that can cause upsets, and then, two days later, lose to someone ranked 100 in the world. That's why players like Steffi [Graf] and myself in the past, Martina [Navratilova], that's why we have been great because we have been able to take each match and isolate them and never have a letdown in a two-week tournament." (7)
  
  
• Said Scott Bentley, a place kicker for Florida State who recently graduated, "At Florida State, everyone expects perfection out of kickers. I'm not talking about the coaches or the players. I'm talking about the fans and the media around here.

"... People say, 'The Kicker has to be at perfect at Florida State.' It's a no-win situation. Nobody's perfect." (8)

During his freshman year his team played Nebraska in the 1994 Orange Bowl for the national championship. With 21 seconds left in the game and Nebraska leading 15 to 14, Bentley was brought out to kick a field goal. "I couldn't hide. The whole world would see me mess up."

Bentley made it. "Everyone said that's why I was at F.S.U. And I did it. I won Coach Bowden's first national championship." (9)

What if, however, you don't have that mental toughness--at least not competitively?

Don't assume there's no place for you in sports. You may not be able to win events, but you can excel in other ways. You can still teach, demonstrate, appear in exhibitions or shows, or perform on camera.

While this may sound like a cop-out, it's not. There's more to sports than just winning and losing.Increasingly, sports are providing pure entertainment. One athlete, who specializes in surfing and cliff diving, described himself as a "performance artist" on MTV Sports. For him, sports are a way to create art and movement.

There have been many examples of full-time athletes who intentionally by-passed competition, preferring freedom and creativity to pressure and constraint. There are skiers, surfers, and skateboarders traveling all over the world to create colorful and exciting sports films and videos. There are in-line skaters being paid by manufacturers to go from city to city giving demonstrations. There are figure skaters who have never won major amateur competitions yet still become well-paid professionals. And, of course, there are the Harlem Globetrotters, who have been entertaining crowds for years with their basketball skills and tricks.

Examples:

• Mark Foo aspired to become a professional surfer. From the age of 17 to 24 he competed in tournaments, but his best finished was only 66th on the world professional rankings. He quit competing in 1982 when he realized he could make a name for himself by being featured in action photos for surfing magazines.

Companies began paying him to use their products and display their logos. He also hosted and co-produced the surf show, H3O, on cable's Prime Network. His career was cut short when he died in a freak surfing accident in 1994.

• Kristen Ulmer finished 8th at the 1991 U.S. Championships in moguls skiing. At the same time, she was also appearing in ski films. "It was just too draining. I couldn't concentrate on both, so I chose film." (10) She has appeared in films by Warren Miller and The North Face and won the 1992 U.S. Extreme Skiing Championships.

 

1 USA Today, April 4, 1991.

2 Rocky Mountain News, April 21, 1995.

3 (Colorado Springs) Gazette Telegraph, June 20, 1992.

4 USA Today, June 21, 1996.

5 The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, February 10, 1994.

6 The Denver Post, April 10, 1989.

7 The New York Times, September 6, 1989.

8 Rocky Mountain News, October 7, 1995.

9 The New York Times, December 10, 1995.

10 Ski, January 1993.

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