Chapter 12 - Psychological Factors Affecting Performance ________________________________________________________________________________
Choking ________________________________________
Now I know you‟re going to find this hard to believe, but when I was in high school, I was a basketball player. Actually, in all modesty, I was an awesome basketball player, like “bad to the bone” even. At 5‟6” and 137 pounds, I was the white version of Spud Webb before there was a Spud Webb. I had exceptional ball control skills with either hand, a deadly jump-shot from 20 feet, and yes, I could dunk…with either hand. I spent the majority of my youth working on honing these skills. Basketball was just about Eli Manning has had his moments too. my entire life. During my senior year in high school, I averaged 23 points, 11 assists, 7 steals, and 7 rebounds per game. That same year, in a summer league which featured a majority of college players, I averaged 47.6 points a game. Like I said, I could play…and I knew it! After I graduated from high school, I chose Georgia Southern College in Statesboro, Georgia, as my next step to showcase my basketball skills. I picked up at Georgia where I left off in high school. That‟s right, I was AWESOME! In fact, by the time the season opener rolled around I had been elevated to the varsity team, becoming the only freshman to play on the varsity team. It was that opening game of my freshman year at Southern that significantly changed my life. The single event in my life that was responsible for me becoming a world class athlete and in turn helping others to do the same. I remember it vividly. I was in the locker room getting ready with the rest of the team. I was really psyched. Actually, I don‟t ever remember being as emotionally charged for a game as I was then. I remember thinking that if I got into the game there was absolutely no way that anyone was going to stop me. During my career I was always confident, but this was different. I wasn‟t confident, I was convinced. Unfortunately, that feeling didn‟t last long. When we went out on the court for our warm-ups, I almost had a heart attack. There must have been over five thousand spectators in the stands. Never in my life had I played before that many people. In high school, the most people I ever remember playing before was about five hundred, and most of those people were my friends. All of a sudden, it seemed as if everything was closing in on me. My heart started pounding like a jackhammer and I was having trouble breathing normally. Worse yet, my muscles felt tight and tense and it suddenly seemed as if all my energy was drained from my body. During my warm-ups, about the best you could say was that I functioned like a motor moron. I threw several passes away and I couldn‟t even make a simple lay-up. I must have looked like a guy who had just seen a basketball for the first time. It was the first time in my life that I felt the paralyzing effects of fear and anxiety. It was a frightening experience! I was being robbed of the grace and skill that I had worked so hard to develop, and there was nothing I could do to overcome this emotion that was destroying me. In all honesty, I couldn‟t wait until the game started so I could take a position on the bench. There I figured I would be able to regain my composure. When the game started, I Most athletes who have stepped took a position at the end of the bench where I felt somewhat in the competitive arena know more secure, but I was still a far cry from confident and relaxed. the awful symptoms of a chokein progress.