Peak Performance
Positive Data
Last weekend’s nor’easter did more than disrupt life on the ground. It did its best to foul up air travel, destroying equipment that measures wind speed and direction at New York’s Kennedy Airport.
“”Wind-measuring equipment just shattered on the field,” a controller advised a pilot as the storm raged. Controllers wound up getting phone updates from [...]
Measure and Post
Expect the restaurant kitchens in New York City to get cleaner.
That’s because the city’s Board of Health has voted to publicly post the cleanliness grades where customers can see them.
These grades have previously been available online or at the Department of Health and Mental Hygeine. But now they must be posted in the window or [...]
Structured Play
Now there is a coach for recess.
There’s no more spontaneous running around, or skipping, or games of tag, or just looking at the sky.
According to the New York Times, a growing number of schools are putting more structure into recess to “curb bullying and behavior problems, foster social skills and address concerns over obesity.”
Though [...]
Studying the Brain
Here comes the next frontier in training.
It’s the brain. Evidence suggests that an athlete’s gray matter is fundamentally different from another person’s. And if this is the case, then the brain — more than ever — controls all three aspects of performance: physical, mental and emotional.
In the April issue of Discover magazine, author Carl Zimmer [...]
Practice Design
Lately I’ve been working with coaches on practice design.
They want to know how to make the most of the time they’re given.
For more efficient and effective practices, start with the advice I heard legendary high school basketball coach Bobby Hurley give at a clinic last year in Iowa. “Write down your practice, and then follow [...]
Are You Great?
Spring has brought the usual array of new baseball books, and one of them should catch the eye of coaches everywhere.
It’s called “The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong,” by David Shenk.
The content shouldn’t come as any surprise if you’ve read books like “The [...]
The Agony of Defeat
ABC’s Wide World of Spots had it right years ago when it opened the show with the phrase “The Thrill of Victory, and the Agony of Defeat.”
You see it all through March Madness as one team advances and the other goes home. It’s sad but true: the more time, effort and passion you invest in [...]
Being the Best
We just finished two weeks of watching athletes who fought to be the best. Now March Madness gives us another example.
Tina Charles recently became UConn’s career leader in scoring and rebounds and stands as quite possibly the best player in the country entering the tournament season.
“She told me when she came to Connecticut, that she [...]
Problems and Possibilities
Every problem disguises a possibility.
And so it is with all the snowstorms, which, among other things, have complicated life for baseball and softball coaches around large parts of the United States.
Fields are covered with snow. One coach in Virginia told me he doesn’t expect to even see green until April.
Even so, the schedule will not [...]
Canada’s New Hero
I first heard of Sidney Crosby years ago when a sports writer friend mentioned a young man who was supposed to be the next Wayne Gretzky. Hockey insiders had even anointed him “The Next One.”
Now, of course, this young man no longer has to be the next Gretzky. It’s quite enough for him to be [...]
