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Archive for February, 2014

Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You

Pat Summitt tells the story of a job interview that changed the course of her program. Summitt, coaching legend at the University of Tennessee, was in the market for a recruiter. “If I hire you,” Summitt asked the applicant, “can you get me the player I want?” “Oh, I can get you the player,” came […]

The Thing That Will Kill Any Team

Casey Stengel, who managed the New York Yankees to seven World Series titles, said, “The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.” Stengel knew that just one or two players can poison a whole group. That applies to any team, whether it’s in an […]

How T. J. Oshie Did It

T.J. Oshie impressed more than than the man in the street with his shootout performance that lifted the U.S. over Russia in a hockey game at the Winter Olympics. He even drew a rave from a big-league baseball player at spring training. “It was awesome,” St. Louis outfielder Matt Holliday said at the Cardinals’ camp […]

How Olympians Train Their Brains

You’ve already seen athletes spin and twist through the air at the Sochi Winter Olympics. Those feats are nothing compared to the gymnastics that take place in their minds. “You have to train your mind like you train your body,” Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner once said. This Huffington Post article by Carolyn Gregoire explains how […]

What the Beatles Can Teach

So much has changed in the 50 years since the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Nothing showed those changes as well as last night’s “The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles.” This time, the Beatles appeared in blazing color instead of black and white. In 2014, computer graphics behind […]

Olympians and the Mental Game

In just one day, the Winter Olympics have given us breath-taking glimpses into the mental game, from snowboarder Jessika Jenson’s reframing to single skater Jeremy Abbott’s defeated body language. Abbott fell on his first jump in the team competition, finished seventh, and put his head between his knees and covered it with his hands. Jenson […]

How to Live Like Babe Ruth

On the day that Yankee Stadium opened, Babe Ruth summed up his style with one sentence. “I’d give a year of my life,” he said, “if I could hit a home run on Opening Day of this great new park.” He did. No one knows if that one home run cost him a year of […]