[Dwight] Freeney, a fearsome pass-rush specialist for the Indianapolis Colts with a knack for forcing fumbles, loomed as a potential nightmare Sunday for the fumble-prone Leftwich. Freeney came in with six sacks and three forced fumbles in his previous three games, including three sacks and two forced fumbles the week before in a 23-17 victory at Miami. But with Pearson getting blocking help on almost every pass play from tight end Kyle Brady or a running back, Freeney never got close enough to bat the ball out of Leftwich’s hands. “The offensive line did a heck of a job,” Leftwich said. “All week, we heard about their defensive line, but it was our offensive line that held the fort and made this win possible.” Specifically, the Jaguars held the fort against Freeney, making it impossible for the NFL’s hottest sack artist the past three weeks to put pressure on Leftwich (By The Times-Union).
PTASE allowed Kyle to stop one of the best defensive ends in the NFL and open up holes in the defensive line that you could drive a bus through them. It also enabled him to manipulate the players on the field into moving out of position when he was running pass routes. The result was Kyle’s ability to consistently get the first down or score in key situations. He used PTASE with great success throughout his career with Jacksonville and brought it to bear in his final season with the New England Patriots by helping them to go undefeated in the regular season. “To me, a game is all about playing one play at a time,” Brady said. “That may sound overly clichéd, but you can’t control the final outcome when you’re stepping on the field for the first play of the game. All you can control is that particular play, what you do on that particular play, how well you execute on that particular play. When the thirteen year veteran was asked if he felt any pressure, he said, “There are far better things to focus on than a self-generated pressure and its potential consequences.” Years of perfecting PTASE led him to say, “The best thing to focus on is what you are doing in the here and now, beginning with hearing the play in the huddle. If you focus in that way, the outcome will take care of itself.”
In golf, the PTASE equivalent is playing “ball-to-ball.” It is an extremely effective way to improve your golf game and it has been successfully used by high handicappers as well as by tour winners. Playing ball-to-ball involves doing three things on every shot or putt. First, see the target. Imagine that you are standing on the first tee ready to hit your ball. Instead of thinking about all of the “hazards” and hundreds of instructions that typically run through your mind, simply look down the fairway. Instantly, within a hundredth of a second, your eye will go to the target or ideal spot. If you are not aware of your first glance, then you will probably continue to study the fairway which will cause you to guess or deduce where the ideal spot is located. More often than not you will be wrong. Trust your brain’s ability to see the best one. “But what if it is very windy,” you might say. What if it is? Do you think your brain did not register the wind? Do you think you needed to tell your brain that it is windy out and that it better start making adjustments? No, your brain has taken it all in and quickly identified the perfect spot. Go with it. Secondly, feel your body. Take a practice swing that you believe will put your ball on that ideal spot. Immediately step up to your ball. Third, see the ball. Not a white fuzzy thing but the speck or mark on the ball that you will hit. Bore in on that detail as you begin your swing by trying to see the speck within the speck. Once you have hit the ball the first thing that should register with you is, “Was that my practice swing?” Yes or no. If yes, no comments out loud or in your mind. Walk on to your next ball. If no, “How was it different?” Don’t answer with words. Feel what you did differently between the practice swing and the actual swing. Once you have it, walk on with no further comment in side or outside of your head. When you reach your ball, you repeat exactly the same steps. See your target, feel your body, and then see the ball. After that shot ask the same question, “Was that my practice swing?” If yes, move on, if no, feel the difference between the practice and actual swing and then move on to your next shot. Repeat that ball after ball after ball until they tell you to stop playing. You no longer play golf, you play ball-to-ball.
In golf the score is all that counts. In ball-to-ball complete focus and absorption in the details and your ability to feel what you did is all that counts. Ironically, playing ball-to-ball lowers your score! By pulling together the unique components of performance that you have learned and practiced, you will find your own PTASE or ball-to-ball equivalent. It is when you can finally take the complex and make it simple that peak performances become commonplace.
TAKE AWAY
Peak performances are the result of intense focus on the task at hand in the present moment. The more absorbed you become in the details of any activity the more likely a peak performance will occur. Perfecting your technique requires effective physical training and the ability to precisely feel what you did during your actual performance. By improving your ability to feel the subtlest differences in your movements, you will be able to choose the one that results in your best performance.
PART THREE
PLAYING WITH A PASSION THAT NEVER ENDS
CHAPTER 8
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
IT IS often said, “Some people are born to lead,” but it is those who possess virtue and are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice that inspire us to do the same. When the time comes, usually unexpectedly, will you be ready and willing to answer the call without hesitation, to give your all?
There are countless stories about individuals who have risked or sacrificed their lives for their neighbor or their country, but one that stands out is about a very ordinary man who did a very extraordinary thing. It was the winter of 1982 and Air Florida Flight 90 had just taken off from Washington National Airport when it crashed into the 14th Street Bridge and plunged into the frozen Potomac River. The blizzard like conditions made it nearly impossible for rescue workers to get to the crash site and the few that did were not able to reach the near frozen victims. The ice was unstable and there was no way to reach the survivors. All the bystanders could do was yell words of encouragement and wait for the rescuers to arrive.
Finally, a forest service helicopter, not designed for water rescue, appeared and its crew desperately worked to pull the few survivors from the thirty-three degree water. At that temperature a person can only survive for about thirty minutes. But there was one passenger they couldn’t help. Blinded by jet fuel and quickly succumbing to the freezing water, Priscilla Tirado struggled to keep her face above the surface. She was about to die.
By now hundreds of people lined the shore and bridges watching Priscilla, the last survivor of the crash, fight for her life. While this tragedy was unfolding, a man by the name of Lenny Skutnik, a mail room clerk who was on his way home from work stopped to see what was happening. He stood there for a moment watching Priscilla. He said, “The hair stood up on the back of my neck and I knew that I could not just stand there and watch her die. I had to try to do something.” With that thought he ripped off his coat, boots, and with short sleeves, dove into the icy water and swam to Priscilla who was just going under for the last time. Lenny grabbed her and managed to drag her to the rescue workers. He had instant hypothermia and was taken to a waiting ambulance when he got to the river bank. If the rescue didn’t already tell you all you needed to know about Lenny Skutnik then his act of selflessness in the back of that ambulance will. While in the ambulance he saw a crash victim with two broken legs who was shivering and gave this person his coat. (To see the actual footage of the rescue go to YouTube and search, “Ordinary Heroes—Lenny Skutnik.”)
If virtue is the habit of doing good, then Lenny must have had a lot of practice! He was a regular person, living an ordinary life. He didn’t calculate the risk. He saw someone in desperate need and acted. We might never find ourselves in a life or death situation but we are called to the same heroic virtue whether it’s at work, home or on the field of play.
What is at the root of th
is kind of heroic virtue and great leadership? What brings a man to risk his life by jumping into deathly cold water to rescue a complete stranger? Money, power, fame? The cynic would say, “Yes, probably all three!” It is none of these. I know it may sound too simple but it’s love. Yeah, love, love, love. I know what you might be thinking, oh no a sport book disguised as a love book! But love is the most motivating force in sport, business and everyday life and I’ll prove it.
What if I said, “I’ll give you a billion dollars and make you the president. The only stipulation is that you’ll have to live on a deserted island for the rest of your life.” Are you going to take that deal? Nobody is going to take that deal. Now, you may be feeling a bit exhausted with life and you might even enjoy a couple of weeks on the island but you would not want to stay there alone for the rest of your life! If money, power, or fame were truly the most motivating things, we would say, “Yeah! Yeah, I’ll take it. That’s fantastic; it’s everything I’ve always wanted. In fact it’s the thing I want most in life… and now I have it. I’ll be very happy forever on my deserted island.” But we don’t say that. The reason is that what we really want, even more than money, power, or fame—what we’re really hoping to get—is love. We wouldn’t want to stay on the deserted island because there are no people. And without people, there is no potential for relationships and love. So love is the most motivating thing to you and me and everyone else in the world.
Well another word for love is sacrifice. Sacrifice means, “I’m willing to do something for you. I’m willing to give up something that I could keep for myself in order to give it to you.” It’s about this idea of “otherness”. . .“I’m focused on you. I love you. I want the most for you.” That means everyone, teammate, co-worker, family member or friend. Love is literally more essential to our happiness and wellbeing than the air we breathe. It is also the secret to true and lasting success and happiness in sport, business and everyday life. If you are freed up to love those around you, you will never stand alone.
Love is ever present in sport but rarely talked about. It is the underlying reason for such fierce loyalty and strong bonds of friendship among teammates and competitors regardless of socioeconomic, political or religious differences. Perhaps there is no more dramatic example of this than between Jesse Owens and Luz Long.
In 1936 Jesse Owens was perhaps the most recognized man in the world, and yet he struggled to be seen for who he really was. As one of the greatest track and field athletes of all-time, he is best known for his four-gold-medal performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games where he single handedly destroyed Adolf Hitler’s claim of Aryan superiority. What makes the story all the more remarkable is the fact that a young German athlete wearing a Nazi swastika on his uniform helped him to do it.
One year prior to the Olympic Games, Jesse turned the track and field world on its head by breaking three world records (220 yards, 220 yard Hurdles, and Long Jump) and tying a fourth (100 yards) at the Big Ten Championships in the span of forty-five minutes. His long jump record—26’ 8.16”—would stand for over twenty-five years.
Just one year later he stood on the long jump runway in Berlin ready to leap his way to his second gold medal of the Games. As part of his customary warm-up, he sprinted down the runway and then ran through the sand landing pit only to turn around to see a red flag waving, indicating a foul. Apparently the custom of running through the pit was a U.S. invention and not permitted at the Games. This rattled Jesse to the point that on his next jump he was so concerned about missing the take-off board and fouling again that he chopped his steps before take-off and only jumped 23’ 3” which was two inches short of distance needed to qualify for the finals. He was down to his last jump and described the mounting anxiety that threatened to end his chance of making the finals. “What if I, I stopped myself from thinking it time and again, but it kept crashing through my mind, what if, what if,… what if I didn’t qualify? Hitler won’t look so crazy, then… I fought, fought hard, harder but one cell at a time, panic crept into my body.”
In his autobiography Jesse, The Man Who Outran Hitler, he wrote:
I walked back to the broad-jump area. As I did, I heard a name called. Mine. Now it was my turn. I have to find strength somewhere, I said to myself. Have to reach into myself and find the strength to make it, to do my best. Almost instinctively, I began to drop down on my knees. Pray. Must pray, I whispered to myself. But in front of a hundred thousand people? “Jesse Owens!” It was the loudspeaker announcing my name for the second time. I closed my eyes, one of my knees touching the ground. Oh, God, I pleaded wordlessly with everything that was inside me. Help me to pray. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t. “Jesse Owens!” They were calling my name for the last time. I had to get up, jump. But I hadn’t prayed. “Jesse Owens!” Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t the loudspeaker calling my name a final time. It was a man standing right there next to me.
At that moment Jesse heard a voice from behind him offer some kindly advice. Jesse turned to see the German long jump champion Luz Long. Owens described the moment:
The way his hand rested on my shoulder, the vibrations I felt as he looked at me and smiled, made me know somehow that, far from being my enemy, he was my friend. “I Luz Long,” he said, introducing himself. I nodded. “I think I know what is wrong with you,” he went on. “You give everything when you jump. I the same. You cannot do halfway, but you are afraid you will foul again.” “That’s right,” I said, finding my voice for the first time. “I have answer,” he said. “Same thing happen to me last year in Cologne.” There were literally only seconds left before I had to jump or default. Luz told me to simply remeasure my steps and jump from six inches in back of the takeoff board—giving it all I had. That way I could give 100 percent, and still not be afraid of fouling. He even laid his towel down at exactly the place from which I was to jump.
It was so simple! Amazingly Jesse took off almost a foot behind the board and still jumped twenty-five feet. He was in the finals!
Jesse was overwhelmed with gratitude for the incredible act of sportsmanship shown by Luz. From that point on they became fast friends and they spent most of that evening, extending well into the night, drinking coffee and talking about track and life. At one point the conversation drifted to religion and Jesse asked Luz, “Do you believe in God?” Luz replied with a shrug of his shoulders and a slight tilt of his head as if to say, “I don’t know.” Jesse later recalled, “Even though he [Luz] didn’t believe in God, I believed in Luz Long. We spent each night afterward talking, and the days competing.”
The long jump final proved no less exciting than the qualifying round but in a different way. With three jumps each in the final round, Luz and Jesse traded new Olympic records five times during the competition. As Jesse leaped out of the pit on the last jump of the competition the first person to reach him was Luz. He said, “You did it! I know you did it.” And he was right. Jesse had won the competition on the final jump and set a new Olympic games record of 26’ 5.25”.
Jesse said:
Luz Long may not have believed in God, but God had believed in Luz Long. And God had sent him to me. You can melt down all the gold medals and cups I have, and they wouldn’t be a plating on the 24-carat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. I realized then, too, that Luz was the epitome of what Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, must have had in mind when he said, ‘The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.’ Though neither of us imagined it then, that would be the last time we would see each other. The dark tides of politics and war were to pull us forever apart. Still we had become brothers in that one perfect moment of competition and charity. We vowed to correspond.
“For a while I was one of the most famous people on earth,” noted Jesse. He had arrived back in the United States to a heroe’s welcome including a ticker-tape parade down fifth avenue in New York
City. However, he quickly learned that his accomplishment was welcomed but not Jesse the man of color. As he approached the Waldorf Astoria Hotel where the banquet in his honor was being held that evening, he was required to use the rear entrance and take the freight elevator to the dinner. In his own words, “I soon discovered how empty fame can be, and how easily it could be exploited by those who would use it, and me, for gain. I became entangled in a number of bad business deals and in a few years, I was bankrupt. It was only the steadfastness of my family and the friendship of Luz Long expressed in letters that helped me through.”
Jesse related:
Luz was undergoing trials, too. Germany had plunged into war, and he was in the military. After a while the letters we had faithfully exchanged every month or two stopped altogether. Soon America was in the war. I joined up. And then one day I received a letter posted from North Africa. It was over a year old. It was from Luz. It said, in part:
“I am here, Jesse, where it seems there is only the dry sand and the wet blood. My heart tells me, if I be honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write. That hour in Berlin when I first spoke to you, when you had your knee upon the ground, I knew that you were in prayer. And I know it is never by chance that we come together. And you, I believe, will read this letter. I believe this shall come about because I think now that God will make it come about. This is what I have to tell you, Jesse. I believe in God. And I pray to Him that, even while it should not be possible to see you again, these words I write will still be read by you. Your brother, Luz”
Those were Luz’s last words. I learned shortly thereafter that he had been killed in battle just a few days after he had written his letter to me. Our friendship had proved greater than the forces, which divided our nations. I had not lost my brother. His letter spoke the truth: ... it is never by chance that we come together. God had sent him to me at a moment of personal despair, and he brought me the gift of hope. Bowing, but unable to pray on that Olympic field, I had given him a sign, a seed of faith which was to blossom in the deserts of North Africa. Together we had shared the greatest gift of all, which comes from God. The gift of brotherly love which neither competition, nor war, nor even death could annul.” (Excerpted from Jesse, The Man Who Outran Hitler, by Jesse Owens and Paul Neimark. Published by Logos International, Plainfield, N.J., 1978. Used with permission.)
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