Rising to the Occasion vs. Falling to Training Standards
People Don’t Rise To The Occasion, They Fall to the Level of Their Habits
Everyone loves “big game players” who “rise to the occasion.”
Yet, rarely do these memorable moments paint the full story. Players almost always simply fall in line with their career averages. Put another way, players tend to fall or rise to the level of their normal standards and habits.
Ryan Day Study
During stressful moments, you will likely default to your lowest levels of training. Therefore, they make training as difficult as possible. Check out the video, transcribed below, from Ohio State University football coach Ryan Day.
"I did this study when I was with the Eagles, when I was with Sam Bradford… I did a study on that, because for quarterbacks, you're trying to get them to rise to the occasion. But the truth is that nobody really rises to the occasion. You really fall back on your training.
When you look at Mr. October, Reggie Jackson, he pretty much hit his career average during those moments. When you watch (Michael) Jordan or LeBron (James), when they're in those moments, people who are clutch, they're pretty much just operating under their career average. They're not doing anything extraordinary in those moments.
Now, there's the other side of it. Sometimes the moment can be too big, and you can choke, you can struggle. But if you can just sink to the level of your training and be at your career average during those moments, you're going to be better than the majority of them.
I think that's what it comes down to when you're playing quarterback. Whatever we see in practice, if we can see that in a game, good things are going to happen.
Creating More Chaos & Making It Difficult
Players need to be tested to a reasonable level of failure so they can raise their standards and habits to higher levels. As practice becomes harder than the actual games, you’re probably in a good spot.
Players should challenge themselves during practice. Juggle the line at practice so you are going against a challenging teammate, or use anything but the number one skill to beat an opponent.
Coaches should make practice challenging and representative so that the same things that occur in practice also show up during games, especially during “big moments.”
Further Reading