State Cup #3 - 4/5/14

We've got our third of five games coming up this weekend. We are playing Texas Rush at Katy Park Field 15 at 4:00pm on Saturday. Let's wear NAVY, but please bring everything.

I know I sound like a broken record in saying that this is an important game, but it is. Winning this keeps our State Cup dreams alive.

I think everyone is familiar with Katy Park, let's get there at least 45 min before.

My own thoughts:

In my amateur opinion this team has what it takes to win State Cup and NPL and so on. In every game we've played this year, we've shown brilliance and dominance. But in some games it's only there for a 15-20 minute window, and it's too little too late.

Intensity, desire, and the refusal to lose has to be there from the start.

In my cycling career, one of my formidable opponents (who had a string of National Championships, National records, and a legitimate international career) had a motto: Win, Crash, or DQ.

It meant that was losing was not an option. He would give it everything to win, even if that meant crashing or getting disqualified was the only alternative. Pretty hard core if you think about it. But very effective.

Thought #2:

I hear Mark dishing out advice and instruction with more enthusiasm and emotion than ever before. And I hear him repeating himself a lot. Are the girls simply not listening? Or not following instruction? Or willfully doing something different?

I don't think so.

It's human nature. People have a difficult time changing their opinions or beliefs very quickly. There are cognitive biases that impact our judgments. In this case, I believe it's anchoring and insufficient adjustment and conservatism.

Imagine a scale of 1-10 in terms of aggressiveness on the field.

Mark emphatically tells the girls to "be more aggressive!"

The girls are at a 2 on the scale of 1-10. Mark wants them to be at a 9. The girls hear the message, and they make a change, but because of anchoring (anchored to the old way of playing, i.e. 2, and conservative and insufficient adjustments relative to the anchor point) they ramp up their play to a... 3.

Five minutes later Mark is telling them to be more aggressive (he's barely noticed a change going from 2 to 3). The girls may go to a 4. Or maybe they get frustrated with the situation, thinking to themselves "I did get more aggressive! What the heck?" In either event, they're certainly not at a 9, and this process will take a long time to get them there.

My advice to Claire has been this. When Mark tells you to do something, do it. Don't do it just a little, don't make a tweak - really embrace it. Find the limit of what Mark wants from you. See if you can get him to tell you to bring it down a notch - then you'll know you've found where he wants you to be.

The closest analogy I can think of is the game where I think of a number between 1 and 100, you guess, and I tell you if it's higher or lower. A reasonable person would start at 50. I say my number is higher than 50. Perhaps your next guess is 75. I say higher still. You have to keep pushing higher until I say "lower", then you know you're close. 

Conclusion: Be aggressive. Be strong. Work hard. Take chances. Take them on. WANT TO WIN MORE THAN THEM. Take all these things to a "10" on your Mark's scale. See if you can be the one where Mark says, "That's it! That's what I'm looking for!"

Disclosure: These thoughts are purely my own, and they may or may not be helpful. Mark hasn't seen any of this, and anything he says clearly supersedes anything I've said here.