Mitch Lyons

Mitch Lyons is an Assistant Coach for Men's Basketball at Lasell College. He is also the President and founder of GetPsychedSports.org, Inc., a nonprofit corporation based in Newton, Mass. He can be reached at: mitchlyons@getpsychedsports.org.

I had to go to Florida to see my dad, who was ill. So I left the 13-4 Lasell Men's Basketball Team as they were about to play a team that was 4-13. When I came back from my trip, I found out we had lost.

I asked if the team had gone through the routine we had performed for the previous 17 games. For about seven minutes before each game, we visualized what our complete and undivided effort felt like, in our bodies and in our minds, and what it looked like out on the floor. Bodies flying, going to the floor after every ball, playing defense with our feet, anticipating passes, and striving for complete denial one pass away. We saw ourselves sprinting everywhere and making hard, viscous V-cuts.

Besides the pregame visualization, we had been working on effort at practice every day since the beginning of the season. Head Coach Chris Harvey insisted on it. We practiced effort as a skill unto itself, trying to sustain our maximum level of effort in everything we did in each practice.

"How could you forget to visualize your effort?" I asked, astonished that we had lost to a team that was not nearly as competitive as we were.

"We just wanted to play, Coach," said one of the co-captains, as he sat down in the corner.

That statement sat me down. "Just" wanting to play would never be enough if we wanted to succeed. "Just" was "merely." To be the best you could be, I explained, you could never "just" be doing anything.

This developed into a conversation about what mental toughness is all about. We talked about how mentally weak players forget to think about their level of effort, and then it becomes easy to slack off on defense, for example. When we played that 4-13 team, we forgot that we do not naturally give every bit of our effort, all the time. Maximum effort was still a "state" for us and had not become our "trait". We "just" wanted to play. We didn't want to think. And we played that way.

EBB & FLOW
Very few teams always give everything they have, to the last member of the team, on every play. For most of us, giving maximum effort all the time does not come naturally and can be quite uncomfortable.

Even teams that start off a game strong, once they build a comfortable lead frequently exhibit signs of mental weakness, forgetting about their effort. As a result, the losing team catches up. Sportscasters like to call it the "ebb and flow of the game." But it's really more about the ebb and flow of thoughts related to energy levels. When winning, sometimes the edge comes off, the mental strength fades, the mind forgets.

Can you teach players how to exhibit consistent, maximum effort all the time? I have found that you can. The key is making it part of your lesson plans and game plans. You have to teach it, talk about it, rate it, define it, refine it, and apply it in every drill, every time, every practice, for every player.

You also have to teach players how to visualize effort. Before games, we close our eyes and think about what maximum effort feels like in our bodies, what it looks like visually, and how it is emotionally exciting. As we run on the court, we have something specific in mind, an actual place we want to go, as if we were traveling to a foreign city, but we want it to feel just like home.

ALL THE TIME
Here is the key: Players need to think about their effort all the time in order to give effort all the time. Especially as we start our season, effort, and the level we want to play at, becomes the one and only issue.

Below is a list Coach Harvey uses with our team. The players read and re-read this list, which is very important because they cannot retain all this information verbally.

• Each practice is a game within a game. The game is: How long can I keep up my maximum physical effort?

• Identify maximum effort when it is happening so you know what it is. Can you identify the time you are working as hard as you possibly can?

• Start to know maximum effort as a separate place to reach. Know how it feels when you are at that level by the feeling it invokes in your body (kinesthetically), how it makes you feel emotionally, and what it looks like visually.

• Demand that you make a choice as to whether you will give all your effort, or not. Know your answer.

• Before each drill, ask, "What am I thinking about?" Your answer should be, "My level of effort."

• During the drill, when the effort level sags in the middle, ask, "What am I thinking about?" Sometimes we just forget to give our maximum physical effort.

• Complete each drill all the way through without shortcuts. And work all sides of a practice drill, so it is truly game-like.

• After each drill, rate your effort individually and as a team until maximum effort is the rule, not the exception.

• Notice each physical letdown, as they are inevitable. Reducing the number of letdowns is another "game within the game."

• Stop to reflect on how good you feel after you have worked as hard as you can.

• Stop to reflect on how confident and prepared you feel when you work as hard as you can all practice, every practice.

• During games, if you are on the bench, help the players in the game to achieve the level of effort you practice daily.

CHOOSING EFFORT
Once a player understands that the objective is to reach a level of effort where he or she feels good about him or herself, it is easy to correct a player without insults, threats, or anger. When I see a player who is dogging it, I ask, "Do you care about feeling good about yourself today?" They say, "Yes", and I ask, "Do you think your level of effort is at a place that you can feel good about yourself?" Usually, that's enough.

If they say that they're giving maximum effort when they clearly are not, I ask them to picture themselves running away from a knife-wielding attacker in a dark alley late at night. After they nervously laugh, I ask, "Are you running at that speed, but without the fear?" They see that they are not running with that type of intensity.

All the athletes I've worked with have eventually embraced our focus on effort. They see that intensity is not an emotional event, but a choice--or, rather, a series of ongoing choices. They see that it helps them feel more prepared and therefore, more confident. And ultimately, they understand that they can apply it to everything they do in life, today and in the future.