Never Satisfied

It is the simple fact that I have had to scratch and claw for everything to get where I'm at. Even though I was a first round pick and a pro bowler I never feel like I've arrived. I don't think I'd be in the position I'm at today if it weren't for all the setbacks and people telling me I couldn't do it. It is what drives me to be great.

-Clay Matthews Jr.

Living in the Moment

Forward Abby Wambach of USA Soccer:

"I was nearly brought to tears just thinking about how surreal this all seems," Wambach said after scoring the deciding goal to lead the USA into its first Women's World Cup final in 12 years with a 3-1 victory against France.

"I feel like I have to give all of myself and more of myself in order to secure wins, and of course I am willing to do that," she said. "I feel like I have to make sure I don't regret a moment. I want to smell what the stadium smells like. I want to breathe in all of this experience, because who knows if I'm going to get another shot in four years? Who knows if I will be healthy? Who knows, who knows?

"These moments are rare, these feelings are extreme, and I just hope to keep it going forward, and if we can get that win on Sunday (in the final), you will see the happiest human being on the planet."

It's all in the Preparation

Here is an article from Sports Illustrated about Boise St. senior QB Kellen Moore. Moore threw for 39 TD's and only 3 INT's last year in leading Boise State to another BCS game. Moore is very well respected by his teammates for his work ethic and preparation. Here are some quotes and excerpts from the article (article from Nov 2009):

"The other day I asked Kellen how many touchdowns he had, and he had no idea," says junior tight end Tommy Gallarda, one of Moore's roommates. "He just goes about his business, and he couldn't care less if he gets any recognition."

"I've always known my limitations," says Moore, "but I've also known there are things you can take advantage of to be successful, and that's to be as prepared as possible."

When Petersen announced that he was tapping a redshirt freshman as his starting quarterback before the start of the 2008 season, the coach says he had a "gut feeling," one that came primarily from watching Moore's day-to-day preparation. "The first time I knew that Kellen was going to be something special was when we were preparing for our bowl game [against East Carolina in 2007]," says Petersen. "I'm looking in to a meeting with our coaches and our offensive players. There's Kellen, in Hawaii during his redshirt year. It's obvious there's no chance he's going to get in the game. Most guys would sit back, but he's hanging on every word from the coaches, taking down notes, absorbing everything. I'm thinking, This kid's an animal."

Manu Ginobili plays with reckless fire, energizes Spurs

Spurs guard Manu Ginobili is the heart and soul of the Spurs drive for another championship. Ginobili displayed his toughness in Game 3 against Dallas when he suffered a broken nose and returned to action five minutes later. Says Coach Popovich:

"Those are the players who you know are really special. Every team has to have some of those. We're fortunate Manu's on our team."

Popovich called him a great competitor after he scored 11 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter of Game 3 with a broken nose. What makes his competitiveness different from other players?

"That's hard to articulate," Popovich says. "It's just something that shows in a variety of situations. They do things in certain moments of the game. ... Their understanding of what's going on and their drive to do what most players wouldn't even dream of makes them different.

"He's angular and almost looks helter-skelter, but it's helter-skelter with a purpose and a plan. He combines some incredible ball skills with great desire, great passion and an unbelievable will to win, and that's what makes him special."

Confronted by Team, a Spartan Responds

Michigan State's Durrell Summers is one of the most athletic players on his team. Summers is playing his best basketball of his career in leading the Spartans into the Final Four. Before the tournament started, Summers' was dogged by his coaches and teammates for what they described as a poor effort. This article explains how a team meeting helped Summers turn the corner and in turn helped the Spartans reach yet another Final Four. From the Detroit Free Press:

They do not always do things delicately at Michigan State, whether rebounding in bruising fashion or calling out a teammate for playing without enough passion.

Spartans guard Durrell Summers found out that second part after he had been acting as if he were overqualified to play defense.

Summers was benched in the second half of Michigan State’s loss to Minnesota in the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament. Asked if he was worried about Summers’s confidence, Coach Tom Izzo told Michigan State basketball beat reporters, “Confidence has nothing to do with guarding somebody.”

Michigan State’s players were no less blunt at a players-only meeting in which Summers faced a reckoning.

“We all said what we had to say to Durrell, and Durrell sat there and listened and took it like a man, if it was good or bad,” said Draymond Green, a sophomore forward.

Summers can be an explosive offensive player, but he yawned on defense and admitted that he only glanced at scouting reports and rarely absorbed them. He needed Izzo and his teammates to shake him up, and they did, for two days before the N.C.A.A. tournament started.

It was a reordering of Michigan State basketball, which has lost its leading scorer, Kalin Lucas, to injury but gained a star in Summers. A 6-foot-4 junior from Detroit, Summers made 8 of 10 shots and scored 21 points against Tennessee in a 70-69 victory in the Midwest Regional final Sunday to cap a splendid four-game stretch that helped carry Michigan State to the Final Four.

Summers was 1 for 5 in that Big Ten tournament game against Minnesota, but in four N.C.A.A. tournament games, he has made 30 of 54 shots from the field (55 percent) and averaged 20 points a game. He was named the most outstanding player in the Midwest Region.

Lucas, an all-Big Ten guard, ruptured an Achilles’ tendon in a second-round tournament game against Maryland, but now the Spartans are headed to the Final Four with a player who was helping to rupture the team in early March.

“Through the whole tournament, my defense was on a different level,” Summers said. “It actually has been able to translate to my offense; I am so focused in on defense that nothing can break my focus on offense.

“That was a matter of me having to look in a mirror seeing what Coach is asking of me. Coach was telling me you don’t realize how you rub off on other people.”

Izzo was determined not to let Summers skate through. The coach said he had had other players, gifted players, who got away from him without being pushed to their potential. Izzo had no choice, he said, but to push Summers to an uncomfortable edge.

“When you go through a couple of guys like that in the past and it didn’t work out for them, I kind of vowed I’ll never let that happen again,” Izzo said. “Sometimes, people take things casually. And I think a lot of players do. And I’ve probably been harder on him because I think he has more to give. You know, when you have more to give, people are going to push you even harder.”

After the Big Ten tournament, Summers said he started meeting with Izzo and going over ways to increase his value to the team. Naturally, it started with being more devoted to defense. What Summers discovered was that when he played harder on defense, his offense came easier.

On Sunday, he ruined Tennessee with his shooting. The Volunteers concentrated on bearing down on Lucas’s replacement, Korie Lucious, but the Spartans were able to swing the ball toward Summers, who stroked shot after shot. He made 4 of 6 3-pointers, the last one with 2 minutes 47 seconds remaining, giving the Spartans a 69-66 lead. It was Michigan State’s final field goal of the game, and Summers turned to the bench and saw Izzo wink at him as if the player and coach had arrived at the peak together.

“In the beginning, we didn’t understand each other as much,” Summers said. “We talked some things out. We had to. It was tournament time.

“He felt like there were some things I wasn’t doing up to my ability. I eventually saw that. We watched a lot of film together and discussed some things, and I acknowledged that and I have just been trying to be a different player, a different person.”

Seize the Moment

From Peter King at Sports Illustrated:

Coming up with a motivational tool is huge for NFL coaches, particularly on the eve of an important game. Last Saturday night, before the biggest game in the 43-year history of the Saints, New Orleans coach Sean Payton produced a doozy at the team's downtown hotel. As the players settled in for their last team meeting before the NFC Championship Game against the Vikings, the lights dimmed, Aerosmith's Dream On started playing at a Superdome-decibel level, and on the video screen at the front of the room great moments in sports history went by in rapid-fire order.

Babe Ruth homering, Michael Jordan scoring, Pete Maravich floating, Roberto Clemente fielding, Tiger Woodsfist-pumping, Eddie Robinson coaching, Wayne Gretzky scoring, Jim Valvano leaping, Larry Bird shooting, Muhammad Ali punching, the Bears Super Bowl--shuffling, Doug Flutie passing, the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team celebrating—on and on, as goose bumps rose to the pulsating chorus: "Dream on, dream on, dream on...."

And when the lights came up, there was Ronnie Lott, a four-time Super Bowl champion. Payton had invited the Hall of Fame defensive back to speak to his players before the season, at which time Lott told the Saints he could "smell greatness in the room." smell greatness T-shirts were promptly distributed to the players. Now Lott stood before them holding one of the purple baseball bats each player had received that night as a reminder to hit the Vikings hard on Sunday. Lott tapped the bat in his hand, staring intently at the players, and said, "What I wouldn't give to have the chance to go out there, just one more time, to do what you're going to do tomorrow. To become a champion again."

"It's something I'll never forget," free safety Darren Sharper, 34, would say later. "Ronnie's the epitome of greatness in our game, and for so many reasons on and off the field, this was our chance for greatness—to seize the moment. It may never come again."

Passion & Purpose

From Coach Kevin Eastman:

Another great exercise for players is to read up on players at the next level. Not only will it (hopefully) inspire them, but if they search well enough, they’ll get some guidance as to what it takes to get where they want to go. If players search enough and do their research on the best in the business, they’ll find that two words can sum up what these players are all about: (1) passion, and (2) purpose.

The best in any field have a true purpose as to why they are out there. It’s never about what they can do for themselves. It’s always about what they can do for the team. They know their purpose. They know what they have to do to get the team to win. They know that their personal success must come after their team contribution. This is how the great ones operate.

Once they have a firm grasp of their purpose, they then separate themselves from others by their passion. It’s a passion that’s with them at game time, in the weight room, on the track, and in practice. The best never leave their passion in their lockers.

I am fortunate in that I get see passion displayed on a daily basis by one of the best to ever play the game — Kevin Garnett. He has worked on his skills to hone them to the level of a true talent, but what puts him in a category of his own is his passion for the game. He brings it every time he gets into a basketball setting, from practice to pregame preparation.

Every player needs to evaluate himself in these two key areas. The results will tell if that players has a chance to reach the levels he seeks!

Having Challenges

"It's having a challenge in my life, having something to go to bed thinking about and wake up having to pursue. Without that, life can be difficult. Some days are hard, but for the most part I still love it. I love being one of the guys, I still love waking up and going to work and trying to get better every day and trying to prepare to play, and after I play try to recover and get ready to play the next game. It gives me something to set goals and challenge myself and be directed."

-Steve Nash

Playing with Heart

"You can have all the talent in the world, but what's really going to put you over the hump is heart," Wildcats forward Dwayne Anderson said. "All the Villanova players play with heart. Of course, talent can get you wins, but heart and defending can get you championships."

-Dwayne Anderson

The Making of a Leader

Good article this morning on Charlotte Bobcats guard Raymond Felton. Felton, in his 3rd year with the Bobcats, is coached by NBA legend and renouned point guard coach Larry Brown. Here is a little from the article:

“Just trust me.”

It was that simple and that complex when Raymond Felton met with his coach about 10 games into this season. The Charlotte Bobcats had started 3-7 and the offense was the least productive in the NBA.

Coach Larry Brown was riding Felton hard, as is his habit with point guards. Felton didn't mind that; he considered himself lucky to have a former point guard for a coach. He just needed to make sure Brown understood something.

“Just trust me,” Felton recalled telling Brown. “I'm going to play hard every night. I'm going to do what you want me to do. But at the same time, let me be me.

“I told him, ‘Push me to be better because I want to be better. And I want to make the team better.' Everything just worked out.”

That doesn't mean Felton never errs. Sometimes he shoots too much or throws the ball away or forgets to get a teammate enough shots. But Brown gets it about Felton's intentions.

The statistics aren't dramatically different; his points (13.7 per game), assists (6.8) and shooting percentage (40.8 percent) are roughly the same as last season. But point guards aren't easily defined by numbers; it's a nuanced position that is more about making hundreds of decisions each game in real time.

To Brown, a point guard is there to serve others; to keep them involved and organized. If you happen to score some points along the way, that's more a bonus than an objective.

To be a point guard, you have to be a leader, and Felton wasn't situated to be either until this season.

“The leader of your team has got to be either a guy who can be an All-Star or the point guard,” Felton said. “Without the ball in my hands, I wasn't the leader. Having that ball in my hands at clutch time, to make a play, that gives me the confidence that I can lead these guys.

“To talk to them, to yell at them if I need to, to demand something from them, and have them say, ‘OK' instead of giving you a look that says, ‘Hey, who you talking to?'”

To pull that off, Felton had to prove he was a good decision-maker. When it comes time to make those hundreds of choices each game,there's a balance to be struck between technique and psychology.

“There are 20 things going through your head in any one possession,” Felton said. “A shot's missed, there's an offensive rebound. New shot clock. You see someone open. Do you pass it or not?

“You don't want your teammate (thinking) ‘He won't pass me the ball!' But you also don't want coach yelling at you because he's thinking, ‘We haven't scored in a while and we have a new shot clock. Yes, he's open, but run a play to get a better shot.'”

Brown loves that Felton is more conscious of those calculations.

“Is he a perfect point guard right now? No, but I think his progress has been dramatic,” Brown said. “He's got to continue to recognize when guys haven't been involved, when they need to get a shot. He's got to be a more consistent jump-shooter, to make people guard him honest.

“But he loves to play. And he wants to learn.”

Tebow doesn't let the haters affect him

It's hard not to root for this guy: ESPN Article

Jets’ Jones Lives a Dream of Passion and Purpose

Terrific article in the NY Times today on Jets running back Thomas Jones. His teammates and coaches respect the energy and enthusiasm that he brings to his team everyday:

But Jones’s impact outruns his numbers. Before each game, teammates gather around him looking for a shot of energy. Jones never plans his speeches, nor did he program the tears that welled in his eyes before the Jets’ victory at New England last month.

He speaks — or shouts, or implores, depending on the mood — from the heart. The same as he did while starring at Virginia. The same as he did in high school.

“Everyone feeds off his energy,” fullback Tony Richardson said. “He’s tearing up, yelling. Thomas is a very vocal guy and very passionate. You see a lot of that in the way he plays. Guys look forward to his speeches. They wait for it. Because it gets you going.”

“It’s easy to give a speech at the game and get fired up there in front of 70,000 people,” Jets coach Eric Mangini said. “The hard part is when you’re tired, when it’s Week 10, 12, 14, and you’re still being the same guy, still improving.

“You’re a veteran having a great year, but you’re still doing all the little things that got you here.”

Buying into defense

"When you're playing defense, everybody has to buy into it. You can't just have two or three guys saying that they're going to play defense. Everybody has to wholeheartedly, 100 percent believe in it. I can honestly say that everybody on our team, when they step on the floor, knows their assignments. Knows they're either going to have to get on the floor, get dirty or do some things they don't necessarily want to do. But it's all in the character of what we are, and we carry it out from the first man on the roster to the 12th and 13th men.''

"It's like harmony when we get it right, and when one or two guys slack off, it shows. We've embraced the defense, but I don't think teams in this league embrace the defense. Everybody wants to score, score, score. They think, I guess, that offense gets you limelight. But it's defense that gets you wins.''

-Kevin Garnett