I can't believe I actually read this but since I did I thought I'd post and share this insanity with you. It all stems from a debate over at PackPride about who is ultimately responsible for calming players' nerves in stressful situations: coach or players themselves. Enjoy 50 Shades of weird....
You clearly have never played sports. Did you hear the announcer (former MLB pitcher) talk about pitching in the World Series and having his glove shake from nerves? No coach can "coach up" enough to make that disappear. You have to calm yourself. The errors, crazy balk calls, never on the mound, etc. lost that game. The team just folded under pressure and allowed the game to get away from them. When things aren't going your way, you have to calm yourself and not allow the bad calls, fans, etc. to get to you.
Oh, that right nostradmus?
1999, state basketball playoffs, up three points with the ball and 8 seconds to play, team's best foul shooter is double teamed, so the ball has to get in-bounded to the center to avoid the 5 second violation. He gets the ball just fine, but he's a 50% free throw shooter and knows he has to get rid of it, unfortunately there's only one other guy nearby even remotely open, and that guy was me. Gets me the ball, other team converges, foul. So here I am going to the line, up 3, 8 seconds to go, only need one to seal the game. Hands are trembling like Michael J. Fox on a Mediterranean ferry ride without his medication. Can barely hold the ball still enough to get into my routine. Let the first first one go and it's damn near a half foot short. No lift in the legs, too much fear and hesitation in the fingertips to even get it close. Pressure was totally getting to me. Coach calls a timeout. I figure he's going to give me some pep talk. But he's not even looking at me. No one is. I sit down and just fade out. I can't hear anything. Can't see anything except the blurred aura of the gym. Totally zoned out and unfocused, except on how I'm getting ready to piss off all my teammates by blowing a chance at the state championship. Then about halfway through the timeout this random super hot college chick in a low cut blouse taps me on the shoulder, she's standing above me and bending over so low to give me just the perfect sight line to see all her busty glory, she leans in even closer and says in my ear, "Hey, if you make this free throw I'm probably going to cream my panties. You want to help me cream my panties?" Then she winks and heads back to her seat in the stands. I'm completely dumbfounded by all this of course. Cause that **** don't happen in real life. This ain't Teenwolf. And I'm sure as **** ain't no basketball star. I'm not even a starter.Second or third guy off the bench. But damn. That chick was really hot. Buzzer sounds. Coach finishes the timeout. I haven't heard a damn word of it. No one says anything to me heading back to the floor. I look over my shoulder back at that chick, she's in her seat looking dead straight at me running her thumb and forefinger along the v-line of her shirt and softly biting her bottom lip, the other hand conspicuously placed in between her thighs. Can you guess what was on my mind? It sure as **** wasn't losing out on a chance to play for the state title. I sank the free throw, stole the inbounds pass, sank two more free throws, and we won the game by 6. I get out of the locker room and guess who's waiting for me. Or so I thought. Actually she was waiting for my coach. She was his niece. He put her up to it. It worked.
Sometimes you can calm yourself. Sometimes you need help. Part of coaching is recognizing when your players need that help. Maybe your coaches just didn't give a **** and were happy to let you figure it out for yourselves, or maybe they just didn't have bangin hot nieces, don't know, what I do know is that any coach who is unaware that it's his responsibility--and his job--to constantly monitor/massage the mental awareness and emotional state of his players during a game is probably not a very good coach, and certainly shouldn't be getting paid millions of dollars for it. Now maybe Avent is aware of this, maybe he just sucks at it. Regardless, you can't blow a 7 run lead in two ******* innings without having a coach who's completely incompetent at recognizing his team melting down and knowing what to do about it.