I don't think you understand what I mean by anger. If you are a competitive athlete at that level, and if you are not angry when you lose....there is something wrong. I don't ever remember a champion player who didn't feel more pain and anger upon losing, than they feel good about winning. Hating to lose is a stronger drive than simply wanting to win, and the most competitive athletes hate losing, and it smolders in them, makes them work harder, motivates them to never feel that way again. If you think differently, you never watched the superstars and their controlled rage take over a game. When MJ was playing, he was one guy you never wanted to make angry. Same with Magic. Look at Tiger when he gets pissed off. It is that drive, that passion to win and avoid the pain of losing that the champions live with. Not saying that someone should be a bad sport when they lose, but the pain of losing is what fuels the competitive fire. <img src=http://img.timeinc.net/time/2002/bhm/history/images/jordan.jpg> <img src=http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2006/writers/rudy_klancnik/05/25/number.12/p1_jordan12.jpg>
Fear and anger can release an adrenaline rush that causes one to pick it up a little in specific situations, but when you see one team demolish another, they're in the zone, baby. And that's where you want to be.
I still don't think you understand... The Zone is a temporary situation, that athletes say they can't turn on and off at will. I am talking about the deep seated drive, the passion that makes them work harder in practice than most athletes do when they compete. That drive is what the champions have. We have all seen some athletes get in a zone. Rex Chapman at times was in a zone shooting 3 pointers. So what? Is Rex Chapman a Hall of Famer? Reggie was in the zone many times at the end of the games while playing the Knicks...did he win championships? It is the constant drive and passion that I am talking about, and that anger that comes from losing sustains those athletes, the absolute competitiveness and hatred of losing. Bill Walton, a pretty fierce competitor when he was healthy, has said many times that the pain of losing at UCLA when he knows they should have won haunts him to this day, and feels much worse than all the winning feels good. Perhaps it is a psychosis, who knows? In any case, this drive to win often has its roots in a fear or anger, or hatred of losing. Maybe it is the heart of an athlete, who feels so much heartache when losing that they will do anything to avoid that heartache again. "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. ---Vince Lombardi
If I'm LeBron in that situation, I would look for someone to dish to. Why risk picking up a cheap charging foul with the game on the line? Do like MJ always did and find the spot up shooter. I also fault LeBron for not blocking Rasheed's game winner. The great ones play both ends of the court.
I absolutely love this quote and agree 100%....just look at MJ play golf..he plays it with the same drive he played both bball and baseball. losing is not an option for him...
I may understand more than you think about winning. I played on an ncaa championship team in college. It just happened to be the one that beat Bill Walton and UCLA in the semi-final game.
Soul of a champion---http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soac/2006-09-21-introduction-cover_x.htm excerpt--- Williams interviewed 1,500 people for a book on Jordan and found unanimity that Jordan had an uncanny "ability to block out distractions, zero in on what's important. It was like he was in a total vacuum â totally zoned in. I think that's the hallmark, really, of a champion ... focus, focus, focus."
The ability to focus is one thing, the single mindedness of the drive that is behind the focus is what you are not understanding... The ability to focus without drive is useless, drive without ability to focus gets you further than the former. Clearly you don't grasp an understanding of the primary importance of a will to win, and even a stronger will not to lose... The will to win/not to lose brings the strength of focus, not the reverse...
Joshua 1:8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. The bible teaches that focusing on the proper things creates all things necessary to prosper and win. All includes the will, which is part of the soul. In other words, the bible teaches that focus comes first, then the strong willpower. I don't deny the function of the will to win, but I think the bible makes clear that your version is out of order, not mine. Just take an intuitive approach to this. A smoldering anger is incompatible with being zoned in. Zoned in is a state of focus that has as it's main characteristics a sense of clarity and peace. Anger and frustration are the predominate reasons that we human beings have such a difficult time getting in the zone, as you have already noted. Yet another way to see the correct order of things is simply to figure out why someone would get mad about losing. It is because they have thought a great deal, or they have focused, on winning to such a degree that if it does not happen, they are vulnerable to get very angry. If they haven't thought a great deal about winning, the loss is not going to hurt nearly so badly. Can you see that?
Okay, I am not going to try and debate your personal belief systems that are based on your personal interpretation of your religion. If you want to talk hoops, and human nature in competition in sports, independent of using your interpretation of the Bible or any other scripture as the foundation of an argument, that's okay...but I am not going to go "there" and do what you are trying to do by pulling some phrase out of the Bible or some other scripture to make a counter argument. When folks pull out "The Bible told me so" stuff, any rational debate or exchange of ideas ends.