A Battle of Wills
I’ve been watching a lot of NFL football and NBA basketball the past couple months. And the more I watch the more I can see just how much athletic competition comes down to a battle of wills. The best athletes in any sport try to take your will away. Thy try to make you quit. They try to make you doubt yourself and your abilities. They know that if they can defeat you mentally, then defeating you physically becomes a whole lot easier.
Outside observers to the sport of track and field often assume that no such battle of wills exists in our sport. In the most obvious sense, they’re right. Track athletes compete against the clock. In the case of the hurdling events, the hurdles are the obstacles we must face and overcome, not our opponents. And even though you have to defeat your opponents to move on the next round, make it to the medal stand, or whatever, you don’t go face to face against your opponents like you do in sports like, football, basketball, tennis, boxing, and just about any on we sport that could be named.
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But I would argue that in track, the battle of wills is very real. And in the hurdles, the presence of the barriers makes it even more real. Just because no one is tackling you, blocking your shot, or punching you in the face doesn’t mean that you don’t need a strong sense of will in order to perform to your potential.
But before I get into the details of being willful as a hurdler, let’s take a look a at some examples from other sports.
For my money, one of the most mentally strong (and mentally intimidating) athletes to ever play any sport was Michael Jordan. No matter how good you were, or how good you weren’t, Jordan was coming at you with everything he had on both ends of the court. Current NBA guard Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder is the same way. Whether he’s playing against 4-time world champion Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs or erratic 2nd year guard Michael Carter-Williams of the Philadelphia 76ers, Westbrook is talking smack, staring you down, grinning derisively, and coming directly at you full speed on the fast break.
But getting back to Jordan, I remember one time back in the mid-90’s I attended a pre-season game in which the Chicago Bulls were playing at UNC-Chapel Hill – Jordan’s old stomping grounds – against the 76ers – the franchise I grew up following as a youngster growing up in the Philly suburbs. It was an absolutely meaningless game, and I wasn’t expecting much excitement, but the prospect of seeing Jordan play in person, and to get a chance to see my hometown team prepare for the regular season, filled me with anticipation.
Things were going pretty ho hum at first, but then Sixers swingman Jimmy Jackson – a very good player in his own right – made the mistake of talking yang to Jordan. Why did he do that? Next thing you know, Jordan has his game face scowl in place, he’s driving hard to the basket and dunking, he’s knocking down 3’s, and he’s barking at Jackson the whole time. Jackson stopped talking. He just jogged up and down the court looking helpless until the coach mercifully took him out of the game. That was the first and only time I’ve ever seen, live and in person, Jordan’s determination to mentally and physically break the will one of his opponents. As a sixer fan, I found it horrifying.
The clip below documents one of my favorite Jordan moments, revealing his will to win to an extreme degree. It comes from a playoff game against the New York Knicks in the early 90’s. The Knicks back then were a very physically intimidating squad, and when playing against the very talented Chicago Bulls, they played even more physically in an attempt to wear down the Bulls’ will. Their front court big men included Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, and Xavier McDaniel – all very physically imposing players. Meanwhile, one of the Bulls’ most gifted players, Scottie Pippen, had a reputation for being soft. So the Knicks, knowing they couldn’t get inside Jordan’s head, tried to get inside Pippen’s.
As the clip shows, McDaniel in particular targets Pippen as the weak link. He gets in Pippen’s face, challenges his manhood, and for all intents and purposes seems to be threatening to beat the crap out of him. Pippen stands his ground, but McDaniel won’t shut up.
Finally, Jordan steps in to defend Pippen and put an end to all this nonsense. You don’t have to be a lip reader to tell that Jordan is saying “f*ck you X, f*ck you.” Jordan gets in McDaniel’s face with the same aggressiveness and confrontational hostility McDaniel had brought to Pippen. In this battle of wills, Jordan wins. McDaniel already knows that Jordan is more highly skilled, and now he knows that his team cannot break the spirit of the Bulls.
The next clip also comes from the NBA, from the 2001 finals between the Sixers and the LA Lakers. Sixer star Allen Iverson was an icon of urban hip-hop culture, having grown up on the mean streets of Northern Virginia. Iverson’s mantra was “I play every game like it’s my last.” Though usually the smallest and least muscular guy on the court every game he played, he never hesitated to take the ball hard to the rim and challenge all the huge big men waiting in the paint to take his head off. The Lakers’ Kobe Bryant, meanwhile, had spent much of his childhood in Italy, where his dad had played professionally. Kobe was fluent in Italian, was highly cultured, did not have anywhere near the amount of “street cred” that Iverson had, so he was considered to be a star who had much more crossover appeal, much less of an edge.
But on the court, Bryant’s will to win was every bit as intense as Iverson’s. Forget the high culture and the European upbringing; in the competitive arena Bryant did not back down from anyone, and did not shy away from trash talk. The clip below features Bryant and Iverson jaw-jacking at each other during a break in the action. Neither player backs down; both players refuse to be intimidated by the other.
Another example of an athlete with an uncommon will to win is Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks. When Lynch enters into what is commonly referred to as “beast mode,” everybody and their grandpops better look out because their lives are in danger.
In the two clips below – the first one from a 2011 playoff game against the New Orleans Saints and the second one from a regular season game against the Philadelphia Eagles the following season, Lynch runs through defenders, over defenders, stiff-arms defenders, breaks away from defenders. Many times it looks like he’s tackled but somehow he keeps his legs moving and continues down the field. These are the kinds of plays that take away the other team’s will, that make the opponents say, “there’s nothing we can do to stop this guy.”
When it comes to the hurdles, the battle of wills is often more subtle, but no less intense. A race over 10 hurdles, even if it’s only 100 or 110 meters, is a very long race. The ebb and flow, the highs and lows mimic that of a 2-hour contest between sports teams. As Allen Johnson once said, in a hurdle race, you have ten chances to fall flat on your face.
Those who have a fast start have the first important mental edge. When you get out in front, you can put pressure on your opponents to catch up to you, which can take them out of their rhythm and cause them to make mistakes. Many hurdlers are obsessed with mastering their start, and with good reason. A good start can break the will of your opponents, convincing them that any attempt to catch up will prove futile. At the very least it can cause them to rush, or even panic, taking them out of their comfort zone and robbing them of much-needed confidence. As Tom Hill once said in regards to racing against 1972 Olympic champion Rodney Milburn, “If you could see him in your peripheral vision, you knew you had a chance. If you didn’t, if he was up ahead of you, you knew it was over.”
Besides the start, the other type of hurdler who can break the will of his or her opponents is the one who makes a huge surge mid-race. Because these hurdlers don’t have dominant starts, they seem more beatable, but don’t be fooled. A trait that I’ve found to be common among many of the best 110 hurdlers over the years is that they shift into a higher gear usually coming off hurdle three into hurdle four, or maybe one hurdle later. So, to have a good start, to be ahead at the beginning of the race and over the first couple hurdles, only to have an opponent suddenly come up on you or blow by you can be enough to take the wind out of your sails. You thought you were rolling, then suddenly you feel like you’re moving in slow motion.
The clip below features one of my favorite 110 races ever – the 2007 World Championship final, where Liu Xiang of China narrowly defeated Terrence Trammell of the United States, 12.95 to 12.99. Trammell, in lane four, who was known as having one of the best starts in track and field, better even than that of most sprinters, shot out like a rocket and took instant control of the race. Xiang, way over in lane eight, was slightly behind Trammell before moving up beside him by hurdle five, and then moving slightly ahead of him a couple hurdles later, and then holding that slight lead through the finish line. Instead of panicking when Trammell took the early lead, and instead of rushing to catch up, Xiang slowly reeled him in, proving that a fast start is not the only key to success.
The final clip I want to look at is from a race that occurred this past summer in Paris, where Dawn Harper-Nelson and Queen Harrison ran side by side for basically the entire race, with Harper-Nelson gaining a narrow victory in a thrilling race, 12.44 to 12.46. These were two athletes fully confident in their abilities, who typically run strong races from start to finish, have excellent technique and impressive speed. In a case like this, the battle of wills isn’t about intimidation, or race strategy, or strengths and weaknesses. It’s about execution. In looking at the race, the only clear advantage that I can see that Harper-Nelson has over Harrison is that Harrison’s trail arm goes back too far, keeping her in the air a tad longer. But in other races last summer, Harrison emerged victorious. So when you have two evenly matched competitors like that, it often comes down to who can retain complete focus the best from the start line to the finish line.
Often, hurdlers who rely on their power or on their start will have technical breakdowns late in the race. Or, if not all-out breakdowns, their lead leg will hang longer, their trail leg will hang lower, their lean won’t be as deep. And such weaknesses can often lead to a loss of will against an opponent who is able to maintain form.
In the hurdles, the key to retaining a strong will throughout a race is to focus on your own lane, on executing your own race, and on maintaining that focus regardless of what is happening in other lanes around you. Generally speaking, you don’t see gamesmanship among hurdlers like you see in other sports and as you may see in the sprint events. In the hurdles, it’s more likely that you’ll be intimidated by how efficient or fast an opponent looks while warming up, or just by the very idea of racing against someone whom you already know to be very good. So the key for hurdlers is to not get inside your own head.
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