So . . . it is a time of anticipation in the sports world. The baseball playoffs are around the corner. The NFL season is beginning. Hockey and basketball, while still a bit away, are about to get going again. As such, it's prediction season! Who will win this year? Lucky for you, I have the answer; the knowledge of who will be the champion in every sport. Just examine the contenders closely. Don't bother looking at talent, or skill, or experience. None of those matter. According to most sportswriters and commentators, it usually comes down to only one thing.
Just find the team that wants it more.
So, amongst the division leaders in baseball, who wants to win the World Series the most? In the NFL, which team is hungriest for a Superbowl victory? Because if wanting it more truly leads to success on the field (or ice, or court), then it should be easy to suss out the eventual champion.
Funny thing about that. It's usually very hard to tell at this point who wants it more. I think that overall, it is usually much easier to determine who wants it more after the champion wins than to figure that out before the game is played (or while the game is being played). As such, "wanting it more" is not an antecedent to a win, but rather a post-hoc story that is supplied, a retrospective explanation.
I know what you're thinking - you've watched games where you could tell who was trying harder, who was more driven, who wanted it more. Two things about that. First, is it not possible you were entangling success with drive? Does a basketball player miss a shot because he didn't want it to go in? If wanting it more leads to success, why don't all of a very driven player's shots go in? Second, it is sometimes true that a team or a player is complacent (or hungover, or has just signed a long-term lucrative contract). This may seem like semantics, but while wanting more doesn't actually lead to a win, wanting it less certainly can. I would argue, however, that wanting it less is rare - to reach the professional leagues of any sport, it requires a whole lot of dedication, drive, and thirst for victory, and most people don't shrug that off once they make it.
Wanting it more also often gets mixed up with aggression. In many sports aggression can be successful (e.g. hockey teams down one goal nearing the end of the third period). But aggression is also a risky strategy. What ends up happening is that a confirmation bias gets introduced; when aggression is successful, that team wanted it more. When aggression is unsuccessful, then the losing team got reckless, or lost their head, or resorted to thug-like play.
I have suggested this idea to several other people and I tend to receive a negative reaction. It is part of the mythology of sport that inner strength and drive leads to success; after all, if it is not, then it's just talent and luck. Talent can be measured and often quantified, and luck is random and usually an unsatisfying explanation. But heart, heart is something that anyone can have. Rudy had heart.
The other thing I'm asked is if I have competed in sport, because then I would understand "wanting it more." I'm no athlete (no, please, it's nice of you to say, but I know my limitations), but when I do play basketball, or soccer, or whatever, I really, really want to do well. And I often don't. I get "in the zone" and it doesn't improve my shot. In other words, I have firsthand experience with the idea that wanting it more doesn't matter.
And if you need further proof, consider this example. If I were to play one-on-one with LeBron James, I guarantee you I would want to win more. The win would mean so much more to me than to him. And there is absolutely no way you could convince anyone that I would win.
I agree with you completely about "wanting it more" being a bunch of bs in the context you are describing (and the one in which it is most often used), but if you change the context a bit I think there can be something to it.
ReplyDeleteIf "wanting it more" leads to more and/or better preparation off the field, it can certainly lead to greater success, either for teams or (more often) individuals. Note: by "greater success", I mean greater than that team/individual would have had otherwise, not necessarily greater than what might be achieved by another team/individual with less "drive" but significantly more talent.
I agree with you that plenty of drive, etc. are required to reach the pros in the first place, but there are absolutely players and teams that prepare more and better than others, and substantially out-perform their natural talents as a result. Common examples include Peyton Manning (and the whole Colts offense as a result), Jerry Rice and Roy Halladay. Even when you look at players with incredible natural talent, you see (or at least hear about) the different degrees of drive that players like Michael Jordan had, which allowed him to progress from great to legendary over his career.
No doubt that greater preparation/training tends to lead to greater success. But it's not necessarily a reliable relationship. There can be many instances where someone trains very hard but just can't improve from where they are (e.g. Shaq's free throws; another example is Larry Steele, who is profiled in Halberstam's book "The Breaks of the Game"). Also, someone who is already great will see diminishing returns for greater efforts (how much better can Kobe get through his insane training regimen?).
ReplyDeleteFor every Peyton Manning and Roy Halladay, there are countless others who work just as hard and do not succeed. So "wanting it more," expressed in this way as (more or less) "hard work", does not lead to success either, at least not always.
3 words - home court advantage
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I think I need more words.
ReplyDeleteIf you mean that home-court somehow translates to wanting it more, I don't see it. Home court advantage has been linked to aggression (raised testosterone levels) and I know of studies in which disrupting an athlete's routine or comfort level can result in reduced performance (e.g. preventing them from engaging in pre-free-throw rituals). But I don't think that home teams are necessarily more driven than visitors.