Handle With Care

negatively.”
Goolish believes that athletes can
avoid overthinking by conditioning
both their mental and physical skills. He
explains that this alleviates some of the
pressure on athletes by allowing them
to concentrate on the aspects of the
game in their control.
“Kids will think about the past and
they’ll dwell on mistakes,” Goolish said.
“The past is for evaluating; the future
is for planning. But if you want to perform,
you have to be in that present
moment.”
Goolish reports that players who can
often don’t become as frustrated when
they have a “statistically poor night.”
However, Goolish also recognizes that
tive
training or management
techniques to help players
through mentally taxing
situations.
According to a
study published in
the Journal for Sports
Education, 53 percent of teenage
athletes cite increased pressure
from parents and 40 percent cite pressure
from coaches as their reason to
stop playing a sport. Wang has had
to deal with expectations from many
sources and believes that athletes can
only reach their full potential when
pressure is reduced.
“I try to tell myself that in the end,
tennis is just a sport,” Wang said.
“Regardless of my level, I should be
humble and keep the expectations in
check.”
Wang has experienced the nega-
attempts to control her expectations
through humility. Arne, however, has
set
because we thought of the pressures
as a bad thing,” Arne said. “But the more
we discussed, the more we realized that
the pressure was actually a good thing
because it meant that people believed in
us and knew our potential.”
Having trained athletes like Arne,
Goolish understands how teenagers
coaches and teammates who assist them
and provide opportunities. But instead
of fearing these pressures, Goolish suggests
that athletes embrace them like
Arne and her team has.
“I think players should actually want
an element of pressure,” Goolish said.
is your role? Let’s learn how to operate
inside of it.”
Arne undeprstands that pressure will
always be a part of sports and competition.
However, she feels the pressure
can never take away from the exceptional
worth of playing and competing.
“At the end of the day, basketball
is supposed to be a fun game and we
said. “We had to take a step back and
realize that we’re all here because we
love the game of basketball and each
other.”
Photo credit:
Matthew Schwenk
www.statesmanshs.org • 25