JohnFMurray.com

“How we deal with this, I don’t know,” an emotional Gibbs said. “It’s something I don’t think anyone can be prepared for.”

Gibbs said he asked players to be at Redskin Park for practice today but wavered when asked whether he would try to treat it as a normal practice.

“We’re going one hour at a time here,” he said.

Funeral services for Taylor have not been finalized, but they likely will be early next week in Florida. Team owner Daniel Snyder said he would pay for anyone in the organization to attend, but that likely would leave the team just two days to prepare for a Thursday night game against the Chicago Bears. Snyder said he had not contacted NFL officials about the possibility of pushing the Chicago game back to the following Sunday.

Logistically, it will be a challenge. Emotionally, it’s one of the hardest things an athlete will ever deal with.

“If you play the game and there hasn’t been a chance to grieve, it’s very challenging,” said Ralph Vernacchia, director of the Center for Performance Excellence at Western Washington University, who was a consultant to the school’s basketball team in the early 1990s when a player died in midseason. “It’s a process, not a light-switch thing. Emotionally, you have to walk through the steps or else you won’t have the energy to perform.”

The Redskins held at least one team meeting yesterday and made several chaplains and other counselors available to players, as well as at least one representative from the NFL Players Association.

“I do think professional intervention is appropriate,” said John F. Murray, a clinical and sports psychologist from Palm Beach, Fla., who has worked with several NFL players. “I believe you need to approach it from the group and the individual perspective.”

Taylor’s number will appear on all Redskins helmets, and all jerseys will don a memorial patch. At Redskins Park in Ashburn, a black cloth was draped over the entrance to the main building. League-wide, teams will honor Taylor with a moment of silence in stadiums Sunday.

“Those are all very important early first steps,” said Kenneth Doka, a counselor and professor of gerontology at the College of New Rochelle’s graduate school who has written extensively on the subject of death and grief. “Obviously, this will be the elephant in the room, and you have to name that and acknowledge that. But it can’t be hokey — it has to be something that comes from [the players].”

It’s impossible to predict how players will perform Sunday, counselors said, but in the best scenarios, teams and athletes dedicate their performances to the person who died and play well.

“A day after Brett Favre’s dad died, he went on national television and had one of his best performances ever,” said Murray, recalling the 399-yard, four-touchdown performance by the Green Bay Packers quarterback in 2003. “But there are probably countless other examples where the opposite occurs.”

Last year, the Miami Hurricanes played Maryland just days after the murder of linebacker Bryan Pata. Players were credited with playing valiantly but lost 14-13.

“It’s one of the most difficult things that I’ve ever had to deal with,” former Hurricanes coach Larry Coker said during an interview on ESPN Radio. “In business or an industry, if a co-worker is lost, you can take a day or two or take a week off. You can’t do that in the National Football League. It will be difficult. … You don’t ever get over it, but you have to move on.”

Even first-timer Mill Creek is putting on its best “it’s just another game” face.

But the pressure the Hawks will feel when they make their playoff debut at Harrison on Friday is real.

Nervousness or pressure is caused by the frontal lobe of the brain. It reminds you of the consequences of the situation and produces an adrenaline rush.

Dr. John F. Murray, a sport performance psychologist from Palm Beach, Fla., uses the example of how easy it is to walk across a 2-by-4 lying on the ground of your home compared to walking across one 100 feet above I-85.

“Pressure can lead to anxiety, which can lead to nervousness, which can lead to choking, which can lead to performing horribly,” Murray said.

To help alleviate the pressure, coaches try to limit outside distractions and keep their team’s routine as normal as possible. Mill Creek coach Shannon Jarvis said the only thing different about this week’s itinerary is the transportation. The Hawks will be taking chartered buses down to Harrison.

“Kids can sense in a heartbeat if the coaches seem a little nervous or if we’re practicing a little longer this week,” Jarvis said. “I’m a firm believer that you keep the same routine.”

That’s all well and good, but there’s still going to be an increased amount of butterflies in the stomachs of the Hawks no matter how similar the week seems to a September game with South Forsyth.

For most of the seniors, a loss will mean the end of their careers.

“It does put a little more pressure on winning, because, well, we’ll be done otherwise,” Mill Creek senior linebacker Collin Stuart said. “Let’s just say that I’m going to go out there a little harder, a little faster.”

Alan Behrman, a sport psychologist at the Anxiety & Stress Management Institute in Marietta, says preparation is the key to reducing pressure. “When you feel like you’ve been there before,” Behrman said, “it makes all the difference in the world. That’s why you see NFL players who handle those kinds of situations better than others, guys like Tom Brady. The pressure doesn’t matter because they’ve been there before. They’ve been there, done that.

“Where as the new kid of the block, their nerves may get a little bit out of hand because they don’t know how to handle it and don’t have any experience to fall back on.”

Since Mill Creek is the new kid on the block, Mark Irish, a sports hypnotherapist and the director of Southeast Center for Sport Psychology in Duluth, suggests using positive imagery before the game to prevent negative consequences from creeping into players’ minds.

“Without a lot of success up until this year,” Jarvis said, “the hardest thing for us to do for our kids was to get them to quit playing in fear of making a mistake.”

Jarvis, who, like his team, will be making his playoff debut as a head coach, shows a highlight tape at each pregame meal. The tape has the same highlights from throughout the season and backed by music.

“We’re trying to ingrain in our kids’ minds and make them visualize moments when they were playing hard, making plays and enjoying the game of football,” Jarvis said.

“I really enjoy it,” Stuart said of the highlight reel. “I like seeing it because sometimes I miss some of the plays my offensive teammates make and, of course, I don’t mind seeing the ones I’ve made, too.”

GETTING IN THE ZONE

Mark Irish, a sports hypnotherapist and director of Southeast Center for Sport Psychology in Duluth, recommends a neural linguistic programming technique called anchoring.

Irish says when an athlete reaches a point where he is really focused, relaxed and playing well, he can, for instance, squeeze together his thumb and index finger.

“What you’re doing is relating the feeling of being in the zone to a physical sensation,” said Irish. “After a few times doing that, when you realize that you’re not in the zone and playing poorly, you can go ahead and press together the thumb and index finger and actually bring back that sensation of what it is like to be in the zone.”

After running and lifting weights for an hour Nov. 6, Anderson was too worn out to play ball. Sophomore Donte Segar wasn’t about to let his leader off so easily.

“What happened to ‘Hard bodies’?” Segar teased.

Anderson smiled. He nodded with approval toward Segar and walked out of the weight room.

“It’s the last thing I ever heard him say — ‘Hard bodies,’ ” Anderson said. “That’s what I’m always going to remember about him. ‘Hard bodies.’ ”

A little more than an hour later, Segar and three other La Plata players were riding in teammate Jonathan Chapman’s silver Mercury when it collided with a Chevy TrailBlazer on a two-lane road in Dentsville. Chapman, a junior, and sophomores Tavonne Alston and Dionnte Swinson were pronounced dead at the scene. Segar died at Prince George’s Hospital Center in the early hours of Nov. 7.

The other passenger, junior Markus Allen, is recovering from serious leg and pelvic injuries at Prince George’s Hospital Center and is listed in fair to good condition.

Anderson led his teammates onto the La Plata court for the first time yesterday, the first day Maryland high school basketball teams were allowed to practice together and nine days after the fatal crash. Many teenagers experience the sudden loss of a friend or classmate, but it is rare to face four at once.

“It’s Day One here,” La Plata Coach Shawn King told his players as they huddled at midcourt. “We’ve got a long journey to go. Let’s get started.”

Two days earlier, King had called the situation “overwhelming,” but said the team will have to get through it with love, laughs, hugs and, when necessary, tears.

“You come together voluntarily and live and breathe together and share a mission, not unlike what war veterans do,” said John F. Murray, a Palm Beach, Fla., sports psychologist who has worked with professional, college and scholastic athletes. “While it’s not the same [mission], it’s very similar psychologically. You lose part of yourself. A team is more than a sum of its parts, and at this age, it’s particularly devastating.”

Last March, a charter bus carrying the Bluffton (Ohio) University baseball team to a tournament in Florida, crashed in Atlanta and dropped 30 feet from an overpass, killing five players. Eight months later, Bluffton Coach James Grandey said, his team is still mourning the loss of its teammates.

“It’s not what we did [to cope]. It’s what we’re still doing,” Grandey said. “Every decision you make is scrutinized and put under a microscope. . . . You just want to make sure you’re aware of other players’ needs and recovery. They lost their best friends and teammates.

“It’s something that you cannot prepare for. There’s no manual.”

On the first day of school after the accident, La Plata brought in 30 grief counselors to help its shaken student body. It was an unprecedented scene, according to L. DeHaven Colston, La Plata’s guidance counselor who helped coordinate the effort.

“Normally, when we have a death, we can handle it in-house,” Colston said, “but now we see it times four. It was just amazing to see how many lives these four young men seem to have touched.”

La Plata junior Chris DiMisa, a member of the junior varsity team last season, said that over the past week players have mainly felt comfortable sharing their grief only with one another.

“At the funerals we sat together, and that helps us cope,” he said. “It really shows how close you’ve gotten to them over the years. You go up and ask them how they’re doing and they do the same. We’re really the only people we can count on for that.

“During the season, we practically live together. It’s six out of seven days of the week, we’re together” at games or practices.

Last season enthusiasm for basketball at La Plata reached a level not seen in many years. After winning just 10 games combined in the three previous seasons, the Warriors’ varsity went 13-10, its first winning mark in 15 seasons, according to King.

Though eight seniors graduated from that team, the JV, led by Chapman and Segar, went 9-6 last season and was poised to replenish the varsity’s lost talent. Swinson was a standout on the freshman team.

“There was a lot being expected of this team,” King said. Last season’s success “got a lot of guys to come out who may have had an interest in basketball, but weren’t excited about joining a losing program.”

Junior varsity coach James Douglas added: “That’s what Tavonne and Markus were seeing. That’s why they came out this year.”

Alston moved to La Plata from Temple Hills last January and was so eager to try out for this season’s team that he approached senior co-captain Jesse Staton in September.

“He came up to me and asked, ‘What do I have to do to play here?’ ” said Staton, who told Alston about the fall workouts. “It’s going to be real hard looking for him to be coming through that door [of the gymnasium] and he’s not going to come.”

Sophomore Greg Hanger was Swinson’s teammate on the freshman team and also played with him on the same youth football team for four years. In addition to requesting Swinson’s uniform No. 33 this season, Hanger had designed a navy blue headband with the four players’ names on it. He said he hopes each player will buy matching ones and wear them during games.

“That way we could bring them on the court with us all season,” Hanger said.

Yesterday, after King finished his brief words of encouragement for the upcoming season, Anderson huddled everyone at midcourt, arms outstretched over their heads.

“On three, everyone,” Anderson yelled.

The other 20 knew what to say.

“One, two, three, hard bodies!”

Even in 2007, I am still sometimes amazed when I am called and asked about sport psychology or performance psychology as if it were truly a new profession. “How does it all work?” is a common question.
ABC Good Morning America invited me on last year to talk about “choking” as if it were the first time anyone in the nation had heard of it! Good ideas do take time to reach the masses!

The truth is that this science and profession best suited for mental skills training and high performance has been around now for almost over 40 years in one form or another, but there are still very few qualified professionals, although it is growing slightly. What does exist in the mind of the public might not always be state of the art.

The public needs to know that there are many people practicing within the field of “Sports Psychology” or “Performance Psychology” as it is often called when outside the realm of sport, who lack the proper credentials and/or a good working knowledge of the profession. These may try to tackle issues without proper training or licensure. It can harm the public when a proper referral is not made or proper treatment is not conducted.

Did you know that there are generally two types of individuals who may be perceived as Sport Psychologists by the public? Were you aware that a clear distinction needs to be made between them?

The first type (coming primarily from sport science programs) may have taken courses in sport psychology and may be excellent scientists, researchers, or teachers, but they are 99 % of time neither trained nor licensed (the minimum standard of care required by a state) to provide psychological services. They may not hold themselves out to the public as Sport Psychologists in private practice in the vast majority of states. If clinical issues are suspected (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger, personality disorders, eating disorders), they must refer the athlete to a licensed professional (such as a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist) to allow for proper care.

The second group, the practicing Sport Psychologists, are licensed psychologists who are additionally trained in the sport sciences with supervised training in providing both counseling/psychotherapy and performance enhancement services to athletes. These Sport Psychologists offer the benefits of training athletes in performance enhancement while conducting assessments and counseling as needed rather than having to refer the client to another professional.

It is extremely important to ask if individuals who call themselves Sport Psychologists are licensed in their states as psychologists, and then inquire about the extent of their supervised training and experience in working with athletes and teams.

Practicing Sport Psychologists combine two separate academic and experiential backgrounds – psychology and the sport sciences. Proper credentials and training in BOTH disciplines are essential to hold oneself out to the public as a Sport Psychologist. Unless the professional has been trained and experienced in BOTH disciplines, and licensed in psychology, the person is not a true Sport Psychologist and is not permitted to advertise as a Sport Psychologist.

But … just as highly trained sport scientists without proper training and licensure in psychology cannot use the title “Sport Psychologist,” the same holds true for authentic licensed psychologists who have not undergone rigorous and proper training and supervision in the various sport sciences, or who have not received the proper supervision by another legitimate Sport Psychologist.

State laws, you see, prohibit any permutation of the title “psychologist” unless the professional is state licensed. State laws protect the use of the title “psychologist” and only allow licensed psychologists to legally use the title in order to protect the public by establishing a minimum standard of care.

I know why this is wise. I learned almost nothing about how to counsel, assess, or diagnose an individual with a general problem when I was studying and receiving a Masters degree in one of the best sport science programs in the country. Similarly, while studying in a clinical psychology program, I learned almost nothing about how to improve an athlete’s performance through mental skills training, or how to structure practice conditions. The thousands of hours of supervised training or “on the job” work with hundreds of clients, however, was the critical piece that would have never in 20 years been possible to acquire in a strictly sport science program. While performance principles are key, knowing about people, how to diagnose and treat problems and how to counsel is infinitely more important! Psychology programs are set up to provide that kind of training. Sport science programs are not.

When I am working with an athlete, I find that much of our time is spent discussing and resolving general issues – perhaps even 70% of the work! This goes way beyond mental skills training or performance enhancement. Reducing and resolving problems off the court or field, or in the case of business away from the office, can help a person perform better just as much or more than specific mental skills training! I believe that holistic care requires an understanding of both the “person” and the “performer.”

It is important to at least communicate this message to athletes, trainers, players and executives.

According to many reports, pro sports teams are not always giving their athletes the proper care because they do not have the properly trained professionals on board!

In sum, becoming a licensed “Sport Psychologist” or “Performance Psychologist” (the is a semantic issue as we are really talking about a licensed psychologist with extensive additional supervised expertise) is necessary for the individual who wants to handle serious personal or clinical issues, enhance performance through mental skills training, and use the title “Sport Psychologist.” While gaining this extra training takes more time and effort, these professionals are more versatile than either “non-psychologist sport scientists” or “non-sport scientist psychologists.” Licensure also carries its weight in gold in terms of client well being and public safety.

Is this news? Not according to Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated, Selena Roberts of the New York Times, and Dan Weil of Fox Sports. They have all addressed the seriousness of real Sport Psychology in their articles on the subject, and there are many more references I can direct you to. All these people know how important this is in a growing science and profession with still few providers.