JohnFMurray.com

THAT IS AN EXTREMELY BROAD TERM THAT REFERS TO FIELDS INVOLVED IN THE SCIENCE AND PRACTICE OF UTILIZING PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNIQUES TO THE BETTERMENT OF SPORT, THE IMPROVEMENT OF ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE, THE WELL BEING OF THE INDIVIUDAL AND MANY MORE THINGS TOO! ONE WAY TO THINK OF IT IS THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO SPORT, BUT IT ALSO INVOLVES THE SPORTS SCIENCES.

You have travelled worldwide as a tennis professional.. Have you always had a passion for sport?

YES. I GREW UP IN SOUTH FLORIDA WHERE I COULD PLAY AND WATCH SPORTS YEAR-ROUND. AT AGE 9 DON SHULA CAME TO TOWN AND IT HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME IN SOUTH FLORIDA J … TENNIS IS POPULAR ALL OVER THE WORLD, BUT FLORIDA IS A GREAT MECCA FOR THAT SPORT WHICH I TOOK UP IN MY YOUTH

What made you take up writing?

TRAINING AS A PSYCHOLOGIST FORCES YOU TO THINK AND WRITE CLEARLY AND WITH PRECISION. AT THE UNIVERISTY OF FLORIDA I MUST HAVE DONE 3-4 NEW ASSESSMENT REPORTS EACH WEEK ON THE PSYCHOLOGY CLINIC ROTATION FOR MANY YEARS. I SHARED MY KNOWELDGE IN MANY COLUMNS AND THEN WROTE SOME BOOKS. I ENJOY WRITING NOW AS IT IS A WINDOW INTO THE MIND AND A MEANS OF HELPING OTHERS GREATLY.

Tell us a bit about your book Smart tennis: How to Play and Win the Mental Game.

AS A TENNIS PRO, BUDDING CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, AND BUDDING SPORTS PSYCHOLOGIST, I WANTED TO COMBINE THESE THREE DISCIPLINES TO HELP PEOPLE IMPROVE WITH THEIR STRONGEST WEAPON – THE MIND. I WAS AWARE OF THE WELL KNOWN “INNER GAME OF TENNIS” AND BRAD GILBERT’S “WINNING UGLY,” BOTH TERRIFIC BOOKS THAT HELPED MY TENNIS GAME AS WELL AS EARLIER COACHING, BUT THERE WAS NOTHING YET THAT REALLY PULLED FROM THE SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES IN SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY TO HELP THE TENNIS PLAYER. TIM GALWEY WAS A COLLEGE TENNIS COACH AND GILBERT WAS A TENNIS PLAYER, BUT NEITHER HAD THE SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND IN BOTH FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY THAT I HAD, SO I TRIED TO STAND ON THEIR SHOULDERS AND GO BEYOND THEM TOO IN GIVING PEOPLE AN EASY SET OF SOLID PRINCIPLES THAT WERE FOUNDED ON RESEARCH RATHER THAN ASSUMPTION, DATA RATHER THAN OPINON. IT IS STILL SELLING WELL IN ITS GENRE 10 YEARS LATER AND I SAW IT IN BEIJING, CHINA AND ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA RECENTLY, AND HAS BEEN TRANSATED INTO SPANISH AND JAPANESE AS WELL. IT DID NOT HURT TO GET THE TOP TENNIS PLAYER IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME, LINDSAY DAVENPORT, TO ENDORSE THE BOOK ON THE COVER.

Your commentary is found almost daily in thousands of newspapers, magazines, and trade journals. Did you find it easier to write your book or to write articles for publications? Why?

WRITING ARTICLES IS FAIRLY EASY BECAUSE THE TOPIC IS USUALLY MORE CONFINED AND NARROW. WRITING A BOOK IS DESERT WARFARE. YOU NEED 6 MONTHS OF TOTAL FOCUS WITH AT LEAST 6 HOURS A DAY, AND A PATIENT ATTITUDE TO EDIT IT 20 TIMES IF NEEDED. SO WHILE WRITING A BOOK IS HARDER, IT IS ALSO FAR MORE REWARDING BECAUSE IT EVENTAULLY MAKES IT ALL AROUND THE WORLD AND HELPS MANY MORE PEOPLE.

What projects do you have planned for the future?

MANY. I AM WORKING ON A BOOK ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FOOTBALL AND HAVE WORKED ON PROJECTS ABOUT BUSINESS AND DIET/WEIGHT CONTROL. I HAVE A SERIES OF WEBSITE THAT I WILL BE UNLEASHING BEFORE TOO LONG. I HAVE PLANS TO WRITE A MORE GENERAL BOOK ON SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY TOO. IF I EVER GET THE TIME I WOULD LOVE TO WRITE A NOVEL, HOST A NATIONAL TV AND RADIO SHOW, AND KEEP BUILDING AWARENESS ABOUT THIS GREAT FIELD THAT IS REALLY A SCIENCE OF SUCCESS.

Where can people find out more about you and your book?

MY WEBSITE AT WWW.JOHNFMURRAY.COM IS THE STARTING POINT. THE BOOK IS IN MOST BARNES AND NOBLE STORES, AND BORDERS BOOK STORES, OR ON AMAZON.COM OR CAN BE SEEN ALSO AT WWW.SMARTTENNIS.COM

Anything else you’d like to add?

Here’s the scene: A stranger taps you on the shoulder, pointing the way toward a room or a hallway or a corridor, and that’s where he’ll ask questions about your childhood or your past or your parents. You met this person two minutes ago, and you trust the stranger because — why? He’s working for a NFL team at the league’s scouting combine, yet another of a hundred questioning gatekeepers, like the man who measures the vertical jump or the other who initiates the bench-press display.
This stranger is giving a test, and with the right answers, you may pass through his gate and hear your name called at next weekend’s NFL draft. The right combination of answers, and entrance could be worth $40 million.

What if your father is in prison? Or you busted your roommate’s nose at the beginning of sophomore year? Or skipped class for three weeks straight? Or told your coach once to take his playbook and shove it? Or tried Ecstasy once, or was it twice? Or don’t especially enjoy playing football?
“Questions about yourself, nitpicking at your character,” says Chiefs offensive tackle Branden Albert, a first-round pick last year. “You’ve got to be honest.”

He’ll ask those questions and make notes. He’ll measure your words, your tone, your body language. When he’s finished, you’ll head toward another test, and the sports psychologist will begin compiling a report to share with more strangers, and they’ll determine not just whether you’re worth millions, but if you can handle the reality of being worth that kind of money.

As pro football races to adapt to its next generation — with its growing salaries, refined branding and sharper scrutiny — there is a disturbing byproduct that the league is now trying to curb: Some men are just not mentally prepared for the NFL’s demands.

Former first-round draft picks such as Vince Young, Matt Jones and Plaxico Burress have, within the past year, allegedly displayed regrettable judgment and signs of perhaps questionable mental health, and teams are trying to figure out whether to help players with psychological problems or simply avoid them. They’re trying to settle that debate by examining draft prospects’ minds in the same exhaustive way that, for years, teams have tested players’ bodies.

The combine used to measure height and weight, and that was about it. But that was when an entire team could be paid what a lower-rung player makes today. They might have missed some things back then, and that might not have always been a bad thing.

“There’s got to be some sort of psychological problems with me,” says Joe DeLamielleure, a Hall of Fame guard who was drafted in 1973. Joe was undersized, and the Buffalo Bills overlooked that. They also overlooked that before Joe finished Michigan State, his mother was the educated one in the house, having completed eighth grade, and Joe was one of 10 children and a bed wetter and a kid who woke up at 2 a.m. on weeknights to clean his dad’s bar in downtown Detroit, and then he’d climb back into bed for two good hours before it was time to dress for school.

“Teacher told my mother that nobody yawned as much as me,” Joe says now. “These days, they’d have looked at all those issues and said, ’Nah, I don’t think this kid can do it.”’

NFL teams want the whole truth, and that means digging deeper than ever. Whether it is the best or worst new habit by NFL teams, it is difficult to argue that some don’t yet know how to appropriately gather and digest this information.

According to two well-known doctors, sports psychology in the NFL is held back by intimidation and soiled by inexperience. The problem with all that is teams have never placed as much emphasis on players’ mental framework as they are doing now.

Teams want to eliminate risk, and they have embraced psychological evaluations as a worthy research tool. It’s a start, but some teams’ commitment, comfort and expertise in the science remain in their infancy.

“We’re still in the dark ages,” sports psychologist John Murray says. “There are going to be a lot of mistakes as people stumble around.”

That was made clear in February, when Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, the likely No. 1 overall draft pick, was evaluated at the scouting combine. A psychologist affiliated with the San Francisco 49ers reportedly prodded Stafford, 21, about lingering issues related to his parents’ divorce. Stafford bristled, and that made him look evasive; bottled up. The psychologist compiled a report and delivered it to team officials. Stafford’s reaction to the probing compelled a testy but resolute Mike Singletary, the 49ers coach, to say on a radio show that Stafford had failed an essential test — and as a result, Singletary’s team wasn’t planning to draft Stafford.

“Maybe he doesn’t belong here,” Singletary told Bay Area radio station KNBR.

Singletary’s comments underscored that NFL teams are no longer muting the importance of mental health. But Stafford’s case also raised concerns about the unpolished manner in which the player was evaluated, worries that the details of a confidential meeting with a psychologist had been discussed and judged publicly, and the reality that some teams view this delicate and complicated science through a black-and-white lens: that a player is either fit or unfit to play professional football.
“You have something that people don’t understand,” says Jack Stark, a clinical psychologist who conducted player evaluations during the combine in 1996. “They don’t know what they want.”
Here’s the scene: It’s late January 2003, and Barret Robbins is gone again. He’s the Oakland Raiders’ Pro Bowl center, and he has picked Super Bowl week as the time to disappear, wandering San Diego’s streets at night and heading across the border to Tijuana, Mexico. He’ll say later that he drank himself into a stupor and even considered suicide — all because he’s uncertain he can handle the expectations and pressure of playing in the Super Bowl.

After nearly a week of wandering, Robbins is incoherent at the team’s Saturday night meeting. The Raiders suspend Robbins for the Super Bowl, which the team loses, and Robbins’ teammates are furious. A year later, Oakland gives up on him, and Robbins won’t play football again. It is revealed too late that Robbins suffered from bipolar disorder and severe depression. A more haunting fact emerges: Robbins’ problems could have been treated years earlier, possibly preventing his Super Bowl breakdown and a chain reaction that killed his career.

“There were some signs,” says Robbins’ agent, Drew Pittman. “It’s a brutal, brutal thing. My awareness of it was changed forever by … seeing the things that happened to him.
“Society in general is not very sympathetic. Over the last five years, society has changed dramatically. The same thing is happening in the NFL.”

With Robbins in mind, and last year’s mysterious one-day disappearance of Tennessee Titans quarterback Young, the league is setting foot on unfamiliar ground. The principle of mental evaluations is decades old, but the emphasis is new. Until recently, teams haven’t ruled out prospects because of their psychological profiles.

“If Jeffrey Dahmer could run a 4.2 40,” Stark says of the old way, “somebody would go after him.”
Today’s standard is driven by the hope that, one way or another, episodes similar to Robbins’ can be avoided — for players’ sake and so that teams’ high-stakes gambles are more likely to pay off. With many examples of breakdowns still fresh, teams are finely tuned to erratic behavior, and they’re no longer burying mental-health concerns under a sea of toughness and machismo, a pair of elements that might have made players reluctant to seek help or admit they needed it.

Most NFL teams do not employ team psychologists. Some keep doctors on retainer or contract them as consultants, such as the time Stark evaluated players for the Miami Dolphins in 1996. Stark says he interviewed two or three players at a time, making notes of the players’ traits — self-promoter, team player, violent history, introverted, etc. — and submitted a single-spaced, one-page report on about 75 prospects. But he also noticed that some team psychologists were not qualified to assess players.

“People would call themselves doctors who weren’t doctors,” he says. “The owner will hire somebody they knew or because they did marriage counseling with their kids. It’s not like they go and look for the top 10 guys in the country.”

Stark says one “psychologist” at that combine held no doctoral degree and possessed no sports psychology experience. He was, in fact, a counselor at a prison in Louisiana.

“An old boys’ network,” Murray says. “Legitimacy is ignored. They’re going to get what they paid for.”
Greg Aiello, the NFL’s senior vice president of public relations, says the league doesn’t regulate how teams conduct evaluations, enforce a standard for teams to follow, or suggest whom a team should choose to analyze prospects.

More unsettling, Stark says, is that some haven’t acknowledged that psychology begins, and doesn’t end, at an evaluation. As teams struggle to understand what their observations mean, players with perceived problems are being shunned.

“There’s a stigma,” Pittman says.

Here’s the scene: At the same combine that Stafford was questioned, scouts were eager to watch another potential No. 1 pick, former Alabama offensive tackle Andre Smith. He is big, strong and athletic — the prototype NFL lineman. Earlier this year, Smith had been rated by ESPN’s scouting service as the most talented prospect in the 2009 draft class. But there was a problem when it was Smith’s turn to face the gatekeepers: He had disappeared.

Last month at Alabama’s pro day, Smith, a 332-pound lineman, stunned observers by removing his shirt before lumbering down a track. Last week, he fired his agent. All this after Smith was suspended for January’s Sugar Bowl.

Smith’s episodes of unpredictable behavior have added up, and he’s seen as a risky player. Now, ESPN ranks Smith as the No. 14 prospect, and he might fall from the draft’s top 10, perhaps costing him millions. Alabama coach Nick Saban, a former NFL coach, has tried to slow Smith’s fall by explaining to league officials that he simply received and followed bad advice.

“Andre Smith is a good person, a good guy,” Saban says. “This is a little bit of a lesson for maybe all players to learn.”

Stark says he has recommended to coaches that they hire full-time sports psychologists to help players who display erratic behavior, sometimes an early signal of a disorder. That way, the team that drafts a player such as Smith can determine whether he is among the 40 percent of the United States population that, according to Stark, suffers from mental illness.

“It could be a red flag,” he says of Smith’s behavior, “but it could be a normal reaction to being scared. Some of these kids have nobody to talk to.

“If I’m going to pay 25 million for this guy, I need to know if he’s going to walk out of camp if my coach yells at him. But let’s get him some help from the day he gets here.”
Stark says at least three teams — the Indianapolis Colts, Carolina Panthers and New York Giants — acknowledge the value of thorough evaluations conducted by qualified doctors. He says their examinations are comprehensive and as thorough as time constraints allow.

“They know what they’re doing,” he says.

But some executives and coaches remain skeptical. He says some have told him it is the coach’s job to manage players’ moods, and in the event of a crisis beyond the coach’s expertise or patience, players are directed to the team chaplain.

Stark says he would be surprised if Stafford ever trusts a therapist after his combine interview. Worse, the episode might have stifled the NFL’s progress toward taking mental health seriously. Stafford was, in a way, punished for being honest — and Stark says Stafford, and others who paid attention, might have taken from that experience that it’s better to deny or ignore problems than to address them. Stark says that contradicts what psychology is meant to accomplish.

“It’s a mess,” he says.

Murray says that players’ inevitable hesitation will not ease until teams invest in licensed, legitimate doctors and understand that a player’s mind cannot be disassembled and understood in the 30-minute blocks afforded each team at the combine. San Francisco 49ers director of public relations Bob Lange would neither identify the psychologist who interviewed Stafford, whether he or she is licensed, or reveal whether he or she was a team employee. Lange says that as a matter of policy, the team doesn’t discuss any part of the team’s medical approach.

“For too long,” Murray says, “they’ve tried to sweep it under the rug and say it’s not important. But now that they’ve embraced it, they’re doing it awkwardly.

“It’s a complex, mysterious thing, the mind. It’s a very delicate thing you have to deal with. You get all this training and you get all geared up to go, ready to help some team, and they’re afraid of it.”
Murray says that teams haven’t mastered how to retrieve information or find a suitable avenue to use it, but he admits it is encouraging that the NFL has begun to acknowledge the mind as a pathway to success or failure.

The mind, after all, might be the last natural frontier of predicting the difference between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf, players who look the same on film but are far different in how they approach success and handle it. An informed, educated opinion might win a Super Bowl, and a wrong decision might set in motion a $40 million mistake.

They like his potent arm, his intelligence, his field generalship, forged in the crucible of the SEC. (Cue NFL Films orchestra, please.)

But are they missing something? Might Stafford be concealing a flaw, some pathology of character that could give fresh life to the Bobby-Layne-leveled curse that has plagued this franchise for the last half-century?

The San Francisco 49ers have done their homework, having gone spelunking in Stafford’s brain, and they’ve found something to give them pause. And we need to listen to the 49ers. It’s not as if they’re some sad-sack franchise like the Lions, who’ve been down so long it looks like up to them. No, the Niners have won 32 times since 2002 — a whopping six more victories than Detroit has managed in the same period.

In a recent SI feature, Stafford revealed to Peter King that during an interview at the NFL combine, the 49ers team psychologist pressed him on the subject of the divorce of Stafford’s parents when the quarterback was in high school. Stafford says he assured the shrink he’d adjusted well, only to be told he “sounded if he might have unfinished business.” After wisecracking to King that he wondered, in that moment, “how much I’m being charged per hour for this,” Stafford was quick to point out that he got it: with clubs forking over fortunes for first-round talent, no one wants to leave a stone unturned.

That mini-controversy was given fresh life recently, when Niners head coach Mike Singletary all but dismissed the possibility of drafting Stafford in a radio interview with KNBR in San Francisco. “If you’re going to look at drafting a guy in the first round,” he told host Ralph Barbieri, “and you’re going to pay him millions of dollars, and asking him about a divorce about his parents, if that’s going to be an issue, then you know what? Maybe he doesn’t belong here.”

By that point in the interview, it bears noting, Singletary was a bit testy. Hoping to talk about minicamp, he was instead peppered by Barbieri with knottier questions: Who is in charge here? What is the club’s chain of command? Did the 49ers get played by Kurt Warner? What happened with Stafford?

By refusing to wilt before Singletary’s clear and mounting displeasure, Barbieri served as an advocate for 49ers fans desperate for salvation from, among other things, the club’s ghastly play at the quarterback position in recent seasons. Things aren’t exactly looking up in ‘09, as the Niners get ready to roll with the hydra-headed three-and-out machine otherwise known as Shaun Hill, J.T. O’Sullivan and Alex Smith.

Of the 49ers myriad needs, none is more pressing than this position. So you can’t blame Niners fans for their confusion and frustration over the fact the club has taken draft’s highest-rated signal-caller off its board because some shrink divined a buried trauma from Stafford’s adolescence.

Who is being unreasonable here? I asked Dr. John F. Murray, a Florida-based author and sports psychologist, to provide some perspective.

Of Stafford’s reluctance to “go deep” on the divorce issue, says Murray, “I can see how Singletary might view that as possibly an example of not coping with stress; of exhibiting defensiveness. They’re going to need to work closely with this guy, so if he’s reluctant to open up, that could be a red flag for the future.”

At the same time, he says, “It’s easy to see how questions about family, about sensitive situations, during a brief interview at the combine could put [Stafford] off.”

Before they tackle heavy issues, Murray explains, psychologists first spend many hours establishing a rapport and comfort zone with patients. “I’m getting to know them,” he said. “I’m asking questions in a confidential way to develop a profile so I can help them over time.” If Stafford was grilled by a stranger he viewed as a “tool trying determine his fitness for the NFL,” says Murray, “it’s easy to see why he would get his back up.”

The problem, he says, is that while NFL coaches are finally realizing “how critical mental skills are to success, they’re still experiencing growing pains in terms of understanding and dealing with psychology.” Some teams don’t get, in other words, “that it’s inappropriate to kind of shove a psychologist in somebody’s face at the last second for a particular test.”

Stafford’s awkward interview typifies the sort of heavy-handed, Orwellian overkill with which the NFL combine has become synonymous — and for which Singletary, for one, does not apologize. Once he’d simmered down on the KNBR’s air, the coach defended his team’s decision to subject Stafford to the Freud treatment.

Emphasizing the need to do homework on these guys, he pointed out that “there’s only about five or six [first-round picks] that really make an impact … It’s not an exact science, but you just have to work your tail off.” That’s why they flew in a psychologist, he went on. And even if the shrink’s questions sound “silly” and “dumb” out of context, “all of that information goes into our decision-making.”

This is where they run into problems. How much weight to attach to different nuggets of information? J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI compiled smaller dossiers on suspected reds than NFL teams have on potential free-agent signees. They’ve got two or three or four years worth of game tape. They’ve got combine results, pro day results. They’ve invited guys to visit them at their headquarters. By the time the draft rolls around, they are drowning in data.

But this is not the Brady Bunch, Higgins is not Greg Brady and Harris is not the youngest one in curls.
This is Los Angeles City Section basketball and Higgins is screaming his head off. He tears into Harris with the wrath of a thousand wronged prison wardens. The veins popping out of his forehead have veins popping out of their foreheads. He is trying to prove a point and he is doing so by giving Harris a first hand look at his tonsils.

Another coach might simply calmly explain himself go over XS, reiterate us. Out of ten college pro or college games this weekend, ten different coaches will coach ten different ways. Some will yell. Some will whisper. Harvard Westlake of North Hollywood boys coach Greg Hilliard is a whisperer, living proof that yelling is not the only way.

Just when a game was getting a little close for comfort Thurday, Hilliard was relaxing. If Higgins storms the sidelines like in battle, Hilliard might as well be lounging in a recliner in Brookstown. Don’t confuse calm for disinterest though. Hilliard is just as passionate as Higgins. He just channels it differently. “I have a hard time reaching a boiling point when it comes to a kids game,” said Hilliard, who has led Harvard Westlake to nine CFS championships. I understand how the frustration builds. There are skills you develop to keep some of those things inside.

When I was younger and more frustrated, I’d go out for a three mile run after a game. Higgins doesn’t run. He yells. His style is to scream. And as he let’s Harris have it for not giving the hot handed watkins the ball on the previous play, Harris lets it all soak in. On the next trip down the court, Harris passes off to Watkins who sinks the bucket. Point taken. State bucking the trend. on that play Harris responded. It doesn’t always work so well. In a recent game, Higgins summoned Harris to the sideline and shouted at his point guard to get the defense into a two minus two minus one zone. Harris felt the team should instead shift to the one minus three minus one. Higgins insisted on the two minus two minus one. Harris reiterated his preference for the one minus three minus one. Back and forth they went.

“For me, it’s not hard to stick up for myself,” Harris said. “I go ahead and say it. Sometimes we go back and forth, but never in a negative way. We’ve never argued on something negative. Most of the time when he’s yelling at me it’s something I really need to hear. Harris can handle it. Some kids cannot. But that makes no difference to Higgins. This is his style, his way. He knows no other. With kids, it’s about survival. “They can pick up on vibes,” Higgins said. “They have a sense. They know if you’re real or fake. Their only sense it to figure out when you’re real or faking it. They know that when I’m on the court I’m real. I’m Coach Higgins. I only know one style and that’s my style.”

At Lock High School, he played for Coach Michael Jackson, the exact opposite, a pacifist, not in your face, but gentle. To Higgins it didn’t work. It did, however, lay the foundation for Higgins’ style. “My high school coach was more reserved and when you’re playing at Lock against Westchester and Crenshaw it doesn’t work,” Higgins said. “I wish someone pushed us a little harder. Back in those days, teams scored one hundred points in a game against us because we didn’t get after it, didn’t have the passion, the fire.” Higgins does not have a problem with passion. If anything, he has too much. His own high school coach was quite the opposite.

“We’ve learned to associate success with certain mannerisms,” said John F. Murray, a noted sports psychologist based in Florida. “If (Coach Higgins) associated failure with being mellow, then he’ll react differently. He was a smart kid and he learned to make those adjustments as a coach, and he did.

When Higgins took over at Receda three years ago he was confrontational from the get go. A new coach might take a different approach, might try to make nice with parents and players and faculty. He immediately made his personality known for better or worse. You go to English class, Math class it’s straightforward. On the court it’s emotions, Higgins said. At times you have to be that father figure. But there’s that fine line, father figure and coach, and the best coaches know how to juggle
that.

Not the only way, like Higgins, Hilliard was affected by his own coaches who came from an earlier generation than Higgins. Back then coaches were drill seargents and drill seargents begat softer coaches just as the next generation of softer coaches begat the Higgins of the world. “Our experiences make us who we are,” Hilliard said. “Without ado, the experiences I had as a kid made me who I am. I felt there was an absense of coaches who do it the way I do. You have the John Wooden model, my personal model, who thinks of himself as a teacher first. You have the drill seargent approach and they get great results in the heat of battle. Overall, for the success of the team, which is reaching fifteen players at a time, I’ve never wished I had a different style. Like Higgins, he knew from his start as well. “I realized very early that wasn’t going to be my style,” Hilliard said. “I started
as a head coach 35 years ago by myself, no assistants. Now, I don’t believe in going after a kid or going off but I always have a coach who can step in and be that for a kid.”

So it seems, Hilliard might not be the one to yell, but he knows the kids sometimes need to be yelled at, setting a tone. It is the second quarter against Liberty and Receda has started to showboat. Four of the first drives have resulted in lone layups. A would be game changing dunk carems off the back of the rim. Higgins is livid. He calls a timeout. His face is contorted in a way that would scard Lucifer. His eyebrows are furled in a way that displays pure, absolute disgust. His head shakes slowly, yet he says nothing, almost as if he is ready to unleash fiery hell, but is just now forming the words. His lip snarls. His eyes burn. This is not a happy Higgins. “You guys are playing the crowd. Stop looking East/West. Look North/South. He will later said he had to lay into them. Another coach might have drawn a diagram or simply called the offending player over for a quick lesson. Higgins ignores the clipboard and screams at all. It is not without consideration.

“This sounds crazy, but I try to really coach them for life,” said Higgins, whose own playing career was derailed by a car accident in 2000. “When I talk to a kid I always think about how it will affect their lives. I know this will help them be men or help them be stronger. I know these kids look at me as the coach, some as a father. I won’t have regrets because I know it will help them, and Murray says it will. Murray has worked with athletes in all sports from preps to pros. His clientel listings include some of the world’s top performers. “While every athlete reacts differently to a coaches words they all seem to respond to yelling by at least paying attention. There’s no quicker way to get attention, to have immediate behavior shift with a young person than with a slight form of punishment, Murray said, and yelling is a slight form of punishment. At the younger levels it can leave scars, psychopathology, boyish behavior, but in a structured setting it may be a good facilitator to get people to act. It might mirror the quickness with which a coach needs to respond in a basketball game. There’s no better way to wake somebody up.”

Randall Harris played basketball for years under the same coach, his father, who coached in a similar manner to Higgins. When Harris transfered to Receda from TAP and began playing for his Higgins for his last season he immediately reacted to the rants and raves of a fiery coach. “I’m pretty used to it,” Harris said. “I know where he’s coming from. I don’t take it as he’s screaming at me. He’s giving me instruction. I listen to what he’s saying, not the tone of how he’s saying it. But really, that’s exactly what he’s listening to.

“When you’re in somebody’s face and giving immediate feedback that’s often what kids are looking for,” Murray said. But there’s a lot more that goes into it than yelling. Yelling itself is not what gains respect. Being real. Higgins will approach you with his hand extended from a mile away, a smile swept across his face. Off the court after the game has ended he’s a prince. His handshakes last for minutes, his other hand draped across the shoulder as if to say “you’re my brother.”

Hilliard, whose Wolverines play Oceanview at noon, is like a kind uncle, the successful uncle who passes out words of wisdom and whose words of wisdom are to never be questioned because, why would you question them. The common link between the two besides success (both are section champions this season) is that they are both completely honest in the delivery of their respective styles. Higgins is a yeller and a screamer and he gets close enough in his kid’s faces that they could taste the same piece of gum. Hilliard is the quiet one who will sit in his chair on the sidelines and save his words for when it matters most, barely rising above a peep. “I got started in coaching because I wanted to be the kind of coach I didn’t play for growing up,” Hilliard said. That’s a coach who sets an example and became a mentor. “I don’t judge what another coach does in any way. I imagine that some of my kids would benefit by that kick in the butt. Hopefully you reach people by your style. Some of my good friends in the coaching business are wild men on the sidelines. You have to be who you are as a coach.

Even if they don’t want to admit it, a sizable proportion may be focused on how soon the team is going to disappoint them. Others are wondering how they can get to Detroit to watch Pitt play in the championship next month.

How realistic is either mindset?

For the answers, we turn to the experts — social psychologists, computer scientists, sports psychologists and behavioral economists.

None of them has played Division I hoops, and one even said, “You couldn’t fathom the depth of my ignorance about college basketball.” But they have something else going for them — a knowledge of statistics and the way humans behave.

Pitt has made it into the tournament for eight straight years, but has never made it past the Sweet Sixteen, or third round.

And while that may be a statistical trend of sorts, it may not be the right one to use this year, says Sheldon Jacobson, a computer scientist at the University of Illinois.

The key this year is that Pitt is a No. 1 seed, meaning the NCAA selection committee made it the top pick in one of four regions. In the past, Pitt was never higher than a second seed, and in most of the eight-year span, it ranged between a third and fifth seed.

The historical difference in outcomes for No. 1 seeds in the first rounds of the tournament is startling.

Since the modern version of the tournament began in 1985, 72 percent of the No. 1 seeds have won in the Sweet Sixteen round. But only 46 percent of the second seeds have won in that round, and only 24 percent of third seeds have.

So, says social psychologist Jonah Berger of the University of Pennsylvania, the question for any glass-half-empty Pitt fans should be: “What is the correct reference point to use here? Is it past performance, or is it the expectation for a No. 1 seed?”

On the other hand, for those who believe Pitt will relentlessly sweep into the championship game, Dr. Jacobson has these words of caution — once the tournament reaches the fourth round, with just the Elite Eight teams remaining, there is absolutely no statistical difference in results between the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 seeds.

But wait, some fans will say, didn’t all four No. 1 seeds make it into the Final Four last year?

Pity them. They haven’t heard of “regression to the mean,” which is a fancy mathematical way of saying the law of averages will eventually win out.

In the 24 years the modern NCAA tournament has existed, No. 1 seeds have made it into the Final Four about a quarter of the time. So this year, Dr. Jacobson said, the odds are that there will be one and maybe two No. 1 seeds that make it that far (the others are Louisville, Connecticut and North Carolina).

As the teams push forward in the tournament, most fans want their favorites to play with a comfortable lead in each game. It’s easier on the nerves and lowers copious consumption of various snack foods.

But being ahead is not always the best thing, the experts say.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Berger just finished a study that showed that when college basketball teams are behind by one point at halftime, they go on to win more than half the time, and win at a rate that is about six percentage points better than would have been expected.

“The key take-home from this,” Dr. Berger said, “is that losing can be motivating, and as a result can lead you to more success.”

In a lab experiment he did as part of the study, Dr. Berger found that when students playing a keyboard game were told halfway through that they were slightly behind their opponents, they worked harder in the second half of the contest. Interestingly, those who were told they were slightly ahead did not slack off — but they also didn’t boost their effort as much.

For some teams, that leveling-off effect can be magnified if their advantage is even bigger.

“I definitely agree if you’re up by 10 points, you can start to be fat and happy and get complacent,” Dr. Berger said.

“When you have a more talented team playing a less talented team,” Dr. Jacobson added, “and they ‘take the air out of the ball’ to protect a lead, what happens is that you equalize the skill levels of the two teams.”

Part of the reason why some teams squander leads is a phenomenon called “loss aversion,” a basic principle in human behavior that says the pain we feel from losing something we have outweighs the pleasure we get from gaining something we don’t have.

That could help explain why some coaches and players stop taking calculated risks when they have a lead, said George Loewenstein, a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University.

The other basic human tendency that comes into play in those situations is that players often lose motivation when they get too far ahead, even if they aren’t entirely conscious of it. Having a big lead “is so demotivating that the team that’s behind ends up coming back,” he said.

So, you’re probably thinking, it’s better if my favorite team plays close games all the way through, right?

Maybe, said Dr. Loewenstein, as long as key players don’t fall prey to “regret aversion.”

Regret aversion is the double-whammy cousin of loss aversion. It’s when you not only fear losing something you have (like a lead), but fear that you’ll be blamed for it. When that happens, players can choke, he said.

Dr. Loewenstein, echoing what many coaches say, speculates that the reason some players suddenly become clumsy or inaccurate under pressure is that they start thinking too much about what they are doing.

Most top athletes have trained so long and hard that the majority of their skills are automatic, he said.

“It’s all being orchestrated by unconscious learned mechanisms that tend to be toward the back of your brain,” he said, “and what happens is that when something is really, really important to you there’s a tendency to use the front part of your brain, even though the reality is you would perform much better if you used the back part of the brain.”

John Murray, a sports psychologist based in Palm Beach, Fla., said that fits with the philosophy he espouses in coaching professional athletes.

“I try to get people to strive toward success,” he said, “and not think about the outcome. Focusing on a positive action or skill leads to a successful outcome, but thinking about the outcome distracts your focus on the things you need to do, which is all that you have control over, anyway.”

So doesn’t it make sense that fans of elite teams would adopt the same attitude?

Unfortunately, that isn’t necessarily part of fan DNA, Dr. Loewenstein said.

“If it’s a close football game, and someone can win it with a 40-yard field goal,” he said, “if you ask a typical group of fans whether their team will make that field goal, they’ll say no. If you ask whether the other team will make it, they’ll say yes.”

Of course, that only goes to show that we fans are, as one behavioral economist has put it, “predictably irrational.”

“I think he has to change his game completely,” Bollettieri said. “He’s got to serve and volley, he’s got to take chances to come in and he’s got to do something about his confidence.”

Federer is often voted fan favorite and cited for his sportsmanship, but his game has lost its gentlemanly swagger. It’s well documented that he lost his No. 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal, who has now won 13 of the 19 matches they’ve played, including epic battles at Wimbledon and the Australian Open.

For the first time in five years, Federer isn’t seeded first here at the Sony Ericsson Open, and it has been two years since he won a Masters Series event, the tournaments listed just below the Grand Slams. Federer, always dangerous but lately less damaging, could face Andy Roddick in a rematch of last year’s quarterfinal, where Roddick stunned the Swiss legend. Moving on, he would likely face Andy Murray or Nadal, both of whom have his number.

“Roger’s such a laid-back kid,” said Bollettieri, who, at 77, looks at someone 27 as still in his boyhood. “He has problems with Murray (who is 6-2 against Federer), but his major hurdle is Nadal. Roger has got to improve his backhand when Nadal hits that heavy topspin crosscourt. Roger should aim for the middle of the court.”

Nadal is hungry now, playing with breathtaking speed and power. The world No. 1, the French and Australian Open champion, the Wimbledon champion, the man who saved five match points just weeks ago against David Nalbandian  in the fourth round at Indian Wells, which he won, has nothing missing in his game.

“He’s got everything,” said legend Bud Collins. “He can play offense or defense, he can serve, he has strength, he can control the game from the baseline and he has the best inside-out forehand since Jim Courier.”

Nadal has already won six Grand Slams, an Olympic gold medal and a Davis Cup championship. He also has Toni Nadal, his uncle and coach, a position Federer has not filled since severing his relationship with Tony Roche two years ago.

“I think Roger needs a coach,” said Collins. “He told me once years ago, ‘I want to hear my own voice,’ but Nadal has crawled into his head, like a worm.”

Federer spoiled us with his gorgeous, unstoppable tennis, but he has now lost five straight matches to the Spaniard Nadal. Federer has been the overachieving perfectionist, effortless on the court. But now he needs a mental tune-up.

“Nadal is in his head,” said Collins, “the way Bjorn Borg couldn’t beat John McEnroe at the U.S. Open. This is an incredible rivalry, but Roger has lost his confidence.”

Is Federer’s run over? Will he ever win another Grand Slam? Or does he just need Dr. Phil?

“Well maybe not Dr. Phil,” said longtime sports psychologist Dr. John Murray who traveled with Vince Spadea to the Australian Open. “There is no doubt that mental coaching can have an enormous effect on confidence, and, for Roger, the clock is ticking. He should be talking regularly — 30- to 60-minute sessions, to someone who’s done a full assessment of him and his game, someone who’s actively getting him ready for matches, not just a sit down with a therapist.”

At 2-2 of the fifth and final set at Wimbledon, during the second rain delay, Nadal talked to his coach, Toni, and his trainer, Rafael Maymo, in the locker room. After two successive losses to Federer on the lawn at SW19, Nadal told his team he knew he was going to win this one. In January, Nadal brought Federer to exhausted, emotional tears after winning the Australian Open 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 3-6, 6-2 and accepting the trophy from Rod Laver. The Sony Ericsson is scheduled to be their next encounter.

“I know this is a big week for me,” said Federer after his second-round win over Kevin Kim. “Last season was very, very tough. I’ve been struggling against Rafa, and Murray, too. I have to get wins against them to turn it around.”

Nadal is 22 and will try to prevent Federer from capturing a record-tying 14th Grand Slam. But the mighty lefty, Nadal, and the gossamer righty, Federer, have given us magnificent memories.