Momma's Football Psychology

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College Football is here. I'm a mom who deliberately channel surfs for football - quite a departure for women my age, and, yeah, well never mind my age.
Game one behind us.  Game two looming.

In my Sunday morning quarterbacking thoughts, I had a hunch and I am confident that I’m on to something. I came to a conclusion about the plight of football teams who suffer defeat at the hands of them selves.  Football analysts, sports journalists and coaches throw out their perceptive notions on this topic. But has anyone ever struck at the core of the problem? 

I see the problem as clear as day. Too many smiley faces. Yep!  You know the ones - the weekly progress reports that go home from elementary school with the smiles, the frowns and even in some cases, the neutral faces. Personally, I think the neutral face is the worst.  The poor child can’t evoke a smile or a frown?  Does the teacher just not like the kid? I digress.

Back to my theory. Could it be that those big, brawny football players did not get enough frowny faces during their elementary school careers? Did they only get smiley faces each week? Smiley faces don’t build tough guys.

My generation worked hard to paint smiles all over the world.  Society dreaded the frowny face.  But an abundance of smiley faces does not build mental toughness or grow a thicker skin.  The mental toughness that we look for in a Division I football player emanates from being able to face and handle adversity. Sadly, I think we have too many kids who earned only smileys, and thus never had to anticipate what followed a frowny face. They didn’t have to bounce back from disappointment.

Although I’m generalizing and offering up a little amusement, this is as good a reason as any for why a talented athlete would choke in front of 80,000 people.

 I acknowledge my responsibility in contributing to this problem.  As an educator in the 80s, I subscribed to all the behavior modification and other psycho-educational tools that brought order to the classroom.  Teachers dangled proverbial carrots in front of students and inspired them to greatness. Kids responded as expected for the most part. We had fewer discipline issues and only the egregious behavioral problems failed to respond to the system. It looked as though we had discovered the vaccine for the perfect learning environment. Parents gained access to these tools and soon everyone was humming the happy tune.  And the tune was sung by a purple hippo, a few puppets and a man in a cardigan sweater.  That alone should have bristled the short hairs.

Identifying the problem is only one part. What’s the solution?  How can this information impact the student athletes?  

Consider this, beloved and respected student athletes: So you got a horrible frowny face. Big deal. It’s not the end of the world, and it certainly isn’t the end of the season. Man up and get back in the game. Do what you bust your butt for. Do what you do best.  Do what you love. Play some awesome football!  And I will do what I do best – cheer you on with a big smiley face.