For anyone who's been reading this blog these past few weeks, I've been trying to solve a seemingly apples and oranges kind of comparison: what's harder winning an Olympic Gold Medal or for the New England Patriots to make a return trip to the Superbowl this year.
Here's why the question is so puzzling: Olympic Gold, for most athletes, is a one off. Because the games are held every four years and because age plays such a critical role in athletics, very, very few athletes ever get a second shot at the ultimate medal of honor.
The Superbowl is obviously an annual event, but because of the player movement resultant from free agency, a kind of stacked deck of game scheduling (in the NFL teams with better records have harder schedules the following season), and what's known as the Superbowl hangover (which time and again proves that teams that make it to the Superbowl one year rarely have a winning season the next, let alone earn a trip back to the big game), it's incredibly hard to build a football dynasty.
Obviously, making it to the winner's circle in either race, be it the pigskin classic or the great games, involves a lot of psychology—but what's really interesting is that that psychology doesn't change with the contest.
According to Dr. Charlie Brown, director of FPS Performance, member of the Association for Applied Sports Psychology and longtime Olympic sports psychologist (he has six athletes competing in Bejiing) what began as an apples/oranges comparison actually becomes an identical match when you get down to training.
" It doesn't really matter if it's the Olympics or the Superbowl, from a psychological perspective they're both the same game," says Brown. "The keys to success in either situation are the same: know what's essential, keep your focus, and ignore the distractions."
So what does this mean? Take "knowing what's essential" in the simplest of all contests: the hundred yard dash. According to work done by Dr. Bob Nidiffer back in the 1970s, what's essential in the 100 yard dash are three core components:
1. Out-of-the-starting blocks acceleration.
2. Stride Length (the longer the stride the faster the runner)
3. Cadence (how you transition from step-to-step)
That's it. Mostly, everything else is just going to help you lose (the only potential exception is being relaxed about it all since relaxed muscles stretch farther than tense muscles and this is an extra edge).
Brown's point is that for an individual athletes participating in a major contest, there is a limited number of physical requirements (the possible exception being the quarterback's role in football) that must be executed near perfection for a win. Beyond that, everything else is just fanfare.
Though, he also believes that, once you move beyond the training and to the games themselves, the Patriots might have an easier road than the Olympians. "They're, at least, been to the Superbowl before. While it's still the biggest game in the world, that experience really counts when it comes to tuning out distraction. For athletes going to the games—it's a gaint three week party where they're the very center of attention. And in a lot of sports—badmitten, swimming, kayaking—that's the most attention they'll ever receive in their lives. This can play hell on one's focus."
