View From The Dugout

A College Coach's Perspective

Brian Tompkins is the Head Coach of Men's Soccer at Yale University in New Haven, CT. See full bio

June 9, 2009, Sport and Competition

Awesome Is As Awesome Does

Confidence and over-confidence in sports

Barney Stinson is awesome, if you are in any doubt, just listen and he will tell you. He is a smooth-talking, thirty-something New Yorker whose goal in life is to constantly embellish his "awesomeness" by seducing as many beautiful women as possible. While he may be amusing Barney is not an actual person but rather an outrageous character (played by Neil Patrick Harris) on the TV show "How I Met Your Mother." Barney says and does things in every episode that people could not possibly get away with in real life and I confess to a sort of guilty pleasure in watching his rakish antics, all the while realizing that he is little more than an absurd cartoonish figure.

In my line of work one doesn't encounter many lotharios of Barney's caliber but there are plenty of examples of similar self-absorption. I recently visited a local sporting goods store and was partially amused and somewhat turned-off by a t-shirt from a well-known sports manufacturer that in true Stinson-esque fashion declared: "You're Not That Bad......I'm Just Awesome!" What I found amazing was that the shirt was very small and obviously intended for a child of elementary school age. It got me thinking about the extent to which those of us involved in sports have a role to play in the development of self-assurance and confidence in young people and where the line is drawn between supreme confidence and hollow braggadocio.

Helping athletes of any age, and especially young people, to be physically, psychologically and emotionally confident is one of the greatest rewards that coaching has to offer. We all like to see growth in the effectiveness and aptitude of those we teach and a fortified ability to deal with the challenges and adversity that a particular sport, or life beyond that sport, can present. But are we not also responsible for helping them develop a degree of perspective about their accomplishments and abilities while attaching that to an appropriate level of humility and appreciation?

Encouraging successful athletes to think highly of themselves and their bona fide achievements is one thing but to allow or even encourage youngsters of limited ability who haven't accomplished anything to adopt a swaggering mindset is troubling because their perspective is not based in quantifiable reality. Perhaps we are experiencing some of the unintended cultural effects of the so-called self-esteem movement where the unfettered affirming of young people can take on a greater importance than their actual aptitudes and performance. If that is the case, is it any wonder that coddled, over-praised and in some cases over-rewarded, youngsters have a disproportionate view of their abilities and a world-view that would suggest: "I'm here, therefore I'm awesome"?

I am inclined to borrow from Forrest Gump's mother and suggest that in a sports context, "awesome is as awesome does" and I offer Tiger Woods as an example of an amazing athlete who, while confident and super-competitive, projects a perspective of hard-working graceful humility completely absent of narcissistic self-praise. He, like most secure, competent people in any field or endeavor, doesn't need to tell people how good he is. Indeed the very thought of Tiger bragging about his skills and achievements while taunting or deriding his opponents would almost certainly hasten the transformation of his image from reverence to revulsion.

It's an ironic pity then that the company who spend so much money on the sponsorship of Woods and his wholesome image is the same company that produced that dubious t-shirt. Tiger wouldn't be caught dead in it...........but, because "shallow is what shallow does," I'm sure Barney would.