Blog #16- heart

One of the most important things in any sport that makes a good player and a good team is heart. It is required and necessary for the game. Heart is desire. It's wanting the ball more than anyone else, its wanting to score more than anyone else, it's defending as hard as you can so the other team doesn't. If there is heart, there is aggression. It's being willing to run down the field as fast as you can to defend the other team, or being open for a transition pass to the offense. If there is heart there is high energy. High energy is confidence in yourself and your abilities, it is always running, always moving, being aware of the ball and getting open for it. And finally with heart there is love and support for the team. It is having love for them and trusting them and cheering them on. Heart is what gets players there early for practice and staying late. Heart is running before practice and doing wall ball. It is what makes the game go round. It is what makes the game so fun to watch and to play. It's why we play the sport, because we love it. Because our heart is in it. The thing about heart though is that it can not he taught. The coaches can not teach you to have heart, they can not teach you to be the first one to the ball or to want to shoot and score. That is what comes from within! I found a great article called “Creating an Inner Desire.” In it there were two paragraphs that talked about inner desire in a great way. “Without a true love for your sport and a burning desire to be the best you can be, you will never be able to push yourself to do what has to be done. It will be too easy to skip a workout now and then. A coach or parent can give you support and guidance, but you have to supply the rest. Only you can push yourself when you’re tired, or make yourself work out when distractions get in the way. After Steve Prefontaine had reached the height of his running career, he lost to Lasse Viren in the Olympic 5,000 meters in Munich. The loss led him to consider quitting the sport. His coach Bill Bowerman told him: “If you’re gonna run, be at the track and I’ll give you the workouts; or if your gonna stop running, then do that. You decide. I can’t coach desire.” So the drive must come from within, regardless of whether you’re a novice, a serious athlete, or competing at the elite level. The good news is that building and maintaining a high level of self-motivation is a learned skill that anyone can acquire. Motivation is energy, and that sense of self-directedness is one of the most powerful sources of energy available to an athlete. From internal motivation you gain the willingness to persevere with your training, to endure discomfort and stress, and to make sacrifices with your time and energy as you move closer toward realizing your goal.” Sports are a beautiful thing, as well with athletes. But an athlete that has heart, that is even more beautiful. ("Your Performing Edge." Your Performing Edge. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.)