Why Professional Athletes Do Not Realize Their Potential

 

A human practices X, Y, and Z.

He puts in the time.

He impresses those around him.

He lives a life of discipline.

 

These are not bad things.

But the question is not whether they are good or bad.

The question is . . .

 

What is the Payoff?

 

What have coaches been teaching people?

Whether they are athletes

Meditators

Or businessmen?

 

Morning routines.

Daily meditation.

Healthy diet.

Hard work.

 

Lee Trevino, one of the greatest golfers of all time,

Made the statement:

“Give me a Coca Cola and a bucket of fried chicken,

And I will kick your butt on the course.”

 

Is Coca Cola

And a bucket of fried chicken

The diet of a hall-of-fame athlete?

 

Is Coca Cola

And a bucket of fried chicken

What the team physician

Or the team trainer

Or the “on-staff-fully-certified dietician”

Would recommend?

 

All around the world

The professional athlete

Is being destroyed.

 

For he is trained by those

Who value principle

Rather than Truth.

 

A team practice

In professional sports

Or in the Olympic environment,

Is a spectacle to behold.

 

It is a herding of circus animals,

Rather than the sharpening of talent.

 

It is a one-legged race at the county fair,

Rather than a heightening of performance.

 

How can the most famous and celebrated coaches in the world,

Training the most famous and celebrated athletes in the world,

Be not only wrong,

But tragically and destructively wrong?

 

The fact is,

Almost no one will be able to bring themselves

To accept even the possibility of such a thing,

Much less the thing itself.

 

What does “practice”

Have to do with The Game?

 

What do drills and formations

Have to do with performance on game day?

 

The dirty little secret

Is that the practice sessions

And two-a-day’s

And gym-day’s

And All day’s

That these coaches create . . .

Are not created to secure in-game performance.

They are created

To satisfy in-practice principles.

 

Imagine a professional basketball player.

He is an expert at performing a jump shot.

Very well.

 

Why would he wake up in the morning

Have his breakfast

Drive to the stadium

Lace up his sneakers . . .

To “practice” a jump shot?

 

This sort of question

Is easily grasped

By even a mentally-challenged individual.

 

But it is beyond the comprehension

Of famous and celebrated coaches.

 

Do you go to the bathroom each day

And practice brushing your teeth

For 7 hours a day?

 

But if there were medals for the best brushing performance,

You would like hire a coach.

And indeed practice brushing for 7 hours a day . . .

 

Practice

Has no meaning.

 

This is something the Buddhists don’t understand.

 

Practice

Has no meaning.

 

What of the athletes who become great?

They become great Despite the coaching

Not because of it.

 

The real question is,

How much Greater could they have been

If their talent and performance was enlivened by Truth,

Rather than interfered-with.

 

If an athlete is trained

According to Truth,

His talent soars.

 

If any human being is trained

According to Truth,

His heights go through the sky.

 

Principle

Is a societal thing.

 

He who is trained societally,

Naturally becomes more . . .

Societal.

 

This is why those who are supremely talented

Rarely, if ever . . .

Live up to their potential.

 

Namaste.