post-game show, “The 5th Quarter,” “49er’s Preview,” “Last Honest Sports Show,” and the number-one rated Sunday night sports show, “Gameday.”
SZ: What sports did you play growing up?
O’Donnell: I played baseball, basketball and wrestled all up to and through high school.
SZ: As an athlete growing up what memories do you have around the subject of sport psychology? Did parents/coaches talk about sport psychology and performance?
O’Donnell: Sport psychology was discussed in rudimentary terms. For example, “Imagine yourself being in a situation, what would you do? How would you act? How would you prepare yourself mentally so you are prepared physically?”
SZ: Coaches you worked with were talking about visualization techniques?
O’Donnell: Absolutely, but not to the extent that they are today. The old cliche, “Golf is 90% mental.” I think that was true when I was growing up. I’m not so old where sport psychology had not yet entered the realm of youth sports. (laughing). But it wasn’t very deep. Things like, imagine being mentally prepared before walking up to the plate with the bases loaded, notice the positioning of the infielders, and the outfielders. Notice where you are going to find a hole, that sort of thing. The discussion of sport psychology was definitely on a secondary level. It was never the priority of the practice. We didn’t start with that type of thing but it was definitely part of the conversation.
SZ: Today coaches/athletes talk freely about “the mental game.” What does this term mean to you as a sports reporter?
O’Donnell: I think a lot of the questions we as reporters ask pertain to the mental aspect of the game. Both in the preparation of the game and post game. For instance I may ask a coach, “What was your thought process when you called a time out leaving you without one at the end of the game?” That’s sort of the mental aspect of the game. A question to a quarterback might be, “What did you see at the line of scrimmage that made you decide to call the audible?” In baseball, a question to a coach may be, “Was there any thought to making a pitching change since the batter has had so much success against this pitcher in the past?” So much of competition I think of as a chess match. Often football coaches sort of use that term. The mental game is fairly significant in terms of analyzing what went right or what went wrong in a game. The mental strategy in most cases precedes the physical strategy. A lot of post game questions will pertain to that.
SZ: Is that different from the types of questions that sport reporters asked before? In the last several years have you noticed a shift into more sport psychology type questions?
O’Donnell: I wouldn’t say so. If a play doesn’t work. Or if a team loses a game the questions are going to be, “Well why did you do this? Or why did you try that? Or why didn’t you change the pitcher? Why didn’t you have a pinch hitter in that situation?” All those questions really revolve around a strategical approach that in my opinion is the mental aspect of the game. But I don’t think, speaking from my perspective personally, that there’s been a dramatic shift in the last twenty years. It’s still what it was about then and what it’s about now.
SZ: Pete Carroll, coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is building a team culture and drafting players who fit into his sport psychology methodology. For example, they have a hands on high performance coach who engages the players in meditation and coaches are being retrained in their communication style with players. If teams like the Seahawks who are quite enthusiastic about the benefits of sport psychology, win the Super Bowl, will winning influence the focus on media reporting and the impact of sport psychology on other team cultures? Is there a ripple effect?
O’Donnell: I think the NFL is a copy cat league. If you look at the read options strategy by the 49er’s for instance, several other teams tried some version of the read option or drafted player’s with abilities that would fit that system. It also forced virtually every team in the NFL to spend the off season figuring out how to defend the read option play. Consequently if Seattle wins the Super Bowl you can bet other teams will scrutinize every aspect of that organization and figure out how to copy it.
However I think psychology is a bit tricky because it’s more difficult to see tangible effects. For example, you can see how Colin Kaepernick’s skill sets for the 49er’s compliment the read option strategy. But I think it would be more of a challenge to see how a psychological approach helps a team win a football game.
SZ: The impact it has on the overall team performance.
O’Donnell: To me what comes to light are issues you have inside the locker room. Of course the Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin situation in Miami is the obvious one that comes to mind. If there is a sport psychologist like there is in Seattle embedded in this locker room with fifty-three guys and the fifty-three guys trust this person enough to speak to him about issues that are going on in the locker room that they are uncomfortable enough with then I think there’s a huge benefit to that. You could argue that had that person been in the Miami locker room that perhaps the whole situation could possibly been avoided.
If you look at the 49er’s when I first started reporting, even the S.F. Giants, the Giants had a fellow named Dr. Joel Kirsch working with the team. The Giants were one of the first teams that I recall that had an actual sport psychologist. He was more performance related for example, “How do you maximize your potential as a baseball player?” The 49er’s had Dr. Harry Edwards, a sociologist. I know that during the 1980’s the 49er’s had some issues among the player’s in the locker room that Dr. Edwards worked with and assisted with. Dr. Edwards may still be associated with the 49er’s. There is a definite value to having a sport psychologist associated with a team. You’ve got fifty-three guys in a locker room and they’re not all going to get along. They come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and academic backgrounds. When you put fifty-three men in a locker room, this sort of melting pot, they aren’t all going to get along. There are instances I know of where a sport psychologist has sort of calmed the waters between players.
As a reporter when it comes to issues in the locker room and you’re trying to find out why a player is having trouble assimilating, it’s difficult to find out what happened behind the walls of an organization. The coaches aren’t going to be very forthcoming obviously and the player’s aren’t going to be very forthcoming. It’s difficult finding out what’s going on inside the locker room because as a reporter you’re not inside it. When it comes to a sport psychologist solving issues in the locker room it’s hard to get that information. Sometimes you get it years later. In the case of Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito, there’s been such a dogged pursuit of what really happened. Everyone has been working on that one and we’re slowly getting layers and layers unfolded to find out what happened but we still don’t know.
SZ: Because of the locker room code.
O’Donnell: Absolutely. No player’s want to talk about the dirty laundry to a sports reporter.
SZ: I see more information in the media around mental preparation and information about sport psychology.
O’Donnell: In terms of how I prepare for an interview, be it a pre-game interview or a post-game interview, during pre-game interviews there is more time to analyze the questions and what you’ve looking for. During post-game interviews as a reporter, you’re reacting to what happened in a particular game. I think I’ve always been cognizant of the mental aspect of a game. The “why” questions usually pertain to the mental aspects of the game not the physical. I can’t distinguish the difference between how I asked reporting questions thirty years ago as to how I do it today based on a psychological approach. You might find a difference in other media. I would guess that today’s athlete’s see a much greater difference in the psychological approach than they did thirty years ago, right?
SZ: Yes, definitely.
O’Donnell: I think the team investment in the athlete is so great today. The economic structure of a player’s contract is so significantly different today than it was thirty years ago. Teams want to and look to use every possible benefit that they can to keep the player engaged. To keep the player healthy both physically and mentally. The investment is too big not to. So definitely from an outsiders perspective I clearly see that and that has definitely changed in the last thirty years. Does it affect the way I report the news? No.
SZ: Dennis thank you so very much for talking with me today and sharing your views of sports reporting and it’s relationship to sport psychology.
*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro
*This article can also be read @ examiner.
*Photo KPIX media
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