“A smart player constantly tries to improve their chance of winning. Always thinking. Always analyzing what’s happening. It can even be a good idea to have a notebook in your equipment bag that you can refer to in the beginning of (and during) a match. It can list your strengths. Your opponent’s weaknesses. Maybe a tip you got at your tennis lesson. Things you’ve thought out before the match. It’s important information that can easily get forgotten during the match.”
From Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert and Steve Jamison
If you haven’t yet read Winning Ugly you should. Yes, it’s primarily about winning in tennis, but so much of it, like the passage above, resonates in any sport. I like his book because I identify with Brad as an athlete, not so big on talent but wins a lot more than he should because he does the small things right.
During the 2022 Racquetball Junior World Championships, I held a team meeting with our players. During that meeting I gave each of them a “Book of Athletes” as I called it. The inspiration for that came from both this passage and the experiences I’ve had working with athletes. The conversation often goes something like this.
“You’ve played them before right?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d it go?”
“Oh, I won.”
“Good to hear. How did they play? What’s their style? What did you do to beat them?”
“Oh, you know, I mean, I just played solid.”
“Okay… but does anything stick out to you that might give you an edge this time?”
“Well, it was a while ago so I don’t really remember it that well.”
“Any video footage?”
“I was supposed to but forgot.”
The Book of Athletes helps to address this issue. It provides athletes and coaches the opportunity to write things down by hand immediately so that memories are not forgotten. I use one to write down my thoughts from every match I coach given that the likelihood a USA player faces that opponent again at some point is high. As juniors, I encouraged them to write down three things that worked and three things that they needed to be aware of for next time along with any other thoughts (e.g., mental attitude) that might be relevant.
On the last day of the Junior World Championships, I sat behind one of our assistant coaches as he coached one of our players competing in her final. Tucked inside her bag next to her racquets was the little red book I’d given her. That made me smile. So did the gold medal she went home with.