PASSION, NOT EMOTION

Doug Collins, new head coach of the Philadlelphia 76'ers basketball team, made an interesting point to his team recently. After a loss when the team lost by 13 points to the Indiana Pacers to go 0-3 on the season, he said: "It's one thing playing passionately and it's another playing emotionally. You can't play basketball emotionally." While his choice of words was confusing, I think he was making a valid point to his young team. I think he was describing the difference between playing scared and playing quietly angry to prevent the opponent from taking from you what you deserve. The latter is passionate. The former is emotional overload.

When athletes are scared, they don't trust each other. They lose faith in the team concept and try to win the game single handedly. Andre Iquadola, the MVP of the team described it this way: "We're playing a little selfish....on the court we're a little too selfish instead of looking out for one another to play better basketball as a unit." As one writer described it, they were over-dribbling and attacking the basket one-on-one without much success. In fact, the Pacers were able to take full advantage of this style of play, making dunk after dunk in transition, only adding insult to injury.

I don't believe that Andre's choice of words were any better than Coach Collins. As many people tend to do, athletes and non-athletes alike, they describe other people's actions as character issues. Iguadola used the word "selfish". That is a character issue and misses the real point. The problem is fear and distrust of the team concept. It is not a character problem. Character problems are not fixable unless you get rid of the "selfish" player. Fear can be managed differently through reassurance, training, and repetition.

Doug Collins has his hands full this year. He has a young team and needs to understand the power of fear to unravel this team. My only hope is that his years of personal experience as a coach and player gives him the tools to address the psychological needs of the team and get the most out of the limited talent that he has inherited.