home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=91TT2051>
- <title>
- Sep. 16, 1991: The Tactics Of Tantrums
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Sep. 16, 1991 Can This Man Save Our Schools?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- SPORT, Page 64
- The Tactics Of Tantrums
- </hdr><body>
- <p>For some athletes, getting mad is a way to do better than get even
- </p>
- <p> Over the years, Jimmy Connors has treated spectators to
- phenomenal displays of tennis and temper--and at the U.S. Open
- last week, he exhibited both again. In the second set of a match
- against Aaron Krickstein, Connors flared up when the umpire
- overruled a linesman and called one of his passing shots wide.
- In a one-minute tantrum, the 39-year-old, five-time Open winner
- called the offending official "a bum," "a son of a bitch" and
- "an abortion." From then on, Connors played brilliantly, and he
- took the 4-hr. 41-min. match in a tempestuous tie breaker,
- before advancing again three days later.
- </p>
- <p> The abuse, though it drew no penalty from Open officials,
- appalled many onlookers. Some longtime Connors watchers,
- however, recognized that such displays may be an integral, even
- calculated, part of Connors' game. "The world may see a spoiled
- brat," observes David Pargman, a sports psychologist at Florida
- State University, in Tallahassee, "but some elite athletes turn
- on the anger strategically."
- </p>
- <p> In sports ranging from baseball to football to hockey,
- agrees Cal Botterill, a psychologist who works with the Chicago
- Blackhawks, "the very best athletes can use their emotions--and anger is one of them--to push their performance up." In
- fact, a baseball adage has it that managers prefer players who
- get mad. Anger steps up the body's pitch: blood pressure rises,
- heart and respiration rates quicken, and adrenaline surges. That
- may sharpen performance by heightening alertness, boosting
- energy and speeding up reactions.
- </p>
- <p> Some athletes use hostile emotions to catapult themselves
- into fiercer play. Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Dave Stieb is one.
- "It might allow me to throw my next pitch harder or concentrate
- harder," he says. Others cultivate anger as part of their game
- preparation. Sports psychologist Bruce Ogilvie of Los Gatos,
- Calif., recalls that one great football defensive end, now
- retired, worked himself up for Sunday competition by starting
- to fantasize on Thursday that his opponent had raped his wife.
- </p>
- <p> Men more than women seem to draw on anger as a tool, but
- it is decidedly double-edged. In a sport like golf, which
- depends on fine motor control, rage can spell disaster. In
- football, anger may help power up a blitzing lineman, but it can
- impair a quarterback's judgment.
- </p>
- <p> Some experts believe anger is a vastly overrated asset.
- Says Jerry May of the University of Nevada at Reno: "It leads
- to inconsistent results. Anger can tighten muscles and increase
- the risk of injury." May, who chairs the U.S. Olympic Sports
- Psychology Committee, makes an analogy with sex. "To respond
- optimally, you must be excited but relaxed. You need that
- feeling to excel in sports as well." St. Louis Cardinals pitcher
- Bob Tewksbury agrees. "The more I try to have fun and laugh
- about situations, the better I perform," he says. So far this
- year, Tewksbury has won nine games and lost ten.
- </p>
- <p> By Anastasia Toufexis. With reporting by Ratu Kamlani/New
- York and Elizabeth Taylor/Chicago
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-