Divide and Conquer

An Excerpt from The Game Within

Every sport is infused with rules and objectives which ultimately give rise to coaching strategies with the singular goal of winning. There are the physical elements of a plan to succeed and then there are the mental or motivational aspects that are used to encourage victory. There are two cliches that I heard over the years of my own athletic career that I always found to be completely illogical. The first is the idea that it is not where you start it is where you finish that matters. This is applicable on a societal level in reference to achievement attained from humble beginnings but it has no logical basis in regard to an athletic contest. The start of a game is just as important as the end because it is the introduction of strategy and it sets a physical tone. The second concept which I believe to be in conflict with reality is the notion that a player can get stronger as the game progresses. It is virtually impossible to become stronger from expending energy and absorbing physical punishment. As a game progresses, time differentiates the fit from the unfit; the appearance of acquired strength of the former an illusion created by diminished performance of the later. Although I never believed in these two assertions, I did develop my own personal game strategy with them in mind. I entered each game with the plan to first divide and then to conquer.

All games in every sport are confined to a specific duration of time. Some sports have quarters and halves while others are divided into periods, sets, innings or frames. Each contest can be looked at in its entirety or as an aggregate of its particular defined parts. The individual parts of the whole is where the fundamental basis of my strategy was rooted. I played soccer which does not have an official game clock which causes the game to be broken up into two somewhat nebulous halves. This required me to create an internal clock to define each section of the game. I would divide the game into four quarters with a specific strategy for each them. This sectioning allowed me to remain in control of the energy and intensity of the game and more importantly to methodically implement my plan. I believed that if I could win each of my defined portions of the game then I would prevail in the end.  

My personal strategy entering into each game was based on the confidence that I had trained harder than everyone else. My training which was also based on a four quarter regime was expressly designed to push and then redefine my physical and mental endurance. Before the start of each game, as I looked across the field at the opposing team I would know the truth about them and also myself. I possessed very strong soccer skills in most aspects of the game but I knew without question there were players on the other team who had more soccer talent. Smiling in their clean uniforms, filled with confidence and positive expectations they would occasionally glance over at me and undoubtably think themselves to be superior. What they could not see was my quiver filled with highly tested mental and physical power. I knew that I possessed a level of fitness that could last as long as the game required. My plan was to use my almost boundless endurance to wear down the opposing team quarter by quarter, diminishing their ability to perform, and in the end, let my conditioned talent conquer. This is the breakdown of that plan.

1st Quarter (Setting the Tone)

In the first quarter it was my goal to remove my opponents smiles and begin to erode their confidence by exerting the maximum physical pressure that the referee would allow. In these early moments of the game it was important for me to manage my own aggression because an early yellow card would seriously compromise my overall strategy. From the first whistle, every ball would be run down, every tackle would be hard and finished, every confrontation accepted, and every verbal attempt at intimidation laughed at and trumped in return. My opponents would fight back in attempt to match my intensity but I would not relent. The physical pressure would begin to exact a toll on them and the beginnings of mental fatigue would surface. I could tell that they were beginning to lose some of their confidence the moment the complaining to the referee started. All I need to do is physically win the first quarter.

2nd Quarter (Planting the Seed of Doubt)

As the second quarter began the opposition would now become frustrated and begin to try and match my physicality. Their once clean uniforms were now dirty and their smiles long gone. I would now smile. My energy was still consistently high and I exuded arrogant confidence. The opposing coach would begin to voice objection to the roughness of my play but there was nothing dirty about it. It was just relentless and physically punishing. My plan would begin to build and take shape. I could almost feel them begin to break mentally as the second quarter wound down toward halftime.  All I needed to do was to get to the break with the score tied. 

3rd Quarter (Enduring the Final Push)

The other team would come out in the second half ready to break me. They would be emboldened by anger induced adrenaline, mentally inspired by their coaches halftime speech and convinced that I could not keep up the same physical pressure of the first two quarters for the remainder of the game. On my side of the equation I knew something that they did not. I knew I could play hard for the entire game and that my resolve was unbreakable because I had pushed myself mentally and physically in my training. The third quarter would be spent enduring their last gasp of effort. Crushing every challenge I could see their ability to resist ebbing away. All I need to do is remain consistent to my first two quarters of physical pressure and they would break.

4th Quarter (The Winning Time)

As the fourth quarter rolled around I could feel the other team quit. Opposing players became slow and unable to keep up. The loose balls that were once contested were now given up on and left to me. All physical resistance was gone. To their silent disbelief I was still strong and playing hard. It was at this moment that I would deliver the death blow by becoming even more aggressive and determined. My skills now began to shine because, unlike those of my opponent, they were unaffected by fatigue. The pain of training made the game easy. I now appeared to be faster and stronger. The winning time had arrive and I was ready to win and they were preparing to lose.

The teams for which I played were not always on the winning end of the countless matches in which we played but for the most part I won the personal battle within those matches. The fragile confidence my adversaries had precariously built during practice on a foundation of dribbling unmolested though stationary cones and being able to juggle the ball with their feet two hundred times without it hitting the ground was no match for what I brought to the game. My unshakeable confidence which was based on a skill set honed by running thousands of stairs, lifting weights daily, traversing sand dunes and doing situps in the rain was an irresistible force. The solution to victory was not the sum of a complicated formula. It was simple. First I will divide and then I will conquer. To prevail I needed to win the game within the game.