Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-26
BALANCE ESSENTIAL
FOR WINNING TEAM
Too Much Confidence or Lack
of That Quality Offer
Big Problems.
BY HOWARD III. JONES,

Foot Ball Coach. University Of Southern
California.
TIME subject have chosen for this
dispatch deals to a great extent
with the psychological element
L in foot ball.
1t is common TO pick up q
newspaper in any college community at
the beginning of the foot ball year and
observe the air Of optimism prevailing.
Only when there has been a great loss
by graduation and through other causes
is It possible to check the overoptimiSm
and overenthusiasm of the inter-
ested fans and followers. II this at
mosphere prevails at the beginning OF
a season 1t makes strong impression
upon the candidates for the team, and
presents an immediate problem for the
coach
Few coaches are subject to over
confidence, but to great degree they
are powerless to stem this among the
players, unless they desire to be termed
gloomy coaches. A sound defeat Is
many times the only remedy for this
undesirable situation.
Egotism Is Costly.
Then. perhaps in the early stages OF
a foot ball season. the idoliZng Of pro-
spective stars brings forth even worse
situation. boy will sometimes be-
come so imbued with the idea that his
place on the team is certain that he
will offer suggestions regarding the
other positions. This idoliZing many
times ruins the efficiency of player,
for he thinks he has reached the PIN
nacle of success. The problem can be
overcome by the coach, If he has
enough competition for various posi-
t0ns, by simply demoting a player to
the second team until he shows bet
ter attitude.
eon one of my teams learned that
sNStar had put on little dancing ex-
hibition before the other players the
morning before one of our biggest
games. The game was lost. Later the
player began to take things more Seri-
ously, and consequently he developed
into a real star. The loss of the game
could not be wholly attributed to this
one player, because the superiority
complex had probably seized other VIC
Tins.
I recently had a team which was
an opponent with a poor season behind
it. I tried to impress my team with
the fact that an opponents weakness
did not necessarily mean 1t could not
be a dangerous foe. Words sometimes
prove futile in the face of general
opinion, and this opponent neld our
team to a scoreless tie during the first
half. have heard expert coaches say
team will not play foot ball unless it
thinks it has to.
Must Have Confidence.
The coach also has his problem in
dealing with the factor of lack Of con-
f1dence. He encounters this problem
both individually and collectively. We
have heard the expression, when they
found themselves they were a good
team"
Lack of confidence is much easier to
overcome, because one might say that
progress is a stimulant to further de-
velopment. An individual player who
comes out for a team with little ex-
perience can develop a spirit Of con-
fidence as he learns to play. Some
boys will stand back because they are
afraid they are not good enough, and
a coach sometimes wonders why they
even come out.
One readily can see that a coach. in
having to deal with the psychological
factors, has no easy task. To be able
to jnstill and control the amount of
confidence in players and teams is a
task in itself I am not sure that
these factors do not play as important
a part in the failure or success of a
team as anything else.