Just blasted through a book by Stephan Fatsis entitled A Few Seconds of Panic that describes his time as a 43 year old writer turned NFL kicker for the Denver Broncos. I loved how he was able to weave the back stories of his teammates into the overall rhythm of training camp and the overall picture of the NFL as a business and as a way of life for the players, coaches, staff, and owners.He turned to a number of different experts to try and learn how to kick a football including kick specialists, strength and conditioning experts, and sports psychologists. Of course, he also leaned heavily on the generosity of the other kickers and punters in camp and they were amazingly generous with their time.
I like to think that our team is improving on a daily basis because of that exact type of willingness to learn new skills, to take risks in training, and to be able to share our collective knowledge to achieve a greater result. No doubt we can be even better at it as time goes on and we reaffirm our common goals, get used to the idea of being willing to make and accept criticism, and really study the way successful boat movers approach the sport.
The other striking aspect of the book was how, unlike rowing at Trinity, players were absolutely at odds with management and felt very used and misled about their futures and their status and role on the team. Obviously the pressures on an NFL team are incredible but I really hope that our rowers have a good idea about what their strengths and weaknesses are, how to improve upon them, and ultimately know that their contribution to our team is critical from the novice level all the way to the our varsity eight.
