EXCERPT

During the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, Rick DeMont and I went to lunch at a café across from the swimming pool. We originally met in 1981 when I was an assistant swim coach at the University of California, Berkeley, and Rick, in his late twenties, was coming to the end of a long and fascinating swimming career.

Like many children, Rick had asthma. Doctors give the same advice today as they always have given for kids with asthma—join a swim team. Rick excelled in swimming and as a sixteen-year-old, he made the U.S. Olympic team and swam in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. He qualified for the Olympics in two events, the 400-meter freestyle and the 1500-meter freestyle.

Rick had stated on his medical forms that he took two drugs, Marax and Actifed, for his asthma. At the 1972 Olympic Games, Rick swam the 400-meter freestyle and won the Gold Medal. Two days later he was to swim in the finals of the 1500-meter freestyle, his best event. Rick had set the World Record in the 1500-meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic Trials. After winning the Gold Medal in the 400-meter freestyle, he was clearly a favorite to win the 1500 as well.

Right before the race it was announced, "The FINA [the international ruling body] has decided to eliminate Rick DeMont, Gold Medal winner over 400-meter freestyle, on the proposal of the Medical Commission of the IOC [International Olympic Committee], from his start over 1500-meters freestyle." Rick was pulled out of the ready room and not allowed to swim the 1500-meter freestyle.

Rick's urine sample taken after the 400-meter freestyle was positive for the banned drug ephedrine. In Rick's urine there were twelve parts per million of ephedrine—without question from his medication. He was stripped of his Gold Medal in the 400 freestyle and did not get a chance to win a second Gold Medal in the 1500 freestyle.

The next year at the World Championships Rick broke the world record in the 400-meter freestyle and became the first person to break the four-minute barrier. He was named Swimmer of the Year in 1973. (For more information on what happened to Rick, go to http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/news/2001/01/30/usoc_demont_ap/.)

In 1992 Rick was in Barcelona as Chrissy Ahmann-Leighton's personal swim coach. Chrissy went on to win the Silver Medal in the 100-meter butterfly. I was there as Matt Biondi's personal coach.

What started out as a casual lunch in Barcelona became a turning point in my life. Like many sports, swimming is a world unto itself and those of us in the sport live and breathe swimming. We know all the stories. Those outside of swimming may have heard something about Rick, perhaps not. Terrorists and Mark Spitz's seven Gold Medals overshadowed the Munich Olympics. To those in swimming, what happened to Rick was a tragedy.

Everyone in the world of swimming knew about Rick and what happened to him. Although people know him by name, most would not know him if they saw him. This is typically the case in swimming—names are often known, but often there is not a face to match the name.

At lunch, by chance, we sat at a table with some of the Swedish Olympic swim coaches. It was community seating and we each had our own conversations. After a while we began to talk with the four Swedish coaches. Not knowing who Rick was, one of the coaches asked him "Is the first Olympics you have been to?" Rick replied, "No, I was at Munich too." They asked, "Oh, what's your name?" When he said, "Rick DeMont," all four of them reverently rose in unison to shake his hand. They had a look of awe and admiration on their faces—as if they had met a living legend.

As we began to talk more with the coaches, I congratulated them on the Silver Medal the Swedish team won in the 4 x 200 freestyle relay. In this relay, each of the four swimmers swims a 200-meter freestyle. Sweden won the Silver Medal and the United States finished third with the Bronze Medal. This was quite a triumph for Swedish swimming and was the first time since 1960 the U.S. did not win the Gold Medal.

Sweden's population was about eight million people in 1992. The climate in Sweden is not what one would think of as conducive to producing great swimmers. Here in California, in the Bay Area, age group swimming is great, as California has a more appropriate climate. If we put together an All Star team of twelve-year-olds from the Bay Area, I am confident we could beat the national All Star Team from Sweden. By age twelve we often produce stars but in Sweden twelve-year-olds are just getting started.

However something was happening to these swimmers from the age of about twelve on. How could this small country of Sweden put together four swimmers that could beat the best four swimmers in the United States? When I asked the Swedish coaches this question I got a response I will never forget. They said, "Think of it like a carton of eggs. In the United States you slam all your eggs against the wall and most of them break. In Sweden we can not afford to do that. Our gene pool is too small. We have to bring swimmers along, nurture them while dealing with their setbacks and problems. We have to work with them during the ups and downs of their careers. In the United States, you just get someone else to take his or her place. In Sweden, we have to work on building and developing our swimmers."

I have spoken to parent groups about this conversation many times. I felt what the Swedish coaches said was very true. Here in the United States we are often too focused on how good our kids are in sports by the time they are twelve. We use them, burn them out, and throw them away. We do not do much teaching, nurturing, or instructing; we just try to weed out those that are not the best and we keep pushing and pushing those that are the best to be better. Many young kids never find out how good an athlete they could have been because by the time they are sixteen years old the pressure on them over the years burns them out. They end up being "broken eggs."

Because kids are athletes we often forget that they are still fragile children who need nurturing, instruction, and patience. The goal of this book is to help guide athletes, coaches, parents and clinicians to nurture and work with "eggs," so they don't end up broken. Many of the athletes I talk about could have ended up "broken eggs" and two actually did. I will talk about my work as both a coach and a psychotherapist working in the field of Sport Psychology. I will show how many of the athletes I worked with were very close to getting out of sports for one reason or another. I hope this book can guide some of those who are on the edge to figure out how to perform better in sports in general and over the long haul reach higher peaks than would otherwise have been attainable.

Here in the United States we run far too many kids out of sports before we ever really know what they could have done. One of my basic beliefs is that the benefits from a successful sports experience last a lifetime. Through sports, kids can learn the lessons of life. This only happens if they are active in sports.

James Michener wrote in his book The Bridge at Andau, "For any nation to deprive itself of the capacities of any man is really a sin against the entire society. And if a system not only refuses to use native capacities but establishes a regime for stunting or destroying those capacities, then such a regime is doomed."* Michener was talking about the horrible impact that communism had on the people of Hungary, leading to the 1956 revolt against their Russian oppressors.

The way our youth sport programs stunt and destroy many of our young and developing "eggs" is a sin against our society. It is time to stop and take a hard look at the structure of youth sport programs in the United States and the impact they are having on our children. It is clear that we are destroying far too many of our precious "eggs."

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It was not until January of 2003, while I was part of a Sport Psychology seminar, that I began to contemplate writing a book about how to nurture our young athletes. Hosted at John F. Kennedy University in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I teach graduate school, the seminar was designed for those working in the field of Sport Psychology.

This was a one-day seminar and there were three different panels. Each person on the panel spoke for about ten minutes, followed by a question-and-answer session. The first panel, the one I was on, consisted of four people. The main speaker was Tom Tutko, Ph.D., known to many as The Father of Sport Psychology. The second panel was made up of successful local coaches from different sports. The third panel consisted of athletes from professional, college, and high school sports.

Many in the audience were current or former graduate students of mine. These people understand that the mental side of sports is incredibly important. They wanted to hear more about the work that each of us on the panel was doing. We each talked in our own way about what we saw as important issues focusing on the mental (not physical) side of sports preparation. We included case studies where our work with athletes had been successful. Because the audience was primarily made up of those that either had studied, or were studying Sport Psychology, we were preaching to the choir, so to speak.

The genesis of this book came from the coaches' panel. Although there were six coaches on the second panel, none of the coaches came to hear the first panel. The seminar took place on a Saturday, and of course there were the expected calendar conflicts due to practices. However, if any member was interesting in learning something new, one would expect him or her to have attended the first panel with the famous Tom Tutko. The same format was used for the second panel. Each coach spoke for about ten minutes, with a question-and-answer session following.

Each coach spoke of the importance of the mental side of sports. A primary topic dealt with the pressures and emotional issues their athletes had encountered. Most said they had tried to foster a winning attitude. However, during the question-and-answer session, the exchange between the coaches and the audience turned hostile. The coaches were saying that while "Sport Psychology is important, I don't need anyone else's help—it is something I do as a coach." One coach said, "In all my years of coaching, I have never had an athlete that I felt needed a Sport Psychologist." This was a coach who worked with many young women, in a sport known for eating disorders. The coaches' attitude reminded me of Mark Twain's saying that if all you know how to do is hammer—everything looks like a nail. All these coaches knew how to do was focus on the physical performance of their athletes. They clearly did not take the same type of nurturing approach toward their athletes as the Swedish coaches did. I felt that the coaches on this panel were likely to be "egg smashers."

With my coaching background, I could understand how coaches would be protective of their athletes and their coaching style. I was very protective of the athletes I coached, and did not want anyone coming near them unless they had something substantial to offer. However, there were people who did have something to offer. For me to deny my athletes' access to someone that could help them with nutrition, stretching, weight lifting or anything else would have been detrimental to their careers.

When I was coaching at the University of California, we would have athletes work with a strength coach for their weight lifting. We would bring in a nutritionist to do a lecture about proper diet for college athletes. A yoga instructor would come in and help us with stretching. Trainers would work with injured athletes on determining the best course of rehabilitation. And of course we had Sport Psychologists come in and talk to the team about Sport Psychology. As coaches, we knew we did not have the answers to everything and were always open to someone who had something to offer.

The coaches at the conference seemed to be closed minded, saying, "I can take care of all of my athlete's psychological needs." Many of these coaches had experience but little if any education or training in the psychological aspects of sport. Their experience was limited to their coaching or personal playing experience, rather than experience working with athletes in a clinical setting on sport-related issues. These coaches saw the physical preparation side of sports and tended to ignore the mental side of athletic performance, apart from fostering a "winning attitude." They believed athletes need to be mentally tough, but did not seem to grasp that mental toughness comes from self-confidence. Focusing on mental toughness before focusing on self-confidence is like trying to teach children to run before they can walk.

I also had to wonder if these coaches felt fully prepared to help an athlete who has a verbally abusive, alcoholic parent. Did they have any idea the impact on someone's self-esteem this kind of parent can have? Did they feel qualified to work with an athlete with an eating disorder? How could they help athletes who felt their coach was the source of their problems? Would they know how to handle athletes who have parents who are constantly pressuring their children to succeed? How would they deal with a college athlete who has a very ill or dying parent or grandparent, or relationship problems? Could they help an athlete with a drug or alcohol problem? Did they take into consideration the psychological issues that come into play when an athlete is recovering from a serious injury? Were these coaches aware of the psychologcal impact on an athlete whose parents are going through a divorce? How would they work with an athlete who thinks he or she chokes in pressure situations? Could they give an athlete unbiased advice if an athlete wanted to transfer to another coach or school, or even quit the sport?

Here we are in Northern California, probably one of the most therapy friendly areas of the country, and encountering this type of attitude surprised me. I walked out of that seminar and thought to myself, "I have to sort out these important issues and I have to find the answers." In writing and researching this book, the feeling for me was not "I want to" but "I have to."

I am an educator. As a coach teaching was my primary role. It is my hope that this book helps to guide and educate the reader so everyone can get the most out of his or her sports experience. The personal and psychological results from a good sports experience last a lifetime. Too often parents and coaches like the ones on the panel can be the ones who end up destroying the "eggs." I hope that the stories in this book will help show readers the importance of nurturing our young athletes, helping them through their problems, and optimizing both their sports experience and their future lives.