A good friend of mine came over to the house to work with my son on his basketball game. The friend is Danny Jones and he has a wealth of basketball knowledge to draw upon. Danny played for the University of Wisconsin in Madison and in over 20 countries as he was pursuing his professional basketball career. When I mentioned to my son that Danny was going to come and work with him he thought that it was going to be all about shooting and playing basketball. What he came to find out is learning is not always what it appears to be.



When Danny and Kirk, my son, met, Danny decided for the time being that Kirk was too busy with his athletic agenda to add one more physical work out to his already crowded routine. The decision was made to talk to Kirk about his game and what he might improve upon and come to his summer league games and practices occasionally to get ideas on what he needs to work on. In essence, the decision was to work on Kirk's mental understanding of the game even more than his physical skills.

Even though I'm sure that there will be times that Danny takes Kirk to a court and works on his physical game, he realizes that if Kirk can understand the important fundamentals and the energy and attitude that it takes to play the game in his head, he will be better for it.

All too often athletes of all ages and sports think that the most important thing to do is to grab a ball, go for a run, go for a swim, or whatever the sport may be and put yourself through the physical paces. In reality the most important part of any sport, or any activity for that matter, is most often getting the part right between your ears. Athletes and performers of all kinds become much more efficient and able to perform their appointed tasks when they take time to understand, visualize, and mentally prepare for the journey into the arena.

My son came to me after Danny left the house and I asked him if it went ok. He said that he didn't know for sure and that Mr. Jones only asked him a bunch of questions. I encouraged him to trust that our friend would do him right. My son said, "I'll give it a shot dad." That was all I needed to hear.

Prepare yourself mentally,

Fred Nicklaus