The below is a short post with some thoughts on sports I’ve played; quasi-lessons, in the clickbait frame, with some short anecdotes scattered throughout to punctuate those points. It’s okay to skip this one if you don’t read for the rambles; I won’t be offended.
Baseball
I played little league baseball for two seasons in the second and third grade.
One moment, of which I am not particularly proud, was my telling Coach Matt that he was late, to which he retorted approximately “yeah, I just came from picking up my paycheck.”
Lateness is an incentive problem
There’s no reason to tell people what they already know
Evaluate relative communication skills before engaging
Consider the other person’s circumstances
Be only as mean as necessary, and often this rounds to “none”
Once, I hit a double and accidentally ran past second base. I had been told with some length earlier in the season that one was allowed to run through first base, and given this fact, the remainder of my team assumed that I had run through second intentionally. A corollary to Hanlon’s Razor, and a reminder that narrative by default gets ahead of action, much as it’s surprisingly hard to stop on dry dirt.
Soccer
I played little league soccer for seven seasons, from second to eighth grade.
In soccer, one gets the ball very rarely. There are few opportunities, few “moments,” for true action. I seized on this by attempting to maximize impact off the ball, which is tricky when few teammates are both able and willing to pass the ball with high frequency or precision. In other words, theory and application were different, and I needed to adapt my approach to the circumstances available. (Had I thought through implementing “get better at ball handling,” I probably would have anyway, but the value proposition holds: “run all the time” capped at a fairly low utility ceiling.)
After my first season, we were awarded as a participation trophy a pennant instead of a medal or trophy; it was distinctive, looked good on a wall, could be easily stored, and probably cost less to manufacture. I liked it, or at least I liked it more than the aforementioned typical junk, and yet for every year subsequent the coach passed them out instead. I can only conclude that someone else complained, or instead that there was some push to appear more standard.
I cared about this change, at least as much as the mild preference I have just expressed, and I didn’t speak up; perhaps if I had made this known, registered it with the appropriate governing body, the league would have stuck to their guns. This is a specific case of the bias towards action, perhaps. Consider also, however, that there was no obvious mechanism— an eight(?)-year-old cannot write email, and that if the league wanted feedback, they should have asked. Speaking up is easy to advocate, difficult, and in many cases not worth the effort, which is why it must be made worth the effort. Credible signals, proof-of-work, lowering of transaction costs— these are the mechanisms with which communications can be solved as the coordination problem which it is.
I am not a very good goalkeeper; I still ended up keeping goal for a marginally larger time than my share. I also substituted out pretty infrequently; I wanted to play. It struck me, at times, that the majority of my teammates would rather have been off the field at the end of a long stretch. I did too, sometimes; I still tried to see the fun in it. So I played a decent amount of goalkeeper, at least until we got someone specialized to do the dirty work.
Ultimate Frisbee
During my tenth-grade spring, I became a significantly better player. I wasn’t very good, in the absolute sense, but the rate of improvement I experienced during that season was notable in comparison to my progress otherwise. At the wrap-up of that season, at least, we passed around index cards, on which we wrote out frisbee comments about that person. (Generally positive, of course; these were to work on and things we appreciated, or that our teammates had done well.)
The plurality of people noted the degree to which I’d gotten better, in excess of what might have been expected. It was pleasant to see that the effort I’d put in was being rewarded, and it also felt a little strange, like it always does to get better.
I didn’t practice much more than usual, to my recollection, nor did I have a specific growth spurt during those few months. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to remember anything in particular which would account for finding the end of one plateau and climbing up to another shallow, upwards slope. Sometimes things just happen, through showing up— though injuries do, too. There’s a lot of variance out there that’s very hard to see, paths branching out each moment. I try to keep that in mind.
I did try to enforce for myself, each season, that I’d be helpful to the team, and to this end I looked up and realized what I was good at. More to the point, especially at first, I identified what I was terrible at and used a process of elimination. I couldn’t throw very well at all, and my defending was middling at best; what I could do alright was run around like a firetruck which kept getting called to new blocks set ablaze.
I didn’t get put in for very many points that first season, for good reason. In practice, though, too, there was a certain amount which could be accomplished by just continually running. It contributed to my development, definitely, calibrating the positioning and timing with every run; as long as I cut with intentionality, it was something you might want to have on the field.
I often use the analogy of a cutter, a thrower, and a defender, in reference to one particular player dynamic. Simplified, with the irrelevant considerations (and more besides) stripped out: the thrower has ten seconds with the frisbee, the cutter wants to receive the disc, and the defender wants to disrupt that pass. As the cutter, then, it’s necessary to take actions at the times the system allows for very quickly. However, with a defender marking you, it’s difficult.
Thus, the solution is to make one hard movement in a specified direction, drawing the defender into one space. Then, the cutter immediately vacates this space to move into another which the defender now isn’t guarding.
(It’s easier in video than in text; here’s one example. In that linked clip, watch for ten seconds as white-baseball-cap for the dark blues, center screen, darts in and doesn’t get it. He then books it out of there, distracting a defender, and the next guy (white-baseball-cap #2) runs in unmarked. After a quick reset, he gets it no problem.)
And so: when you make decisions, actually make them, particularly with collaborators. One of the most common failure modes, as a cutter, is to run back and forth in the same space, unable to shake off a mark; all this does is clog the field. Moreover, when you make endless tiny feints, you’re hard to predict and impossible to throw to. If the thrower makes a pass under these circumstances, it’ll invariably be to where you’ve just left.
To free someone else up, you at least need to be out of their way. You’re always an option, though you’re not always the focus. It’s not about you catching the disc, it’s that someone does, and sometimes the best option is a few steps backwards. If you can’t make progress, you regroup, and you keep possession. You stay playing, moving around the field until you can move up it.
Cross-Country
Cross-country is a sport that’s very type two fun: it’s pretty painful, and the tangible results of the work are shaving off a few seconds here and there. It was a good, intuitive introduction to the concept; I recommend it.
The most salient feeling is that which clicks together as you’re slogging through the woods at speeds you didn’t think you could: the world is big, and complicated, and I am very much a part of it. You distract yourself with song lyrics, or specific, tactile sensations, or during practice, the snatches of chatter. You focus on the movements, on the mechanics, feeling the time pass ever slowly. Rowing, too, can be like this for me; it’s about the increments, in process and in payoff.
Track
I ran track in middle school, from fifth to eighth grades; I wasn’t especially good at it. My comparative advantage was, as it generally is with sports, “things no one else wanted to do.” Given, also, that I was a better distance runner than a sprinter, I ended up running the four hundred meters, the eight hundred meters, and the mile. (One lap, two laps, and four laps respectively, around a standard track.)
It’s worth keeping in mind that these are actually not very long; in cross-country, for some of my favorite exercises, we would repeat them in a progression with short rests in between. In any case, they were what I usually stuck to.
One day, we had an event in a small meet which we had three people for, the two-hundred-meter (half a lap) relay. Through some hazy combination of coercion and cooperative spirit, I signed up to fill out the four-person lineup. We got second place. (Out of something like eight teams, probably.)
Show up: that helps. Have a structure that allows for replacements to slot in (maybe having everyone trade baton handoffs was a decent idea after all.) Recognize when the alternative is nothing, and your contribution has an outsize effect. These are all imperatives; I wouldn’t claim that they’re actual instructions to follow, but that’s the way in which they came to mind. Dive in, do things you thought you weren’t good at, even if you think they won’t come out right.
I also did the shot put, a few times; I wasn’t very good at hurdles, and so I learned the basic movements at the end of a practice or two.
Once, in an indoor meet, I got fourth place out of ten people, for which I got a t-shirt. I’d practiced maybe twenty minutes; in the same meet, to my recollection, I turned in a terrible mile performance and finished towards the end. For that, I’d trained significantly, but the mile race was a much more popular middle-school competition.
The amount which I cared was, in absolute comparison, pretty high— it was thoroughly washed out by the number of entrants. (See also: being especially popular, in the traditional definition, or writing newsletters.) That didn’t matter so much; it was still fun.
Link
Best,