MAD’s Mental Strain Score: “Get your mind right”

Years ago during my first year on the coaching staff of the Chris Mullin (Mully) led Golden State Warriors, I was a young, green N.B.A. Strength & Conditioning Coach. I had what I now realize was an invaluable opportunity to sit in on an unofficial pre-draft meeting of our scouting staff, headed by Director of Scouting, Gregg Stratton. I say “unofficial” because it was just after they had held their “official” pre draft meeting with the team’s owner and his management staff.

All the scouts had just left the team meeting room and had wandered down the hall into the team weight room, which was run by the Warrior’s Director of Athletic Development, Mark Grabow. Now Mark, affectionately known as GBow by his then Warrior family, presided over the weight room like the character Sam Malone ran his bar in the 1980’s sitcom “Cheers”. Everybody was welcome and it was a safe haven where “everybody knew your name.”

Though officially, only players, coaches and medical staff were allowed in the weight room, the scouting staff had a number of old school N.B.A. lifers on it who were long time friends of both Mully and GBow, a couple of N.B.A. OGs themselves. So Greg and the rest of the scouts knew they could hang out in the weight room, talk shop, honestly, directly and without offending the owner, the guy who signed their checks.

The mood was loose and comfortable, the language very colorful and the player descriptions succinctly discerning; the scouts could hang out and let it fly. And man did it fly. Many of the lines expressed that day are definitely not appropriate to repeat here in these paragraphs but one in particular caught my attention then and has stuck with me ever since. It was from Al Bianchi, a tough Italian from the streets of New York, who at the time had been in the N.B.A. for over five decades as a player, a coach, a front office executive and a scout. To say the least, Al had seen it all and was not reticent about telling his old stories.

As all the scouts took turns singing the praises of the players they themselves had seen over the course of their past year of travels scouring the country and the planet for talent, Al bellowed in his seasonsoned, Coach’s baritone, commanding everyone to hold on a minute and quiet down a second! He then proceeded to commandeer the “stage” and chastise his fellow scouts for “falling in love with a guy’s talent” while in turn neglecting to assess their mind, their heart and their guts.

Realizing he now had us all at rapt attention, Al continued:

“It doesn’t matter how good a guy looks or how impressive his numbers are, if his mind isn’t right, if he has no heart and he is gutless then the guy is a piece of sh*t. We’re just buying a headache.”

And as Al then reminded us all, headaches get you fired. He again reiterated that the guys who can really play, have heart, they have guts and most importantly they “have their minds right. They have to have their minds right.” Interpretation: tough minded, hard working, team players who also have great talent are who you want to draft for your team. Period.

Since first hearing the aforementioned words from Al years ago, my perspective on player assessment has been forever transformed. No longer will I mistakenly think of an athlete’s talent being only just numbers and physical ability. Truly talented athletes/players must also have the Bianchi Big 3: Mind, heart and guts.

In our daily MAD High Performance Health surveys that we have all our MAD athletes complete prior to starting every training session, we ask a myriad of health behavior questions. We ask them to assess their water consumption, food choices, sleep quality, tech use and time spent outside in nature.

However the topic that gets the most questions is their “Mental Strain”. MAD Athletes are asked to rate their ability to focus, to refocus, to use their breathing to calm themselves when frustrated, to positively and confidently confront challenges, and to persevere so they can perform their best.

Simply put, just do as Al said: “Get your mind right!”

Salut