Douglas Smith

Alvaro Folgueiras after a sensational finish vs. Nebraska: “We don’t have stars here. We are all super-important. It doesn’t matter who is on the newspaper or who gets more fame. We just play for each other. We play for the team. That’s all that matters.” hawkcentral.com/videos/sports/…

@816Raider @Stuckey2 Well, all NE did was shoot 3s. Get to the bucket and draw some fouls.

@Stuckey2 In fairness, they only called one foul on Iowa in the second half

Bennett Stirtz has played all possible 120 minutes for Iowa this tournament. He has 0 fouls and 1 turnover.

@Covers_Ro @T_BALLER6 @LevAkabas Stirtz started as a Bearcat at Northwest Missouri.

@T_BALLER6 @LevAkabas Iowa's new coach Ben McCollum coached at Drake last year. He brought in two transfers from Wyoming (Manyawu, Combs) to Drake last season and they followed him to Iowa along with two two of his best players at Drake (Stirtz, Banks). The fifth starter is a freshman he recruited.

About half of the Sweet 16 starters began their college basketball careers with different teams

We are LR. Nice job Cats.

@EngineerMarkets @SethDavisHoops You mean the 2 title game appearances, 7 sweet 16s, and 3 elite 8s. 90 % of Power Conference teams would take those numbers in a 25 year span.

@SethDavisHoops We do this every year….only to watch them flame in the tourney…

The consistent excellence of Gonzaga is one of the most remarkable and under appreciated stories in the history of American sports. 30-3 and another WCC championship. Just incredible.

@KeithHardin3 @SethDavisHoops They are 44-25 in the tournament under Few. Two title game appearances. 7 Sweet 16s. 3 Elite 8s. Perhaps look something up before posting.

@SethDavisHoops Then lose to real teams in the first or second round. Conference looks like high school basketball games.

@LtownZag @davidelam871e @SethDavisHoops Michigan won the title in '89.

@davidelam871e @SethDavisHoops They’ve literally won everything up to the title game twice. Same number of titles as Houston, Purdue, Michigan, Tennessee, and the entire (former) PAC12 in the era they’ve been relevant.

@BoilerGrad1990 @SethDavisHoops They consistently play one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country. They travel anywhere and will play whoever has the guts to schedule them.

@SethDavisHoops Also they don’t play anyone

@CathFamPodcast @BBGreatMoments Then you weren't a fan. Snyder, Surhoff, and McDowell, Gwyneth, and Bankhead had MLB careers. Snyder and Surhoff pretty good ones.

@BBGreatMoments Lol I've only heard of McGuire and i was a huge 1990s baseball fan.

The starting lineup for the 1984 baseball Olympic team 🔥

@imjlkr @realDavidZ @nut_history Yeah, Mattingly should have been 3rd in voting.

@realDavidZ @JDSmith343 @nut_history I would argue that Rickey was the MVP. The Yankees took off when Rickey came off the DL.

When I say was “robbed” of the MVP who’s the first player you think of?

@realDavidZ @nut_history WAR says differently. Brett was the deserving MVP. East Coast media longing for a NY MVPer. Mattingly should have finished 3rd. Henderson had a better MVP claim than Mattingly.

@JDSmith343 @nut_history I really LOVE Brett, but Mattingly’s ‘85 season was special. 56 of those 145 RBIs were Henderson. He was phenomenal with the glove as well. Brett is 1 of my 2 favorites all time at 3B, but Mattingly earned that MVP.

Norway is once again dominating the winter Olympics. And this is their youth sports program: Participation trophies for all kids. No keeping score until 13. No national travel competitions in youth sports. No posting youth results online. Motto: “Joy of Sport for All.” They let kids be kids. And it works. But…it’s the winter Olympics,right? Recently, they have had tremendous success in summer sports. Karsten Warholm demolished the 400 meter hurdles world record. Kristian Blummenfelt broke the Ironman triathlon record and won Olympic gold. His training partner, Gustav Ivan, won the 2022 Ironman World Championship. Casper Ruud reached world number two in tennis. Viktor Hovland is a top ten golfer in the world. Erling Haaland set the record for the most goals in a season in the Premier League. Beach volleyball champs, a surge of elite runners. By any metric, Norway’s elite athletes are achieving on a global stage. Yet, if we turn to their youth sports, their programs are the opposite of the US. Norway doesn’t allow for official scorekeeping until the age of thirteen. They dissuade early national travel teams in favor of local leagues. You can’t even post the results of youth games online without being fined. And almost sacrilegious in certain American circles, Norway doesn’t allow trophies unless everyone gets one. As Tore Ovrebo, Norway’s director of elite sport, told USA Today writer Dan Wolken, “We think the biggest motivation for the kids to do sports is that they do it with their friends and they have fun while they’re doing it and we want to keep that feeling throughout their whole career.” Their youth sporting model can be summed up with their chosen slogan, “Joy of Sport for All.” But not keeping score, giving out trophies, not being “win at all costs”...that’s anti-American! How can they be competitive? Research backs their approach up. 1. The fire has to come from within If you look at ​research​ on prodigies who eventually become standout adult performers, a deep intrinsic drive is paramount. Researchers found that intrinsically motivated football players were 3.5x more likely to make it to the next level, and athletes in general 2x more likely. The problem is that early success often pulls young people away from this inner drive. Kids start playing soccer (or violin or chess—this isn’t just about sports) because it is exciting and fun. As they improve, they gain accolades and praise from their parents, coaches, and teachers. They start winning trophies or seeing their names in online commentary. Without even realizing it, their intrinsic drive gets replaced by external validation and a need to please and impress others. The quickest way to kill that internal motivation? Hype achievements and be a crazy controlling parent or coach. The best way to create and maintain intrinsic motivation is to let kids dabble, explore, and find something with which their interests and talents align. Then, let them enjoy it without an undue emphasis on success. Praise effort, character, and teamwork, not results. This is easy to talk about but hard to do. Find ways to reward and incentivize the values you want to instill. That means not taking the easy road and talking about who set a new mile best or scored the most points, but instead highlighting who hustled during the fourth quarter, rallied after it seemed like the match was over, or displayed exemplary sportsmanship. 2. Go Broad over Specialization Even if the entire point of youth sports was to create future champions (which it’s not), we’d still adopt something similar to the Norwegian model. An ​analysis​ of over 6,000 athletes explored what separates athletes who reached world class and those who came up short. Those who reached world-class had during their youth: -More multi-sport than specialized practice -Started their primary sport later -Accumulated less overall formal practice -Initially progressed slower than national class peers Those who performed well when young, but didn’t progress: -Started their primary sport earlier -Specialized, engaging in more practice in one sport -Made quicker initial progress Norway doesn’t have 300 plus million people and an NCAA system to funnel talent. They have to develop theirs. And they realize the best way to do that is keep as many people in the system as possible. Why? Because you can’t predict talent development very well! Just go look at the age group record books. It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking early performance equals talent and potential. The kid running a 6-minute mile at 10 looks way better than the one running 6:45. But if the faster one is at track practice 5 days a week and the slower one rolls out of gym class in jeans and runs it off “fitness” from just playing, well I’m betting on the slower one! When we assess performance early on, we’re not measuring talent, we’re looking at training age and opportunity. And we’re crowning winners based on who started grinding first. America gets away with the insane achievement model because we can burn out 9 kids to get 1 survivor. Norway can’t afford to do that. They take the longer, more sustainable model. Rethinking Youth Sports: The whole point of youth sports should be for kids to learn, develop, have fun, and want to come back and play again next season! The best chance of developing a D1 scholarship athlete is essentially to do the exact opposite of what our current youth sports fiasco promotes. Even the poster child for early specialization, Tiger Woods, ​acknowledged​ it’s not a good thing for parents to push their kids too hard: “Don’t force your kids into sports,” he says. “I never was. To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf. I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters, not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Keep it fun.” While youth sports in America aren’t going to adopt the Norwegian model anytime soon, we can rebalance the equation. As I outlined in my book, it’s not getting rid of competitiveness, it’s rebalancing the equation to make sure that crazy mom, dad, or coach don’t extinguish the fire that makes great competitors (and sport fun!). In research on performance orientation and grades in school, a teaching environment that supported and emphasized mastery[PA1] , where students focused on the process of learning and comprehension instead of a comparison to others, was also linked to better grades. But it wasn’t the direct relationship that an outcome orientation had. Instead, in one study on college students, a mastery approach was linked to challenge-seeking, which in turn predicted end-of-the-year grades. In another study, mastery goals predicted higher levels of interest and enjoyment. Mastery works on our approach system without activating avoidance. It frees us up to take on a challenge and pursue our interests without getting bogged down by the pressure or judgment that often comes with an obsession with outcomes. The same findings hold true when looking at sport or the workplace. In a large meta-analysis that analyzed the impact of goal setting in sports, process-orientated goals had a large effect on performance. Outcome goals had little to no effect. These two paths represent a fast versus slow road to success. Both a mastery or outcome focus can lead to better performance, but the latter is akin to taking a shortcut. Obsession over outcomes is the most direct path to improvement, but it comes with some downsides that shift us toward avoidance. The slow path takes a longer, indirect route. It helps improve our performance not by focusing on the results themselves but by supporting the foundation that ultimately leads to better performance. It stokes the fire of enjoyment and interest to sustain our curiosity and work ethic over the long haul. It pushes us toward challenge-seeking so that when we inevitably hit a roadblock, we’ll take it on instead of trying to protect our ego. Both approaches work. One is more sustainable, providing success with less angst. Society has thrown us so far out of balance that we can’t even see the slow route right in front of us. We can either instill a love of sport in our youth, or we can turn sport into a burden where kids are exhausted, stressed, and scared. We’ve seen this go both ways, and the results couldn’t be more different. One leads to happy, healthy, and better young athletes. The other leads to burnout, family tension, mental health challenges, and quitting. As parents, volunteers, coaches, and community members, let’s all do what we can to minimize the latter and champion the former. -Steve

@DJColdCutz_ @ZebMic @FixingEducation

@JDSmith343 @ZebMic @FixingEducation I remember when my wife started work, their performance reviews were number graded. All the top performers were happy with that, but the low performers were offended getting rated low. Company ended up moving to silly labels.

Actual Conversation… TEACHER: So, if the student didn’t attempt the assignment at all, I have to give them a 50% because a ZERO is too difficult to get out of? ADMIN: Yes TEACHER: Okay, what if a student did try, but earned a 50%. What grade should they get? ADMIN: 50% 🤡🙄

@ZebMic @FixingEducation Don't assign silly labels. Everyone understands a 4 point scale. Each grade is a 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0. Then you average. A 3.6 or 2.4 or 4.0 are understood and not arbitrary. No more having to determine the difference between that 76 and 77.

@JDSmith343 @FixingEducation Some districts have 4 point scale: emerging, developing, proficient, extending. Emerging is still passing, more than 50%, though the student is 3 grades behind... Parents don't understand and think their kid is "emerging", aka ok, ish.

@dukefansince90 @SethDavisHoops @fatbaldguyracin The rules allow you to lift the pivot foot. You just can't bring it back down.

@SethDavisHoops @fatbaldguyracin He lifted the pivot foot. You can tell it's the pivot foot, because he is pivoting on it. He then lifts it off the floor. Am I in crazy world?

This non travel call is killing basketball, YOU CANT CHANGE pivot feet. For 200 yrs in basketball this is a WALK , but lately the refs have decides you can just take another step. It is happening every night in CBB and its never called anymore. Its a freaky travel.

@corkypeek17 @rpeterson2317 @SethDavisHoops @fatbaldguyracin He lifted the pivot foot and stepped through. That's it. He didn't pivot on 2 separate feet.

@rpeterson2317 @SethDavisHoops @fatbaldguyracin SMH.

@theclintonm @SethDavisHoops @fatbaldguyracin Not a good take. With this logic, a jump shot would be illegal because the pivot foot lifts. A lay-up? Illegal. A jump pass? Illegal. You can lift the pivot foot. A travel is lifting it and then putting it back down without dribbling.

@SethDavisHoops @fatbaldguyracin he did lift the pivot foot which is a travel, once the pivot foot is established, which it clearly was, it cannot leave the floor. He established it, he lifted it, he travelled.