Maya Moore, Practice and Success
Posted by Brian McCormick on November 20, 2008
The Sports Illustrated college basketball preview featured an article describing Maya Moore’s work ethic and competitiveness. While a great talent with skills, length and size, her teammates coaches and TV analysts credited her competitiveness and work ethic.
“Maya wants to be the best at everything, and I mean everything,” says junior center Tina Charles.
We spend so much time glorifying shooting ability or defensive quickness, yet, inevitably, the best players are always the most competitive and the hardest workers. Depaul University Head Coach Doug Bruno compares Moore’s competitiveness to Michael Jordan’s, but it’s her effort which draws more attention.
“We talk about shooters being in the zone, but her work ethic is in the zone,” says TV analyst Debbie Antonelli. “I’ve never said that about another player except Tamika Catchings. [About] how many players can you say: They never take a play off?”
UConn assistant coach Shea Ralph assigned each guard a certain number of shot to take in the preseason.
“At the end of the first week she received a text from Moore breaking down her shots taken and percentages made from seven feet, 15-feet and three-point line and off the dribble. ‘It said, my goal, without defense, is this percentage,’ says Ralph. ‘I only asked her to take shots. But that’s the kind of kid she is; she wants to see improvement.’”
I don’t see anything noteworthy here. To me, this is what every player who wants to be great should do. I don’t understand just shooting a certain number of shots. Just shooting does not make you better. And, shooting without tracking results is meaningless – practicing without a goal is just exercising. I designed the 180 Shooter program for players like Moore who want to be great, who keep track of their shots and who want to measure their improvement over time to meet their self-imposed goals.
Unfortunately, as people have emailed since I developed the 180 Shooter program, few players track their practice shots, set goals or measure their improvement. Instead, players want to be great without all the effort involved in getting there. They need a personal shooting coach to motivate them to practice.
The great players are competitive – they want to know their results, they have to know where they stand. And, they work hard. They crave success and enjoy the process of reaching their goals. Consequently, with their competitiveness and work ethic, they improve, develop their skills and become great players who make the game look easy, so those on the outside attribute their success to their natural-born skills and talents. But, that’s almost never the case: successful people outwork the competition to become successful. As Magic Johnson said, “Almost without exception, the best players are the hardest workers.”
