Wendel Abel
THE RECENT performance of the West Indies team in the match with South Africa has raised a number of issues about the future of cricket and sports in general in Jamaica and in the West Indies.
Among the lessons we have learned is that the team clearly has the talent and ability. It is clear that without some of the best players we have a team that is able to perform well. This highlights some of the challenges facing sports in the region.
1. More than talent: Jamaica and the Caribbean have a lot of talented sportsmen and women but in today's competitive sporting environment we cannot win on talent alone.
2. Strategy is important: Any competitive activity including sports will demand that managers, selectors, coaches and players are strategic in their responses. Many a game is won with clearly executed and developed strategy.
3. Performance enhancement: A new field has emerged in sports. This enables the individual athlete, cricketer, footballer, netballer or swimmer to enhance his or her performance by dealing with how individuals think, behave and their general attitude to life and to each other.
4. Success and fame: Every sportsperson aspires to succeed. Unfortunately, many persons are not prepared to deal with the success, the media, the cameras and the fans. They are expected to behave in a particular manner and they must be prepared to handle the attention and the adulation. Many persons self-destruct because they fail to deal with these.
5. Financial success: Sports have become a big business. With success comes lucrative contracts and great endorsement. Individuals coming from humble backgrounds must be prepared to deal with the money and all the material things that money will buy such as cars and clothes. Failure to do this has resulted in the demise of many, and many persons end their sporting career in poverty.
6. Dealing with personality disorder: As in the general population, sportspersons have personality disorders. Common personality disorders include histrionic personality, narcissistic personality and obsessive-compulsive personality. The histrionic individual is the one who screams, throws tantrums and is highly emotional; the narcissistic individual is selfish, he has a constant need for attention (the prima donna) and the obsessive-compulsive is preoccupied with orderliness, perfection and must always be in control. These individuals are very difficult to work with and their behaviours are difficult to manage. Selectors, coaches and team leaders must be able to recognise these personality types. Failure to recognise and manage personality types will prevent the individual to reach full potential and this will destroy the morale of the team.
7. Sports psychology: In today's modern competitive sporting environment attention must be placed on the psychology of the sports. In the Caribbean we have taken a lot of things for granted and have not invested sufficiently in this area. The days of winning talent alone are gone. The world and our competitors are investing enormous resources in developing in sports psychology. We need to invest more in our individual in sports and pay more attention to human emotion, motivation and behaviour. By so doing we will be better able to harness and coach the individual and collective talent, create better team harmony and performance, better formulate strategy to get the best out of our players, beat our competitors and continue to win the game.
We must now, at all levels, in all sports in Jamaica and the Caribbean pay greater attention to psychology in sports and introduce more systems to enhance the performance of our sportsmen and women.
Dr. Wendel Abel is a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.
