“Anger” is a powerful emotion which, when channeled properly can motivate and inspire us to do heroic things, perform at our best and even push us to do more than we ever thought possible. Sadly, especially in sports, anger is “mismanaged” and “unregulated” resulting in unpleasantness not only for the angry person but for all those exposed to him or her.
Since we all learn, to some extent by watching others and give extra attention to those who are famous or excel in sports, these “celebrities” can exert strong influence on our own reactions to adverse situation. Fortunately, we can use their occasional “bad displays” of behavior to take a different path when faced with similar circumstances and frustrations.
Recently, I was watching a tennis match between tennis legend and former world champion, John McEnroe. He was getting killed by an opponent and rather than give credit to the excellent play of his opponent or accept his own occasional lapses in performance, in typical McEnroe style, he would find fault with the calls, intimidate the lines people and even yell and scream at the chair umpire. Upon hitting a double fault (totally his own fault), he would then whack a ball into the stadium.
Such outrageous behavior is totally against the rules of the game and the umpire should have penalized him. McEnroe does this to try to pump himself up, distract his opponent, and intimidate the officials so he can perhaps get a favorable call or two later on. I believe some of it is just a conditioned reaction to his intolerance for others and his intensely self-critical nature.
As we watch this behavior unfold a good take away would be to feel sorry for McEnroe. How sad it must be to have such little control over his emotions and to go through life living at the edge of an explosion. How embarrassing it must be to his friends and family to see the whining, complaining and cry baby behaviors of a grown adult unfold in public before an audience of millions.
Whenever you witness this type of anger problem in someone, let it be a trigger for you to say to yourself, “That’s bad. I don’t want to ever behave that way.” “I’m in control of my emotions.” “I will find a better way to handle my frustrations and disappointments.”
In my role as a sports psychologist, I teach my clients these and other tools from cognitive therapy help them more effective “manage their emotions”, “tame their anger”
