A Ten Year retrospective on Landon athletes and curiously on Patrick Mahomes

With the start of lacrosse season ten years ago, I began watching as many of the Landon teams as my schedule allowed. Over time, a recurring impression was formed. Yes, the Bears exhibited competitiveness, commitment to team, energy, fair play and sportsmanship. What slowly became apparent was the boys seemed more able to control the ball in one-on-one situations.

When there was a soccer or football or rugby or basketball or hockey or water polo scrum, an inordinate amount of times, the Landon players eventually took possession. In football or basketball or baseball or tennis or golf when an unexpected or odd bounce intervened, when the wind affected the trajectory of the ball or when the field caused the round object or prolate spheroid  not to adhere to a straight line, there was a Bear there before a Bulldog or Saint or Cadet or whatever opponent arrived.

Hand eye coordination training is not one of the elements of Marty Klingelhofer’s strength and condition programs. Mike McCormick and Cameron Danish do not apply an eye wash or a hand lotion that improves their charges performance.

After a while, uneducated hypothesis was formulated. As a history major and a lawyer, no legitimate insight could be claimed. It dawned on me that a talented soccer player was exposed to enough quirky movements and that repeated experience transferred to anticipating that a baseball might do the same. A golfer, having seen his drive move swayed erratically by a left-to-right wind, will have a better estimate how a pass might move through a fall breeze. A water polo player uses the parameters of a ball bounce off of the water might sense how a tennis ball might respond to a moist court. Hockey/lacrosse players excel at controlling a loose puck or rolling ball. But what do I know?

Then today the WaPo published a revealing article entitled, Patrick Mahomes became the NFL’s best quarterback by refusing to specialize in football. It chronicles how this All Pro, two-year QB has refined what is expected out of a position which has been the center of football for 100 years. The author

Sports science backs up what Mahomes feels instinctively. As a baseline, playing multiple sports allows an athlete to discover what he does best, according to David Epstein, the author of “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.” Had Mahomes chosen to specialize, it is likely he never would have become a quarterback — his father, Pat Mahomes Sr., was a major league relief pitcher, and Mahomes’s best early success came as a pitcher.

…..

 The selection process isn’t the only benefit of waiting. Epstein said that several studies have shown athletes who play multiple sports require less time to become elite in the game they ultimately choose.

“[This] seems particularly to be true for athletes who play multiple ‘attacking’ sports,” Epstein wrote in an email. “That is, anything that requires you to build anticipatory skills — the perceptual expertise that allows you to react faster than your reflexes would allow because you’re essentially seeing things unfold before they actually happen.”

This is not to say that the Patrick Mahomes path is the only way to excelling in sports, but it does affirm the notion that multi-sport athletes exhibit talents that are formed in one sport and applicable in others.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best parts of my ten-year retrospective—getting to see young, frequently unsure, men grow over their Landon athletic careers into strong, confident seniors who appreciate the lessons learned from their sport experiences.

Another observation, which has become clear over this decade, is that the term “dumb jock” is totally inapposite to these boys. Spend an afternoon at a team practice and you will become impressed with the learning which occurs. Many, many “if then” rules must not just be memorized but made part of their instantaneous responses to situations. Players cannot rely only on their Instincts; they must actively observe a set of identified cues, remember this process is not sitting at a desk, and respond in a prescribed manner. They are constantly being tested by an opponent or opponents; failure to react quickly hurts not just a single boy, but his brothers. Incorporating this complex set of  linear rules into their ability to think on their feet is a high level of education.

Whatever sport or sports or other endeavor your son chooses to pursue should please you very much. All of those practices and games are fun for the boys, but they are seriously an important part of their education and maturation.

Go Bears!!!

Sandy Murdock L’65, son of L’42 and father of L’88 and L’92 and writer of BearSportsNews.

Due to a Latin teacher, Mr. Clark, my dad did not graduate from Landon, but earned his L at Lawrenceville. Unlike my father I did pass the Latin course.