The Fragility of Confidence

Labor Day weekend, I played in the Romeo Peach Festival Tennis Tournament. My entry was a last minute decision. I have spent the summer playing tennis and neglecting my Mark and although I haven't heard even the slightest hint of a complaint from him, I really did not want to abandon him the entire four day holiday weekend. But when I read the entry form and realized the entire draw was to be played out on one day, I decided to go for it.

Although the tournament was just for fun, a traditional event in the Labor Day activities scheduled, I desperately needed to play and play well. Not for points, but for the much needed repair of my much damaged tennis ego.

Two days after I returned from the Saint Joseph's Open, Mark and I hit the courts. This was the summer I was going to teach him to play, but because of my busy schedule and a foot injury he incurred the first time we went out in May, the lessons were going slow, to say the least. We spent some time on the court with me becoming frustrated at my inability to teach him the difference between a home-run swing and a proper forehand. (Or any forehand where his ball would land in the fenced area of the tennis court.) We took a break and I tried a different approach; having Mark drop the ball with one hand and swinging through with the other hand. After a few tries, he got it. Completely! I was so impressed. We finished out a hopper of balls and then tried once again to rally. Never have I felt so conflicted; so proud of him, on one hand for the consistency of his forehands, which were complete with spin and depth, yet, so completely devastated by the fact, I was the one who could not keep more than a couple of balls in play.

There are times, as a player, you think about quitting. For me, my mind usually knows that I am better than the poor performance of an isolated match. My mind knows that it is not possible to win every single time you step onto a court or to be able to execute a game plan perfectly every time you opt to use it. But sometimes, despite a summer season of remarkable success, my heart doubts the logic of my mind, "Maybe you aren't as good as your thought. Maybe you suck. Maybe 32 wins in one season was a fluke."

I watch players on television from all sports, thump their chest when they do the unthinkable, the unbelievable.

And I understand.

Success on the court, on the field, on the ice, isn't always about what your mind knows. Or what you've practiced doing thousands of times. It isn't what people expect of you or even what you expect of yourself.

Success, many times, depends on the confidence located in your heart.

Its easy to watch our favorite athletes and criticize. "Hossa didn't try hard enough to score a goal.", "If Granderson really wanted to, he could hit better.", "Detroit Pistons...What the hell?" Perhaps, this is because in our heads, in our minds, we comprehend the abilities of our sport heroes. We logically understand, that though every time we swing a bat, the best we ever do is push the ball past Fat Joe, whose pre-game meal consisted of the three brats he grabbed from the concession stand on his way to right field, the place for every team's 'Fat Joe' to minimize the damage. We understand in our minds that if we were ever in a pinch and needed to grab Jim's grandma to have her pinch hit, that she, too, with eighty-seven year old arms and her glaucoma in both eyes could bat a ball past Fat Joe.

What we don't understand, the factor that we fail to account for, is the fragility of confidence. Marian Hossa, a brilliant player who gave Red Wing fans fits in the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals, failed to return the favor to his former team in 2009. And during most of the finals, you could see the doubt in his eyes. Despite what his mind told him, what his stats told him, his damaged confidence made him question his abilities.

From time to time, this happens to all of us. And I question how to get through it. This time, I chose to play a tournament for fun, to see how much tennis I could play in one day. Testing my endurance, the limits of my fitness is always fulfilling to me.

So, on Sunday, I played three matches over the course of six and a half hours with less than thirty minutes rest total. I played a three-set match against a woman, who on paper, is a better player than me. And I prevailed. And for my last match, a two hour marathon during which I could feel the cramps nipping at my heels, I played through fatigue and hunger. I played through twenty-shot rallies, scrambling from side to side. Some of these points I won and some I lost. But with every won point, I could feel the barometer of my confidence meter rising. The familiarity of shots came back to me. My serve, always a big weapon for me, had taken a hiatus during the month of August, but out of the blue, when I wasn't even looking for it, returned.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted, but my confidence was back...

For now...

Stay tuned...