Basketball on the Edge – The Argument of the Growing Heap and Who Your Competition Really is

Published March 31, 2018 | By Mike Klinzing

_DR16212

Who is your competition? It seems like an obvious question with a simple answer. The competition is a teammate I am trying to start ahead of. The competition is my opponent that I am playing against. The competition is another player that is being recruited to the school where I want to play. There is always more competition out there that is ever increasing as you move up the basketball ladder, (youth-middle school-high school-college-professional). And yet, there is really only one competition that truly matters…the competition with yourself.

I have written before about when I first heard this concept back in junior high in the mid-80’s. In the book, Stuff Good Players Should Know, Dick DeVenzio talks about the need for players to focus on beating “You Yesterday”. The idea being that you are competing with yourself. Can you improve and be just a little bit better today than you were yesterday?

Here’s another great analogy to help you understand this concept of competing with yourself. It’s called “The argument of the growing heap.” When we think about competing with ourselves, we’re really talking about building practice habits, grit, and determination. That’s what it takes to get better at basketball. The argument goes like this. Each individual day of improvement is like a single coin. It’s easy to skip one workout, eat poorly once, or not get enough sleep on a given night. That’s only one coin. We don’t really miss that nickel or dime if we lose it. However, if we keep putting those nickels and dimes together, eventually we end up with a “growing heap” of coins (all the workouts and time put together) that can add up to significant improvement. The challenge is that it’s easy to lose one coin (skip one day), but when you do, the heap (your level of improvement) doesn’t grow. We tend to underestimate how big that “growing heap” can get if we just keep adding single coins every day. Adding that daily coin is what beating “You Yesterday” is all about.

How can competing with yourself rather than others make you better, make your experience in sports more fun, and ultimately lead to more “success”?

You won’t be rooting for others to fail.

I’ll be honest. This is a tough one for me. As an athlete I sometimes had a hard time wanting others to do well. In my mind, the failure of others somehow made me look better. I didn’t always like to see others get the credit. Thankfully, I was smart enough to keep these thoughts inside my head and not let them out, but they were definitely there. Even today, a thought like that will creep into my subconscious mind as a coach watching other coaches or teams have success. I’m not perfect when it comes to only competing with myself and you probably won’t be either, but being aware of our natural tendencies makes it easier to overcome them. The best want to measure themselves against others too, but the reality is that the more you can focus on your own (or your team’s) improvement the more you’ll be able to enjoy the game and celebrate, rather than denigrate the achievements of others. That’s what great players and coaches do, we lift others up along with us!

The circumstances don’t matter.

Teammates might have a bad game, coaches might run the wrong plays, referees might blow some calls, the opponents might play dirty, but none of that matters if the focus is on beating yourself. If you focus on your own improvement it will be easier to block out the distractions that you can’t control anyway. A selfish teammate that shoots every time they get the ball won’t send you into a tailspin knowing that what they do doesn’t impact the way you approach the game. By striving to get better, NO MATTER WHAT THE CIRCUMSTANCES, you’ll be adding to your “growing heap” of improvement.

You won’t burnout.

The reality of focusing on beating the competition is that there will always be someone out there that is better than you. No matter how good you are there is always someone better. Even when you are the best player in the world (like LeBron) there is always someone (the Warriors) to challenge and sometimes defeat you. If scoreboard results or statistics are all that matters to you, too often you’ll end up unhappy, especially as a young athlete. You are much better off focusing on the day by day process of beating “You Yesterday” and adding to your “growing heap”. Statistics say most kids stop playing sports by age 13 because they are burned out. Keep the focus on your own improvement and don’t let it happen to you.

You always know where you stand.

No one knows better than you what you are up against when it comes to competing with yourself. You can set goals. You can record your results. You can measure your progress. When you shift the focus of your improvement inward to the things that you can control you’ll enjoy the basketball experience more and most likely achieve more “traditional” success on the scoreboard too.
Make a commitment to try and compete more with yourself and less with others. Don’t throw away today’s “coin” thinking it doesn’t matter. Instead look at the “growing heap” of basketball skills that you are building day in and day out as you attempt to beat “You-Yesterday”