Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Being Too Competitive

Competitiveness must be focused exclusively on the process of what you are doing rather than the result of that effort (the so-called winning or losing). Otherwise you may lose self-control and become tight emotionally, mentally, and physically. I think someone who is too competitive as an individual is overly worried about the final score.

Therefore, I never mentioned winning or victory to my players. I never referred to “beating” an opponent.

Instead I constantly urged them to strive for the self-satisfaction that always comes from knowing you did the best you could to become the best of which you are capable. That’s what I wanted: the total effort. That was the measurement I used, never the final score.