In every game, almost without exception, an official makes a call that is contrary to a player’s or coach’s interpretation of what happened. It usually sounds something like:

Player/Coach: “Are you serious!? How can you make that call!?”

Official: “_”(i.e., a good official will not respond)

Putting aside the question of whether the official called the play correctly, we should wonder what the implications are of exchanges such as this.

A protest with an official following a “questionable” call establishes a confrontational dynamic between the player/coach and the official. The player or coach is now the victim, wrongfully disadvantaged, and the official is the authority figure, the apparently biased punisher. The immediate outcome of this dynamic? Well, much to the chagrin of the victim, the call will not be changed and on the flip side, the exchange awards the opposing team in two ways: First, they gain the benefit of the “wrong” call, and second, the victim’s concentration is turned to the past. This is the essense of the Victim Effect.

The longer that a player or coach - or the entire team, for that matter - remains focused on the past, the more difficult it becomes to play at full potential. This is because the self-victimized player, coach, or team has relinquished to an external factor (i.e., the official) responsibility for their performance. They have decided that they are no longer in control of winning, which, obviously, is untrue. When we think we might not win, though, this strategy is comforting, isn’t it?

It might seem odd that our mind uses this tactic, but everything our mind does has a purpose and the Victim Effect is no exception. When we lose a game that we wanted badly to win, for example, employing the Victim Effect enables us to disengage briefly from reality; it allows us to not take responsibility for something that we wanted so much, but which we thought we might not be able to get. So, after a bad loss, you feel awful. But wait, use the Victim Effect and it was never your fault! The explanation was that horrible call in the second half. Ahhh, the ego is safe! The downside, of course, is that at the end of the day, victims do not win games, conferences, and certainly not championships.

A good team plays in the now; great teams live in the now. The next time you see someone go after an official, just imagine them padding their ego in bubble wrap before shipping it off to the loss column.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.