We love sports because it is happening now. At the present. The unpredictably is what thrills us. We envy the presence of mind of an athlete, because the present moment, being in the "now", is very rare and precious in real life -- most of us are never in it. Most of us live in the past, like ghosts.
Learn to react to the present moment, to let go of preconceived notions, cultural prejudices and wasteful habits, learn to tune out your own thoughts and listen to the person in front of you and you will not, as they say in sports, "choke" when an opportunity presents itself.
Detach the shackles of the past and you are free to react to the present, which is reality in its purest form. Living in reality will give you strength and vision beyond your wildest imagination. You will be reborn like Neo in "The Matrix".
THE LAST WAR
In 1999, the 49ers were aging, but they still had the greatest receiver of all time, Jerry Rice and a new star, Terrell Owens. They opened the season with a defeat to Jacksonville Jaguars, but won their next 3. Next, they would face their "get out of jail free card" team, the Rams.
To make things worse for the Rams, they lost their starting quarterback, Trent Green, to a rib injury in training camp. They were so desperate, the guy running their offense was working a grocery clerk for $5.50 an hour that very summer. His name was Kurtis Eugene Warner. Dick Vermeil had been coaxed out of retirement to run this dead franchise. He had been coaching for four decades and was considered washed up. All the 49ers had to do was show up to beat the grocery clerk and his grandfather.
Sure, the Rams had won their first 3 games. But they were by three weak opponents -- the Ravens, Falcons and Bengals. The Bengals were the sorriest team in the NFL. Even the Rams could smack them around.
The 49ers weren't worried. They still employed Bill Walsch's West Coast Offense. This brilliant system moved the ball forward through precision and short passing routes. If done correctly, it could not be stopped. Afterall, it had worked for two decades.
This system was so effective that their back up quarterback, Jeff Garcia, could run it (Steve Young had suffered a concussion in week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals).
Steve Mariucci, the 49ers coach, knew he could beat them with ease. Yes, the Rams had beaten their three opponents by an average of 28 points, but they looked wildly disorganized, like a track meet as a opposed to a football club. The 49ers would put the West Coast Offense on cruise control and walk away victorious.
When the game began, it took the Rams 7:18 to score their first touchdown. An 83 yard drive, capping a 13 yard TD pass from Warner to Isaac Bruce. It took Warner half the first quarter to march the field. Nothing special about that. Warner could not do that the entire game against the 49ers pass rush who would soon see through his strategy. The grocery clerk would make mistakes.
But 3 minutes 16 seconds later, Warner threw a 5 strike to Isaac Bruce. Half the time of the first TD. 14-0, Rams. No time to panic. The Rams were riding off their confidence of the first three wins against bad teams. Besides, three more quarters remained. The 49ers continued to employ their feared West Coast system to gain 3 pts (a field goal by Wade Richey). Score, 14-3.
The 49ers would inevitably climb back into the game. But before the first quarter even ended, something bizarre occurred. Warner passed for a third touchdown, a 45 yard arrow to Isaac Bruce, making the first quarter score 21-3. With three more quarters to go.
The Rams employed a five receiver set at all times. If the 49ers doubled on any one receiver, another was always left open. And if the defense blitzed Warner, he would dump it off to his quick footed running back Marshall Faulk, who could turn 5 yards into 20 in the open field, or slot receiver Az-Hakim who could turn 5 yards into 40. The Rams offense seemed to have no technique except to go full speed at all times. The 5 men ran like fugitives. They were blurs. But this was not how you played football with grown men. Mariucci did not think this amateur way could last. Afterall, it did not have the sophistication of the West Coast system. And perhaps Mariucci was right.
By the third quarter, the 49ers managed to whittle down the score to 28-20 by burning the clock and forcing Warner into a fumble. It appeared like the same results would occur. A 49ers victory. Afterall, they were only down 8 points now.
In truth, the Rams had merely fallen asleep and in fact had not yet used all their weapons. Tory Holt would return a punt for 97 yards and Kurt Warner would sling another 42 yard pass to put the game away by the beginning of the fourth quarter. Rams 42, 49ers 20.
Meanwhile, the once potent West Coast attack, the bread and butter of the 49ers, was rendered impotent and could not bring them back 22 points in one quarter. In fact, the offense would not produce a single more point. The Rams could have scored more points, but why expend the energy? Most of their starters sat around, drinking Gatorade, gazing constantly at the score board, chuckling with boredom.
Final score, Rams 42, 49ers 20.
The dynasty that was left of the once mighty San Francisco 49ers was nothing but debris after this game. They would win only more game the rest of the season, producing a 4-12 record, the identical record the Rams suffered the year before. This game would mark the official death of the 49ers dynasty. Steve Young would not play another game. Two years later, Steve Mariucci would be fired and Jeff Garcia would sign with Cleveland Browns.
INTERPRETATION
The reality facing the San Francisco 49ers in 1999 was simple, their team was old, they were applying formulas that worked in the past. You might find the 49ers an interesting part of sports history, but in fact you are likely applying your own version of the West Coast offense. What limits you is the inability to see reality. We are imaginative, and that is good, but we frequently use our imaginations to fool ourselves into believing a false reality. The reality you live in is likely not real but a figment of your habits and dried out imagination.
You won't know you're doing this until you face a Rams attack that humiliates you and forces you to realize how old and useless your strategies are -- and how far from reality you have travelled.
One of the most difficult things in sports is to repeat a championship. In football, it hasn't been done in six years. Think about this. If you win, your opponent will try ten times harder to beat you. Everyone will study the secrets to your success. As a result of success, you will soften because everyone will be kissing your ass and agreeing to everything you say. Your weaknesses will be exposed because you are under the microscope.
New England Patriots Coach Bill Bellichick insists on having a staff that always challenges him. He roots out yes men and forces all his coaches and players into critical arguments. He insists on disagreement. Bellichick knows it is unnatural for someone to be saying "yes" to you all the time, because they really aren't saying "yes". They're just playing to your growing vanity. Yet, most of us accept compliments and agreement like it's gold, like it means something in reality. It usually does not.
The pride of the 49ers past made them the laughingstock the Rams once were. The franchise spent almost two decades in recovery mode, firing one failed regime after another until Jim Harbaugh signed on.
KEYS TO ENGAGEMENT
Whenever you fail at grasping an opportunity, the thought that will enter your mind is... if only I had known more, I would have gotten that job or I would have gotten that girl's number, etc. If only I could do it over -- like George Constanza and his "jerk store" come back. But the info has nothing to do with why you didn't get the job or the digits. You failed because you were not in the moment, you were not sensitive to reality.The athletes we admire most are the ones who can deliver when it counts the most... Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods... as opposed to athletes that choke, such as Tony Romo or Donovan McNabb (who got tired and vomited during a crucial moment in his only Superbowl appearance).
Kobe, Wade, Brady, Tiger are always in the moment. They are not affected by the crowd, the pressure of losing, they are sensitive to their opponents and what it will take to defeat them. They know when to make an adjustment, an act of aggression, or a non-action as the opponent shoots itself in the foot. They are so deeply focused on the reality of their situation, they see nothing else. This is why we admire them. We are always chasing the present ourselves.
It can be valuable to analyze what went wrong in the past, but it is much more precious to learn to think in the moment. As Robert Greene states: "think of your mind like a river. The faster it flows, the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, preconceived notions, past success and failures are like mud and boulders".
When you were a kid, you would always come up with another creative strategy to attain that ice cream. Children's minds are always moving because everything is new to them. They learn to adapt on the fly. Like great athletes. Most of us have lost this ability through repeated success or failure. Success makes us lazy and failure makes us hesitant. Our habits have cyrogentically frozen into us like Han Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back". This is why relationships go sour. This is why careers end. This is why people grow bored with life. They are boring themselves to death.
The St.Louis Rams were the highest scoring team in NFL history. Nobody saw them coming. They were a human video game, gaining 20, 30, 50 yard chunks like children in adult bodies. The Rams treated the football field like an ice skating rink and would be nicknamed "The Greatest Show on Turf".
The '99 Rams were like a guerilla army. Guerilla armies never stop. They operate underground. They move with speed and not weight. The ground is like water to them. By the time teams figured out a way to adapt to the Rams, it was too late. They won the Superbowl by a single yard in a 23-16 battle against the Tennessee Titans. Kurt Warner, the ex-grocery clerk, would win the MVP award and return to the Superbowl two more times. His uncanny ability to read defenses and release the ball quickly would make him one of the best to ever play the game until his retirement in 2010.
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