Young Athletes Should Park Their Egos & Embrace Teamwork
Syd Abernathy, a two-time All-American former Navy lacrosse player who was recently inducted into the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame, says young athletes should be “serving leaders” who check their ego at the door, embrace open mindsets and focus on being good teammates.
During his career, Abernathy’s biggest mental game challenge was playing with very talented players who weren’t team players, he told us during an interview with our Ultimate Sports Parent podcast.
Having talented players on a team has both advantages and disadvantages, he says. On the one hand, they’re great athletes. But on the other hand, they often focus too much on their own agendas.
“Sometimes it’s better to have enough people of less talent who are pushing the edge of their efficiency to come together because they have more room to grow,” he says.
“They can subjugate themselves to the team dynamic in a better way. That in a sense is how sometimes a less talented team beats a more talented team where the players are playing individually.”
Young athletes can become leaders by supporting the team from the bottom, rather than the top, he says.
“The serving leader is at the bottom of the organization supporting upward. They provide guidance and mentoring,” he says.
Lacrosse can be played in different ways. Players can have the ball in their stick and push the pace of the game based on their individual play, Abernathy says.
But the beauty of the game is when it’s played as a team. That’s when the ball moves to an open player. In fact, players gain points for assisting another player who scores.
“The serving leader tries to find that niche where they’re part of the game, part of the team, and allow for the team overall to perform at the highest level,” he says.
Young athletes should prepare themselves mentally to play to their strengths as members of the team. That means checking their egos at the door, says Abernathy.
It’s also important for players to have open mindsets, he says. That involves constantly evolving and learning and also observing the team’s group dynamics and understanding the team’s strengths.
If a team is playing the same way at the end of a season as it did at the beginning of the season, the members and the team haven’t grown, he says.
In general, playing lacrosse requires a lot of mental toughness. Players need the mental toughness to push themselves through the last quarter and take some hits.
“You need the mental toughness to know that you’re going to take some punishment,” says Abernathy. “The other portion of that is to recognize that the fourth quarter is really the time to excel.”
With the right mental toughness, lacrosse players can help their team and take pride in what they accomplish, says Abernathy.
“I took great pride in making sure that I had the competitive advantage and I was in good enough shape and mentally tough enough to prevail in the fourth quarter,” he says.
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