Sports Psychology Commentary – A Warm Palm Beach Evening in Late July, 2011 – By John F Murray – In writing “The Mental Performance Index: Ranking the Best Teams in Super Bowl History” I really feel that I hit on multiple dimensions of the athletic experience and the role of mental skills, mental training, sports psychology, and its overall relationship with football coaches, teams, and fans. The book probably doesn’t fit neatly into any one category, so I will be blogging over the coming weeks about the various areas it covers and questions it answers. It is an autobiography of sorts in the first 90 or 100 pages, and I would like to think that it is a book of inspiration, discovery, and social change too.
Ordinarily, a book like this might appear to be biting off more than it can chew and not deep enough. I do not believe this is the case here. It’s just that the topics lend themselves to many applications and there has been negligence in this area for so long that a lot had to be said. Everyone so far who has given feedback on amazon.com or told me directly has expressed great admiration for this book, saying that it flows well, is practical as well as deep, and that it is long overdue. Of course there will be critics, and that is fine, but the consensus so far is uplifting!
The coming blogs will be titled “Dimension I,” Dimension II etc… to separate the topics. There will be a total of 24 separate blogs after this one, each covering a different aspect of what this book is all about. I hope you enjoy this 25 part series of blogs from the world of sports psychology.