One of the more under-appreciated elements of sports, because it's a psychological part we can all relate to, is the meltdown.
I don't mean the the bad-tempered brand of meltdown, like Ryan Leaf going off an a reporter. I mean anti-momentum. Where at some point in the game, usually because of a very specific event, one athlete or team completely loses the plot. I'm not talking about choke jobs, but something more sustained.
The main reason meltdowns are under-appreciated is because they are usually represented by the more positive angle — in 1993 when the Bills beat the Oilers 41-38 after being down 35-3 in the second half, we don't refer to it as the worst meltdown of all-time, but the greatest comeback of all-time. The only person or event I can think of that is framed in the negative is Jana Novotna.
Remember her? Czech Tennis player? 1993 Wimbledon Final? I'll let Wikipedia tell it:
"Novotna took a 6-7, 6-1, 4-1, 40-15 lead. With victory seemingly in her grasp, she lost her nerve and began missing easy shots, sometimes hitting the ball out by wide margins (including an infamous overhead smash that hit the back tarp). Graf took the next five games and the title. During the prize presentation ceremony, a distraught Novotna burst into tears and cried on the Duchess of Kent's shoulder."
In the space of eight days, however, I have been lucky enough to witness to excruciating sports meltdowns with an obvious trigger.
First was yesterday, at the Toulon U-23 soccer tournament, held annually in France. The hosts have won this tournament the last four years, and for their first match in this edition, France faced Chile. While it's never a good idea to underestimate a South American side in soccer, the drop-off is pretty considerable after Brazil and Argentina ... at least in comparison to the the European heavies, like, well, France, at home, looking for a five-peat.
For the first half and the beginning of the second, the match went as you might expect ... two quick goals by France, and a third after Chile got one back. Then, in the 54th minute, one of the French midfielders made such a poor, dangerous, studs-up tackle that the result was an unsurprising red card. Chile was able to parlay the ensuing set piece into a goal that cut the lead to 3-2.
If you fell asleep and woke up at full-time 40 minutes later, you would scarcely believe the score-line. Chile ended up putting five past the French for the 5-3 victory.
Talk about anti-momentum. Watching, I didn't get the impression France couldn't score. I did get the impression that when Chile maintained possession, the only thing that could stop them from scoring is if they failed to execute. France was taken off-guard by the send-off, and on top of being unprepared to face the challenge of playing a man down, became entirely afraid to play defense. The match should be recorded and shown in all Sports Psychology 101 classes.
They can play it along with a tape of something that happened Tuesday the 13th. I was home from work that morning, and the only live sport available to me was the Hamburg Masters of Tennis. The Center Court match when I tuned in was native son and underdog Philipp Kohlschreiber against top 20 player Tommy Robredo. The announcers mused that Kohlschreiber's only shot of winning would come if he could parlay the crowd and the home-court advantage the fullest.
The likable kid Kohlschreiber did indeed win the first set, capturing the imagination of the crowd, the announcers ("He's just doing everything right") and me. His momentum continued in the second set, where he won a break point to go up 4-2 after Robredo hit a shot called long down 40-30 (which Tennis Channel technology confirmed).
But the chair umpire wasn't so sure. He walked over to the marking (it was clay), declared the ball in, and awarded the point to Robredo. Deuce.
What happened next made me extremely pleased that they mic the chair umpires.
"No!," protested Kohlschreiber, who was sure the umpire looked at the wrong mark. The umpire ambled back over and, surprisingly, decided Kohlschreiber was right, and awarded him the point and therefore the break. Now it's Robredo who will need to cope.
The umpire walked over to the net and said something like, "Tommy, I'm sorry. I got the wrong mark. It was out. I am awarding the point to Philipp. I made a mistake, it was my fault, and I apologize. But the ball was out.
Robredo took the decision calmly in terms of demeanor but not in terms of action. "You called it in, it's in. That's the end of it. You call it in, it's in." "But I made a mistake." "Doesn't matter. You called it in, it's in." Ultimately, they had to call in some sort of officiating judge, who joined the summit at the net. We could hear as the umpire accurately explained the situation.
Surprisingly (to me, I am not up on tennis rules nuances), the judge sided with Robredo, saying you can't reverse a call on player appeal. Robredo was again awarded the point.
A swirl of whistles emanated from the crowd when the decision was announced, and Kohlschreiber, not involved in the conference, once again had to head over and state his case. Which he did. "This wasn't a player appeal! The initial call was out. You reversed the initial call, I didn't."
"He's right," said the announcers, and the officiating judge was summoned a second time. Now both players, the ump, and the judge all tried to hammer out the right thing to do, and it was ultimately decided to replay the point. Which is a neutral decision on one level but on a more meaningful level favors Robredo. The delay lasted six and a half minutes.
Do I even need to tell you that Kohlschreiber lost the do-over point, lost the game, lost the set, and lost the match?
***
One of my favorite bloggers at the moment, Vegas Watch, points out that an online sportsbook has laid out a few prop bets regarding the upcoming Scripps National Spelling Bee.
VW seems surprised by this, but as a former speller myself, I can tell you that bees have an underside more seamy and corrupt than any other sport, and have for decades, thanks to gambling.
The bookies, pushers, and pimps started coming around the moment I started to show a little bit of spelling ability. I think my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Henning, tipped them off. I nailed "recognizance" one day in class, and the next thing I know, Mrs. H has a new necklace and I'm getting phone calls from people describing themselves as "agents" and asking questions like how many hours a night was I studying.
I tried to ignore them for awhile, but once you start going deep in city, state, and regional bees, there's no getting away from it. You just try and hang onto someone who seems slightly less slimy than the rest.
The sleaze-bag I latched myself onto was a quiet guy in an old, dirty leather jacket names Lester. Yeah, I threw bees for Lester. I'm not proud. But he took care of me. While he explained that there was nothing he could do to get Becky Turner to notice me (at least not in a genuine, non-coerced way), he could make me feel better about her not noticing me. And when Scott Brinkermeyer, the boy she had eyes for, turned up murdered, his body badly mutilated, I did feel better.
Other bribes we not so sensational but still pleasant ... money, video games, Now & Laters.
After awhile, you become inured to it. I would endorse dodgy dictionaries by fly-by-night publishers. Lester would try to protect me from rival spellers and their "associates" who would try to steal or vandalize my study guides.
I was jaded, but not hopeless. The turning point for me was when I witnessed one of my competitors take a hot iron to the face from his pusher for misspelling "couturiere" during a training session.
This sort of treatment, of course, is only acceptable from parents.
So I got out. Glad I did. Now I can't spell, I won't spell, I refuse to. And I'm trying to protect my own children from sliding down the same path. By refusing to teach them the alphabet.
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