Bo's Mental life Part 2

As an adolescent, Bo did have a fantasy and in his imagination and dreams, he was pitching in the seventh game of the World Series. In reality, Bo had an opportunity to become the hero for his high school baseball team. Bo was brought in as a relief pitcher with the bases-loaded in and all-important playoff game. Unfortunately, Bo gave up a hit that cleared the bases; his team lost; the team was knocked out of championship contention; and Bo never pitched again. Bo, in his psyche, let down his coach, teammates, school, self, and of course mother .In his conscience, he felt a tremendous amount of guilt and shame along with negative self-talk. Within one’s conscience and ego ideal, one’s sense of self gets established. That game loss resulted in being “bad” with tremendous behavioral consequences. It set up and reinforced the dreaded mechanism for fear of failure. Bo’s fear of failure was significantly reinforced again when he played in an all-important and the most physical high school football game of his life. Again, he experienced failure when his team lost that game 7-0. Bo cried after that heartbreaking loss. Those defeats and negative feelings were implanted in the memory of his conscience forever. Psycho dynamically, this was a narcissistic injury for Bo. Other heroes, identification figures, and ego idols for Schembechler included legends from Notre Dame Football like Knute Rockne-the Gipper, The Four Horsemen, and Elmer Layden. Bo wanted to be a star and play football for Notre Dame, but was not recruited. Instead, he was recruited by Sid Gilman from Miami of Ohio. Gilman was fired, and then replaced. Bo’s head coach became Woody Hayes. Once again, another major disappointment and the fear of failure was highlighted and reinforced in Bo’s psyche as he did not become a football hero for the fighting Irish. Bo, essentially learned from Woody Hayes about compensating for the fear of failure through practice and the endless repetition of do overs. Football, like other sports has the human element of making mistakes. Woody, in order to minimize mistakes and shoot for perfection or mastery, ran the same offensive play over and over. The same football repetition occurred when Bo took over as head coach for the University of Michigan. Further, Coach Schembechler had the players performing unorthodox and gut wrenching conditioning during the winter. Once again, one has to become stronger than his opponent and hope that it protects and is a defense against failure. To Be Continued