Sports Connection

NBA Star Dorell Wright’s Dream was Baseball, not Basketball

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 19: Dorell Wright ...

Basketball’s Golden State Warrior forward Dorell Wright from south LA didn’t originally play, or even like basketball until late in high school. His interests laid in baseball, and he even moved from Washington High School to Leuzinger for the great ball program there.

He planned to go to the big leagues, but in 9th and 10th grades he couldn’t play because his grades fell. He lost the privilege of being on the team, though he never lost the desire to play.

Then in 11th grade Wright met a basketball coach who casually approached him about his joining the basketball team and asked him to come to practice. He did, and that got Wright hooked bad enough to switch his athletic desires and he joined the basketball team.

Baseball was Work; Basketball was Fun

He still graduated from Leuzinger and even took a year in a Connecticut prep school after graduation, but he found he could kill the whole floor in basketball and liked it.

He grew up around gangs but he had good parents who kept him too busy to get into trouble. If he wasn’t in a sport he was doing something else, but his mouth did cause him a lot of grief. Admittedly, he had an attitude with anyone who tried to tell him what to do.

Later he figured out that if he kept his mouth polite, he could always play the game and not have to sit on the bench. Since that’s what he was there to do, he conformed.

Everyone knows the rest. He’s a household name for Golden State Warrior fans.

Filed Under: Baseball, Basketball Tagged With: Basketball, Connecticut, Dorell Wright

How to practice chess

World Chess Championship 2008. News conference...

Image via Wikipedia

In the good old days, the world had brilliant chess players. They did not rely on the computer like modern day players. Yet, they were sophisticated in their moves, and could beat modern day chess players. So how did they practice?

Grandmaster of yore could not possibly get other grandmaster to play them for practice matches. And playing amateur players would do no good to increase the skills of grandmasters. There were not computer chess programs too. Yet, these guys were brilliant.

Chess is mental torture, as Gary Kasparov put it. It is a sport where the heart backs the mind, unlike other sport, where the mind backs the heart. There is everything in chess. Strategy, aggression, deceit, revenge, comebacks, victory, and defeat.

To start practicing chess, you need to at-least play two games a week. Play the longer version of the game, before attempting to play rapid chess. – which is the shorter version. Join a chess club. Play against members of the chess club in your free time.

Practice your moves against a good chess computer program. Do not depend on chess computer programs totally. They lack the power to deceive you, like humans do. Most chess programs make straightforward best moves, based on calculations that run into thousands of moves. But they cannot trick you, like how you can trick them into defeat.

Read a lot of chess books. Understand how great players thought and acted. Derive inspiration from these books. Do not think that reading about chess is an act of mediocrity. Even great players like Gary Kasparov, and Vishwanathan Anand are ardent students of the game.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: Chess, Garry Kasparov, Grandmaster

Your Clothes Make Your Performance

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Far too many athletes underestimate the power their training outfits have over their ultimate performance in competition. While you might not be going to the Olympics when the time comes, when you represent yourself you need to be at your best. Part of being at your best involves performing in the kind of clothes that will help you instead of hindering you. You don’t need to be the pinnacle of fashion, but you can still look good while you train.

Take Nike clothes, for instance. There’s a reason Nike was named for the goddess of victory. When you wear a good, breathable outfit when you work out, you don’t have to worry about being bogged down by something heavy and stifling. Your outfit needs to feel like an extension of your body if you’re going to be successful while you’re wearing it. Otherwise, you’ll experience a bad time when you’re on the field. You don’t want to become a cliche about how the clothes make the man. If your clothes allow you to keep cool when you’re working out, you’re on the right track.

Just like your shoes, your entire outfit needs to be able to keep up with your natural ability level and your drive to outperform. Being able to promise the Moon doesn’t mean an outfit can perform up to your needs. So don’t accept any outfit’s marketing blindly. Always try it on before you buy, and never buy more than a couple of untested workout outfits at a time. When it comes to wearing the right type of clothes when you train, don’t settle for half-hearted gear.

Filed Under: Equipment

Choosing the Right Equipment

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When you’re participating in sports, having access to the right equipment is essential. Not only should you have high quality equipment from a brand name that you can trust, but you should also have equipment that is in good shape so that nothing breaks down or causes harm during play. You can take after the professional sports teams here, because they clearly take their equipment needs seriously. You will never see the Padres playing with a worn down bat, or a cracked helmet. The game balls are always brand new and in excellent condition, and only top brand name products are used.

Choosing the Right Sports Gear

When you are playing a sport, make sure to shop around and consider what your options are prior to making a purchase. This is going to allow you to see what types of gear are available, from your bats and balls to your jerseys, helmets, knee pads and shoes. The right gear really can go a long way in ensuring that you enjoy the game, and that you play it safely with a lesser risk of becoming injured. Take having the right gear seriously and it will surely pay off. A little bit of planning and preparation surely goes a long way when you show up at the baseball field with gear you can count on.

If you are a team coach or responsible for gear for a baseball team, make sure that you are acquiring the best for your team so that there are no issues along the way. Better gear will last longer and stand up to the test of time better than lower quality gear.

Filed Under: Baseball Tagged With: Baseball, Gear, Padres

Coaching & Training – An Art Without Replication

The best teams in the world no matter which game they play, always have a good coach. It is generally seen that the way a team performs is the extension of the training of the coach. Coaching is a very huge task and it cannot be taken easily and for granted. The coach is the heart of every team. All the events that occur throughout the match are the things which have been planned by the coach well in advance.

Coaches play a vital role in uniting the team together and there is no better person in the world who understands the team better than the coach. The team’s performance also depends on the way a coach coaches them. Coaching is not a child’s play and the coach has to know all the bright as well as the weak areas of all the players and he knows well about which players to use for specific games. A team that is without a coach doesn’t perform to the level as expected as there is no one to guide it.

Coaching takes a lot of homework which is being done by the coaches and his support team. His support team could consist of counselors, physiotherapist, psychologist and medics. For example the ‘Manchester United’ team has got Sir Alex Fergusson as the esteemed coach and for so many years he has been looking after the team with the right combination of players for different games thus making him one of the most sought after coaches. Actually every coach has his trade mark and he tries to get the team to gel together and perform as a unit.

Filed Under: Sports, Training Tagged With: Alex Fergusson, Coaching, Manchester United F.C.

Training : A Positive Approach Towards Victory

All sportsmen who are at the top of the world have one thing in common and that is proper training. It takes a lot of hard work and preparation to perform at the top level and come out in bright colors. As they say ‘No Pain No Gain’ which means without hard work we can’t taste the fruits of success.

In this world there isn’t one person who can say that he is a born sportsman. Every person has the capability to be a world class sportsman; the point is that he has to apply himself in the right sport at the right time. Age factor also has an important factor in the performance of a sportsman. For example you will find a huge difference in the way a forty year old person plays football and an eighteen year old boy. This is because the human body reacts to the physical requirements as per age. Therefore training from a very young age helps you reach to the highest level and that to at a very young age and once that is achieved you can continue to stay there with proper practice as you have the age advantage by your side.

Performance at the higher level is very much required as there is a huge amount of competition at that level. In the present scenario with more and more families thinking liberally and more and more corporate companies ready to extend their hand in sponsorship, it difficult to remain at the top for a long duration. Hence consistency in performance is expected by everybody and in order to perform consistent an athlete has to undergo proper training.

Filed Under: Sports, Training Tagged With: Education and Training, Performance, Sportsperson

Sports That Children Should Play

There are a number of sports that you can make your kid play. For instance take a look at games like football and cricket. They are more of group activity so going to them would be preferable. They will make your kid learn things like communication with the group and making perfect choice and stability in life while he is in trouble.

Still within the group games make sure to choose a game which has in itself a lot of exercise. Take for instance badminton. This is a game where your kid needs to run a lot. You can obviously go for football as also you can go for hockey. They are games where your kid will be with a team and learn the value of groups. The more he will be communicating within the group the more he will be happy and learn to stay with all. This is an age of networking he will learn how to make networking from the early ages from his field only with these sports.

Other than this the health of kid also plays a very important role in choosing the type of game your kid can enjoy. For a stronger kid football can be option. For weaker kid obviously something like a game of swimming can be good to make him go stronger. If your kid is suffering from something like asthma you must always consult a doctor before going for any sports. There are some general sports for every kid which every kid should perform. They are like bicycling, running, jumping, thronging ball, swimming and indoor games. Chess is obviously sports that can make your kid learn many a thing in life.

Filed Under: Football, Sports Tagged With: Association football, Game, Sport

Advantages Of Sports In The Life Of Kids

There is much kind of advantages if your kid is into sports, like he can be into exercising regularly. He will be able to make out the journeys of a life time if he is playing in the child hood. A game like football, badminton or tennis makes them get proper exercise. Even cycling can be of great exercise for your kid.

The game or sports make them aware of the team spirits. A game like football cannot be played alone and playing together with other will make them make a goal that they were aiming through 90 minutes of their game. The spirit is a proper training of the game and can be attained properly. The team spirit comes into action later on in his or her life.
The next advantages of sports for your kid are that they become very much communicative with their team members as also with others. Take for instance we the people are mostly in nuclear family and as a result our babies live a very shy life. They are very much into their own life’s talks very less with others. This problem can be really overcome with the help of sports. They will be with their same age groups and slowly learn to communicate with everyone in the team.
The importance of working hard for achieving what they are aiming at is the main aim of sports. In any game to make the opponent be the looser and own team to win you needs to work hard and this makes them aware of the fact that you need to really work hard to achieve success in life.

The more you play and the more you learn the techniques of winning the more you come across the idea that you will be happy to get in touch with yourself esteemed.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: Game, Sport, Team Spirit

Proper Training & Coaching For Success

Coaching is the ways of playing being known to you by your mentor to make you achieve success in the game that you are in to. Coaching is the way sharpening your skills and making you achieve success in your sports career. The life of a sports person is full of fun joy and excitement and we have dreamt that career for our child for years and hence the requirement is of a good coach. Often we stuck to the basics. We give everything required for them game and do not give the proper coach and later on blame our kid for not getting that desired success.

The duty of a coach is to make a kid aware of his responsibilities in the field of sports and make him learn the technicalities in a super fine way. We often do mistake by choosing the x- good player to be a good coach. The way should have been to take care of your child and make him get the sportsman spirit properly. The more you can make him inherit that the more he will be eager to play the game.

The value of a coach is to make him get disciplined in the field of the game he is. The more and more disciplined your kid would be the more success he will be getting in the field. So for sure that the coaching he is getting is making him aware of the discipline of the game he is into. This will make him a better player. Another most important part of coaching is that the kid must be regular. It is also a part of discipline. The more one is disciplined the more he learns about the success of his life and attains success in the career also. This way only he will be able to make out a good career.

Filed Under: Sports, Training Tagged With: Alternative, Coaching, Sportsperson

Indoor Baseball Drills

Winter means an end to baseball practice and drills, at least in many parts of the country. When it’s cold and miserable outside, rest assured that there are a few things you can do from the comfort of your own home to keep in great baseball shape. Indoor gyms and batting cages can be expensive, but with a few minutes each day you can keep your skills sharp.

1. Place a hand towel in your lead hitting hand. Rest it on the back of your shoulder and while in a hitting stance, snap the towel as fast as you can with a proper back pivot. Repeat this during commercials to keep your hitting arm in shape.

2. Put a baseball into your glove and practice quickly removing it with the proper four seam grip on the ball. Do this as quickly as you can.

3. Lie on your back on the floor or on your knees if you have a high ceiling. Toss a ball up into the air with a backspin rotation then catch it again without moving to catch it.

4. Sit on your knees with a pillow in front of them. Have somebody roll a ground ball toward you. Reach out to catch the ball focusing on bringing the ball to your hip on your throwing side maintaining the proper grip. Ground balls rolled to either side can help you work on your backhand and forehand plays.

5. Stand with your hands on your hips in the hitting position. Rotate your hips as quickly as possible. Your eyes should shift back to watch your elbow move forward.

These drills will help you keep your skills sharp and ready long before spring practices begin. Practicing each of these a few time each day during television commercials or before bed is a great way to also keep in shape.

Filed Under: Baseball, Sports Tagged With: Baseball, Baseball field, Sports

Sports Connections

NBA Star Dorell Wright’s Dream was Baseball, not Basketball

How to practice chess

Your Clothes Make Your Performance

Choosing the Right Equipment

Coaching & Training – An Art Without Replication

Training : A Positive Approach Towards Victory

Sports That Children Should Play

Advantages Of Sports In The Life Of Kids

Proper Training & Coaching For Success

Indoor Baseball Drills

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