One Great Game Can Do Wonders for a Young Player’s Confidence
In the week prior to the AAU extravaganza in Las Vegas, Alex’s team played in a smaller event in Southern California. During one of the camp games, his teammate and one of his closest friends had a career game - if that can be said of a 17-year-old.
During this session, our guys were on different teams, so Alex got a chance to watch his buddy put on an offensive show. Although a good shooter, in this particular game, the youngster went off! He had 26 at halftime and wound up with 39 for the game - including eleven 3’s! Possibly the best part of the story was that his performance happened to come at a game that the University of Washington’s head coach, Lorenzo Romar, was in attendance. If he wasn’t known before the game, Alex’s running mate sure opened some eyes that night.
I had left the event at the conclusion of the tournament (this was a camp at the same site) but our older son, Andy, had driven up from Orange County (he’ll be a senior at UC-Irvine next year) where he has a summer job. This meant I got dual accounts of this phenomenal performance.
What I found most remarkable was that, when the team got to Vegas, this kid (as nice a young man as you’ll ever meet, with two of the greatest parents) had morphed into a completely different player. His confidence level had skyrocketed. He started looking for his shot. Not that he was timid before his breakout game, but he now played the game like he owned it. Â
He was always a solid contributor (he and Alex have played on the same AAU team for 4-5 years), but was never considered the “go-to guy.” He was now! As the games came and went, he looked to be more assertive. There’s no question in my mind that the game in which he went for 39 changed his outlook on his capabilities.Â
Kids, even at this level, are confident but often, it’s a false bravado. They’ve been told by their coaches, parents, brothers or others in their camp how good they are and then they go out to try to prove it. But when a player actually does it - when he has a game that he’ll never forget - it often inserts a shot of true confidence because, as Satchel Paige once said:
“It ain’t braggin’ if you kin do it.”  Â