Herb Brooks
Herbert Paul Brooks (August 5, 1937 – August 11, 2003) was an American ice hockey player and coach. His most notable and well-know achievement occurred in 1980 as head coach of the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic hockey team at Lake Placid. At the 1980 Olympic Games, Brooks' American team upset the strongly favored Soviet team in a match that came to be known as the "Miracle on Ice."
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Psychological test that Herb Brooks used to screen the players for the 1980 U.S. Olympics Hockey team
See also: Openness and Work ethic and Motivation and Anxiety
Alan Bass, a former writer for The Hockey News, wrote about the psychological test that Herb Brooks used to screen the players for the 1980 U.S. Hockey team:
| “ | It is well known that Brooks gave his players psychological tests before ultimately choosing his team for the 1980 Olympics. However, contrary to the movie Miracle, these tests were not just a tool to see who would take it and who wouldn’t. (In fact, a little known fact that contradicts the movie is that Jim Craig, who initially refused to take the test, was told that by not taking it, he flunked it. He answered all 300 questions by the end of that day to avoid any further humiliation from the coach). The test was an in-depth psychological assessment to determine each player’s level of openness (a key feature of our personalities), their willingness to work hard, and most likely other important sport psychology aspects such as levels of motivation, arousal, and cognitive anxiety.
These tests allowed Brooks to understand each of his players, how they thought, what irked them, and what motivated them to perform at their very best. This is why Brooks chose so many players from the University of Minnesota and Boston University for that 1980 team – he was familiar with them and knew that he would have a better chance of understanding these players whom he had histories with in the short amount of time he would have with the team. This, along with his brilliant hockey mind, allowed his team to achieve ultimate success.[1] |
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Coach Herb Brooks quotes
"You want to make sacrifices for the unknown."
"You can't be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon."
"Great moments are born from great opportunities."
"Risk something or forever sit with your dreams."
"My recruiting key -- I looked for PEOPLE first, athletes second. I wanted people with a sound value system as you cannot buy values. You're only as good as your values. I learned early on that you do not put greatness into people...but somehow try to pull it out."
"Success is won by those who believe in winning and then prepare for that moment. Many want to win, but how many prepare? That is the big difference. A sound value system held water then, holds water today, and will hold water in the future."
"What is courage? Let me tell you what I think it is. An indefinable quality that makes a man put out that extra something, when it seems there is nothing else to give. I dare you to be better than you are. I dare you to be a thoroughbred."
"You win with people, not with talent. So the quality of the people is very important in building your team. I always looked for people with a solid value system. Then I recruited kids from a cross-section of different personalities, talents and styles of play."
"Legs feed the wolf. "
"You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours."
"Let me start with issuing you a challenge: Be better than you are. Set a goal that seems unattainable, and when you reach that goal, set another one even higher."
"You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone."
"We need to look at what Europe is doing to get better and try to get better ourselves. We need to make some changes and that can only be good for the game. Tolstoy once said, 'Everybody wants to change the world, but they don't want to change themselves.' So we all have to change our thinking and focus on getting our kids better."
More Herb Brooks quotes
External links
- Herb Brooks Foundation
- Herb Brooks, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum
- Herb Brooks, Team USA
- What kind of personality did Herb Brooks have?, AI
- Herb Brooks’ 1980 “Miracle on Ice
Videos:
- Herb Brooks - video playlist, Video playlist
References
- ↑ The Hidden Side of Coaching by Alan Bass
