My junior track season at Brown in 2001 was a breakthrough year in my career as a student-athlete. By the end of the year, I had improved from 15′ 3″ to 16′ 9″ and set a new school record in the pole vault. The excerpt from the article below written by Michael Jordan about Tiger Woods and coming through in the clutch hung on my wall during that season. I had no idea how relevant it would be over the next few years. It later would serve as the inspiration for my business school essay for Stanford asking “what matters most to you and why?”
…What it gets down to is confidence and pride. Confidence is based on having done it before. Tiger’s confidence is so high because of his work ethic and his past success. And he performs the way he does in the clutch today because he has such confidence. If he wants to hook it around the damn tree, he’ll do it. The rest of us don’t have that confidence, or that past success, so when we hook the stupid ball, it hits the tree…
…That’s why, if the game is tied in the last two minutes or down the stretch, I feel I have an advantage over everyone. Tiger feels the same way. But if you fail in the closing minutes, if you’re unable to make the big play, it can work against you in the future. The funny thing is, I don’t remember ever failing.
The shot I made to win the NBA Championship against the Jazz in 1998—the shot people think was my last one ever—is probably my best-known clutch moment. But the biggest shot I ever made, the one I always go back to, the one that started it all, was in the NCAA Finals in 1982. The game-winner against Georgetown. And the truth is, I didn’t realize the magnitude of taking it, because I’d never had the experience before.
You see, I’d never taken the big shot. High school? Shoot, my team never got out of the sectionals. I can’t remember any really big shots or big plays early in my career. None. The only thing that was close was in the 1981 McDonald’s All-American Game at Wichita State, when I think I made a late steal or a free throw to win. But I don’t put that on the same page with real clutch.
In that Georgetown game, I had no time to think. The play was designed for James Worthy, not me. We’d called time-out and Coach Smith said, “We’re going to try to get the ball into James. But James, if you can’t get it up, swing it around. Michael should have a wide-open shot.” I knew I was the second option, so it wasn’t as if the weight was on me. By the time the ball got to me, I just had to react. Maybe that helped.
If we’d had a different play set up, or if I’d thought about it in the time-out? I don’t know, maybe things would have turned out different. I imagine I would have tried to stay calm and say to myself, “Hey Mike, it’s not the end of life,” and hope for the best. I know that at really clutch times, some people try to con themselves into thinking none of it matters. But I also know that’s just a rationalization, because it does matter.
My whole NBA career I always thought back on 1982. I’m not saying you can’t be confident in the clutch if you’ve never made the big play before—obviously, I was already confident before that shot. But that one moment initiated so much. Every shot after that, I felt I could make. I responded so well in those situations because I had such positive thoughts. I thrived on last-second shots. It became a trait for me…
…What happens to clutch guys in the big moments is that everything slows down. You have time to evaluate the situation, and you can clearly see every move you need to make. You’re in the moment, in complete control. It’s hard to get there, something has to have you thinking that you can do no wrong. But once you do get there, you can just come out at the start of a game and generate the feeling.
-Michael Jordan, ESPN The Magazine 2001
By the end of that 2001 season, I had gone from happy-to-be-here to one of many contenders at our biggest meet of the season: Heps at Princeton University (Ivy League Championships). The 2001 field was crowded with several vaulters coming in with bests above 16′, including the 3-time defending Heps champion: a senior from Princeton who had dominated the previous three contests.
As the bar went up, 5 vaulters cleared 16′ 3″ making it arguably the most competitive field in the history of the event. With the bar up at 16′ 7″, every jumper missed his first two attempts. As each jumper failed on his third and final attempt, I knew I was about to be thrust into the position that Jordan was talking about.
Winning Heps was bigger than anything else for an Ivy League track athlete. Anyone who has been to the meet knows it means everything to each team there and winning your event was more than just an individual accomplishment. As I waited my turn, this ESPN article that had been hanging on my wall all season was running through my head. This was my 1982 NCAA Finals moment. It was my opportunity to prove that I could be clutch. I remember that jump more than any other in my career. As the focus set in, the thoughts disappeared and the pure feeling of a visualization becoming reality took over. I came flying down the runway, hit the takeoff with perfect timing and felt myself hit every position just as I had envisioned. I grazed the bar with no room to spare, but by the time I had landed, I had won Heps with the 7th highest jump in meet history.
That moment instilled in me a sense of what I could be capable of doing when everything was on the line (somehow my coach, Anne Rothenberg, always knew this about me). The confidence that Jordan speaks of carried me through the rest of my track career and has been a strong guiding force in my professional career. I went into every competition after that knowing I had a huge advantage over everyone else when it mattered most. That confidence transcends sport and has real consequences in life.
Knowing that you can is a great starting point for anything you set out to do in life.
Clearing 16' 7" to the disappointment of four of my fellow competitors at 2001 Heps at Princeton.
My coach, Anne, who expected nothing less!
