ASK THE DOCTOR
Tee's Weekly Sports Psychology Advice Column
With Dr. Rachel Enakmas
Dear Dr. Enakmas:
I was watching the special on the 1985 Villanova basketball team on HBO last week and I was interested in what point guard Gary McLain had to say about his cocaine use throughout the season and the national semi-final game. He claims to not have used during the final game (excuse me for a second, I have to sneeze…aaaaahhhhhhhbullshittttt…sorry about that). What are the psychological effects of cocaine on a college basketball player and should the NCAA strip Villanova of the national championship and have it rewarded to the runner-up?
Fredrick Brown
Landover, MD
Freddie,
Wow. We have received over 13,000 emails so far, but out of all of them this is the best question I have read yet. Now psychologically speaking, cocaine and some other drugs make you feel invincible and allow for delusions of grandeur that make you so certain you are going to make every shot that you actually do. Or cocaine could make you believe that you could break a 25-year-old record for the all-time men’s Final Four field goal percentage by making 79 percent of your shots, breaking the record by 11 percentage points. It could also make you dribble the ball so hard that there are still dents in the floor at Rupp Arena from the coked-up point guard not knowing his own strength.
Now, it may seem harsh to suggest the Wildcats be punished so severely. But it would not be the first time the NCAA has vacated a team’s Final Four finish. It happened to the 1995 University of Massachusetts team. Fortunately, I was drinking heavily in 1995 and don’t remember who UMass beat to get to the Final Four. It would not even be the first time that Villanova was stripped in the Final Four. In 1971, Villanova player Howard Porter was named MVP of the Final Four, but he was eventually stripped of that award. The NCAA found out that this Wildcat played after he had already signed a professional contract.
In the past few years the calls for the Villanova championship to be stripped have grown in quantity and volume. Calls to NCAA Chairman Miles Brand’s cell phone to determine the status of the current NCAA investigation into stripping Villanova were unreturned. However, an anonymous Villanova graduate and current NCAA rules committee faculty advisor told Tee’s Weekly this week that “it is the single biggest oversight in the 100-year history of the NCAA. Don’t think the NCAA brass doesn’t know this — it is just a matter of finding the right method and time to strip the national championship title and give it to the more deserving team.” Stay tuned people. Stay tuned.
Dr. Enakmas
Dear Dr. Enakmas:
I have a problem. I recently convinced a friend who is employed in the IT division of a major Irish bank to copy the account details of several thousand of the bank’s customers. Once the information was in my possession, I held a number of meetings with high-profile figures from the Korean mafia (not the good Korea either). They deemed the product to be good enough and as a result I have recently been the recipient of a seven-figure sum of money. I now have to vacate the country for a number of years and wish to enroll in a college in the U.S. I want to stay active and I love team sports. I feel like basketball would be a great outlet for my energy. Are there any college teams you could recommend that do not attract or create any form of media hype that may blow my cover?
Regards
Offaly Rover
Dear Offaly Rover,
Well, traditionally, the best college basketball program for someone with a background in IT theft has been the University of Connecticut. However, most of their games are on television and despite their 6-10 record in the Big East last year, they are probably too high profile for your mental health right now. To be honest, I did not immediately have an answer for which college would be the best psychological fit for an Irish hoops outlaw, so I asked the Tee’s staff to do some research. It turns out that the perfect fit for you, and coincidentally the most Irish university in America, is The College of the Holy Cross in beautiful Worcester, Massachusetts.
I know that an Offaly man would want to know that the college was founded in Worcester because Boston Protestants wouldn’t let Bishop Fenwick (who was born in St. Mary’s County Maryland and was a cousin of Seamus Darby) establish his school in their city. The basketball program has a storied history: they won the NCAA Championship in 1947 and the National Invitational Tournament in 1954, while developing greats like three-time all-American Bob Cousy and fellow Hall of Famer Tom Heinsohn.
More recently, the school has decided to make its basketball team allergic to media hype by focusing only on the scholar portion of scholar-athlete. Which is pretty much the same thing as focusing on the loss part of your win-loss record. But, Mr. Rover, all of these ingenious administration decisions will only help you maintain your anonymity on campus. Now, all we have to do is get those same administrators to approve your application for admission into the college. The bad news is they don’t care how physically gifted you are in basketball. They just have one question. When you say you received a “seven-figure sum of money”, do you mean dollars or euros?
As they say in Worcester, “Go Cross.”
Dr. Enakmas
Dear Dr. Enakmas:
Are there any sports video games that you would recommend for developing one’s mental toughness?
T. Smalls Corrigan
Buffalo, NY
Dear T.
Yes. Actually, any game that has an online feature will allow you to play against people all over the world. This will enable you to experience real competition and thus provide the proper psychological environment for mental toughness development. However, most of your fellow competitors will be eight-year-old boys, so you’ll want to handicap yourself first by sparking a Dutch and only playing with your teeth. Thanks for the question.
Dr. Enakmas
If you would like to have Dr. Rachel Enakmas answer your sports psychology question, please feel free to write to teesweekly@teesweekly.com