ICT at the Team Level
It is often difficult to look at athletic teams from an outside perspective and be sure what factors, directly and indirectly, impact their performances and results. As a career gymnast, I was impacted by numerous factors that directly affected my performance, including underlying motivational drivers, lack of access to the proper training facilities, support from friends and family, getting injured, having an experienced, trustworthy coach, intra-team rivalries, feelings of lethargy, and soreness, doubting myself and how I felt with respect to others' perspective on my performances. I could never be aware of what such factors came into play for even my own teammates without them sharing them with me.
In the case of the 2000 U.S. Women's Olympic Soccer Team, their development included exposure to varying degrees to one another for years coming into contact and playing together on the same teams and training together at the same summer camps. In addition, there was a rise in awareness on sports gender and greater acceptance of women on the world stage. There is a lot to say about women fighting to be seen, appreciated, and valued...equivocally with men. "And when it comes to paying elite professional players what they're worth, US Soccer has demonstrated an inability - or unwillingness - to offer compensation for women's national team players on par with men" (Gordon, 2019). There is also the drive to show that the team gold medal in Atlanta was not a fluke in light of the silver medal in Sydney. Having the same coach and using a sound, in-depth decision-making process for the compilation of the 2004 Olympic Team also helped continue Coach Heinrich's team's performance in 2004, winning the gold medal in Athens. Jones stated, "In the end, she came up with a squad of nine former Olympians that includes two goalkeepers, six defenders, and four forwards" (2004).
In 1999, after winning the World Cup, a turning point for Women's Soccer, a huge influx of interest flooded the minds of girls around the world. They were inspired. It is amazing the effect one performance can have globally. Under the right conditions at the right time, a discontinuous event can occur spawning a wave of emotion-carrying Positive Emotional Attractors (PEA). "Although the positive emotions, a central element in the Positive Emotional Attractor (PEA) ... becomes the pull towards development, in ICT negative emotion has a functional role" (Akrivou et al., 2006, p. 17). The silver medal-winning team in Sydney may have been disappointed at the time for not taking the gold, it was obvious that the team performed admirably, still remaining a global force to be reckoned with.
Heinrichs continued to face criticism as (Brandi) Chastain approached then U.S. Soccer president Dr. Bob Contiguglia in an attempt to get Heinrichs fired. Nonetheless, Heinrichs stayed on as coach and led the team to Olympic gold in 2004 (Holloran, 2013). After finishing third at the 2003 World Cup, a much tougher competition (greater number of participants), the selection of the 2004 Olympic Team was anything but easy. The gold medal team of Athens surely shared an Ideal Self, knowing they wanted to become the best women's soccer team in the world in Athens. In order for this to happen, they needed to train after the World Cup from a current Real Self (post-Athens), identifying the shortfalls that required attention as a team and developing a Learning Agenda, or training plan, that would ultimately help them Experiment and Practice together what they would need to resonate as a team and maintain superior performance in support of Intentional Change Theory (ICT) (Akrivou et al., 2006, p. 16).
The 2000 Men's U.S Olympic Basketball Team took home the gold medal, but whose performance was questioned after numerous close-calls against Lithuania and an unspectacular showing compared to the previous Olympic Games. As for their performance at the 2004 Games in Athens, the new Dream Team was anything but dreamy. The team was selected not long after 9/11, was selected of All-Star players with talent, but were young with little to no international team experience, adopted a new coach, Larry Brown, whom of which built some animosity with some of the players over his coaching style, and had little to no time training together to develop a resonating, cohesive and effective team. Maisonet (2017) stated, "The stark reality of Team USA was that throwing a random assortment of basketball players with a 'name' head coach into a situation they were wholly unprepared for didn't work."
The Dream Team's Olympic performance in Athens clearly showed a lack of teamwork with a questionable selection of the best talent. Simply put; they were not prepared, but why? The selection process included a committee using multiple political reasons as to why one player over another should be selected resulting in a non-resonant team of individual All-Stars and a coach whose style was not altogether trusted.
When developing a team, it is necessary to understand what the objective is, influencing the team to become a single-minded resonant unit and to develop and execute a plan to attain the said objective that begins with the truth of where they currently stand as a team, their Real Self. Without reflection, coaches move forward blindly with a great potential of not learning from past experiences or feelings of confusion when up against unfamiliar obstacles.
References:
Akrivou, K, Boyatzis, R. E., & McLeod, P. L. (2006). The evolving group: towards a prescriptive theory of intentional group development. Journal of Management Development, 25(7). pp. 689-706. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621710610678490
Gordon, B. (2019, June 7). The uswnt's equal pay lawsuit is a fight for all of women's sports: It shouldn't take unequal greatness to get equal pay. SBNation. https://www.sbnation.com/2019/6/7/18653950/uswnt-pay-equality-lawsuit-gender-discrimination-us-soccer
Halloran, J. D. (2013, April 23). The rise and rise of the united states women's national team. Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1614739-the-rise-and-rise-of-the-united-states-womens-national-team
Jones, G. L. (2004, July 2). U.s. women’s olympic soccer team set. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jul-02-sp-olysoccer2-story.html
Maisonet, E. (2017, September 5). The miseducation of the 2004 u.s. men's Olympic basketball team. Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2731575-the-miseducation-of-the-2004-us-mens-olympic-basketball-team
No comments:
Post a Comment