One of my favorite books written by one of my favorite writer's is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This article felt like something that would be in one of his books.
Fitz' game is about strength and explosion, but what separates him is his body control. This article has me convinced his eye's are another reason. Its like how Tori Hunter knows what route to take to track down a fly ball. And then when he gets there his hand-eye allows him to snatch anything. Whats scary is how he catches some balls with his eyes closed because he can tell where it will end up. (check the pic)Here are a few excerpts.
"The two catalysts for Mr. Fitzgerald's success may, in fact, be his stint as a teenage ballboy for the Minnesota Vikings and the summer days he spent at his grandfather's optometry clinic."
"The ability to maintain a level and strong gaze on a distant object for an unusually long period of time, even while moving, is something Dr. Vickers calls "the quiet eye." Her research suggests the difference between great athletes and good ones -- at least when it comes to sports that involve flying balls or pucks -- is the ability to lock down on these objects longer."
"Dr. Vickers says the best goalies and tennis players she's studied have two skills. First, they use the quiet-eye technique to take a clear snapshot of an approaching object and then, while it approaches them, will instantly compare it to a vast library of memories drawn from years of practice and observation. By matching that object with others, they can make a perfect calculation of where it will go and how to put themselves in position to make the play -- even if they aren't looking at the ball. The best athletes, then, can succeed without having to open their eyes. "It's a very, very amazing cognitive skill," she says.
For Mr. Fitzgerald, this means that after scanning a newly thrown ball with his quiet eye, he turns on the microprocessor in his head and downloads every similar pass he's seen until he's made a calculation about where this ball is likely to land. "People don't realize it," says Mr. Johnson, Mr. Fitzgerald's grandfather, "but we actually see with our brains."
Mr. Fitzgerald may have a better mental computer than most NFL receivers. Growing up in Minnesota his sportswriter father, Larry Fitzgerald Sr., helped his son get a job as a ballboy for the hometown Vikings for six seasons during his teenage years. This enabled the young Mr. Fitzgerald to see thousands of passes thrown and caught from the sidelines, to absorb these images up close in three dimensions and to study superstar receivers like Cris Carter and Randy Moss. Dr. Vickers says these experiences probably left Mr. Fitzgerald with a catalog of millions of impressions that would take most athletes years to build."
"The ability to maintain a level and strong gaze on a distant object for an unusually long period of time, even while moving, is something Dr. Vickers calls "the quiet eye." Her research suggests the difference between great athletes and good ones -- at least when it comes to sports that involve flying balls or pucks -- is the ability to lock down on these objects longer."
"Dr. Vickers says the best goalies and tennis players she's studied have two skills. First, they use the quiet-eye technique to take a clear snapshot of an approaching object and then, while it approaches them, will instantly compare it to a vast library of memories drawn from years of practice and observation. By matching that object with others, they can make a perfect calculation of where it will go and how to put themselves in position to make the play -- even if they aren't looking at the ball. The best athletes, then, can succeed without having to open their eyes. "It's a very, very amazing cognitive skill," she says.
For Mr. Fitzgerald, this means that after scanning a newly thrown ball with his quiet eye, he turns on the microprocessor in his head and downloads every similar pass he's seen until he's made a calculation about where this ball is likely to land. "People don't realize it," says Mr. Johnson, Mr. Fitzgerald's grandfather, "but we actually see with our brains."
Mr. Fitzgerald may have a better mental computer than most NFL receivers. Growing up in Minnesota his sportswriter father, Larry Fitzgerald Sr., helped his son get a job as a ballboy for the hometown Vikings for six seasons during his teenage years. This enabled the young Mr. Fitzgerald to see thousands of passes thrown and caught from the sidelines, to absorb these images up close in three dimensions and to study superstar receivers like Cris Carter and Randy Moss. Dr. Vickers says these experiences probably left Mr. Fitzgerald with a catalog of millions of impressions that would take most athletes years to build."
-J. Wolfe
Posts
Can that be compared to Mike Mizrachi laying top set on a three flush board because he looked at his computer brain and knew that the other has to have the flopped flush?
ReplyDelete