Who Said It?
Myth or Fact?
Diagnose It
Coach's Corner
Tell 'Em Apart
100
"Losing a tennis match isn't failure, it's research." Name the athlete.
Billie Jean King
100
Myth or Fact (and why): "Confidence is something you're either born with or you're not."
MYTH. Confidence is built through mastery, preparation, and how you think.
100
A closer feels physically fine but can't stop thinking, "What if I walk in the winning run?"
Cognitive anxiety
100
A coach rewards effort and improvement and treats mistakes as information. Name this climate.
Task-involving climate
100
Flow or clutch: which one is "making it happen"?
Clutch
200
She broke her own 1500m world record and said, "To be honest, it felt pretty easy." Name her AND the peak-performance path.
Katie Ledecky; flow
200
Myth or Fact (and why): "Mental skills can be trained the same way physical skills can."
FACT. This is the premise the whole course rests on.
200
A team's best player sulks after WINS whenever he wasn't the leading scorer.
Ego orientation
200
A coach maps out what her athlete will do, think, and feel from 24 hours before competition down to the final 10 minutes. What tool is this?
A pre-competition plan
200
One is a belief in your ability overall; the other is a belief about THIS specific task. Name both.
Confidence (overall) and self-efficacy (this task)
300
Steve Young: "It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before." Which orientation is this?
Task (mastery) orientation
300
Myth or Fact (and why): "The most confident athletes are usually the loudest ones in the room."
MYTH. Many elite performers are quietly confident.
300
A pianist who has played a piece 100 times starts thinking about each finger at her recital and stumbles.
Choking ("paralysis by analysis")
300
Name the three basic psychological needs a coach should try to meet.
Competence, autonomy, relatedness
300
Stress happens when ___ exceed ___.
Perceived demands exceed perceived resources
400
"Money is not a motivating factor... my motivation comes from playing the game I love." Name him AND the type of motivation he's claiming.
Lionel Messi; intrinsic motivation
400
Myth or Fact (and why): "The better an athlete gets physically, the less the mental game matters."
MYTH. At the elite level, the mental side's share of the outcome grows.
400
After a loss, a wrestler says, "He was better today. I'll be ready next time."
Optimistic explanatory style (temporary and contained)
400
A coach wants to give her players more autonomy. Name ONE specific thing she could do at practice tomorrow.
Open answer. Examples: let captains pick a drill; let players choose the order of their reps.
400
"This is going to wreck my whole semester." Which explanatory-style dimension is this?
Pervasiveness
500
Rebecca Adlington: "Nerves can be brilliant... there's a fine line, though." Which concept is she describing?
Directional interpretation (facilitative vs. debilitative)
500
Myth or Fact (and why): "One early mistake usually wrecks an athlete's confidence for the rest of the game."
MYTH. Confident performers focus on effort and improvement, not just errors.
500
A transfer is starting and playing well, but eats lunch alone and says she doesn't feel like part of the team.
Her need for relatedness is blocked
500
Rewrite this so it's informational instead of controlling: "We're paying you to perform."
Open answer. Example: "Your scholarship shows how much we believe in where you're headed."
500
Using the inverted-U, explain why a golfer and an offensive lineman have different arousal sweet spots.
Golfer = fine-motor precision, needs lower arousal; lineman = gross-motor power, benefits from higher arousal
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