Estimated read time: 3 minutes
I was a senior in high school, at a basketball camp, in a room full of guys who all considered themselves leaders on their teams. One of the instructors pulled me aside and asked, “How bad do you want to be great?”. I gave him the answer everybody gives.
This is everything to me. I'd do anything for it.
He walked me over to a sink and filled it with water.
“Put your face under”, he said.
When you feel like you need to come up for air, don't. Stay under. And when you truly can't hold it anymore, try to breathe the water in before you come up.”
I went under thinking this was a little ridiculous. Then the need to breathe showed up, and every other thought in my head — what the coach this is thinking, what the room is thinking — disappeared. There was one thought left. I need air. I stayed under anyway. I tried to force myself to breathe that water in, the way he said. My body wouldn't do it. And right before I would've had no choice, I came up. Then came the question…
“Did you want to be great as much as you wanted to breathe?”
Not even close.
I wanted to breathe more than I wanted to be great, and in that moment I felt the actual size of the gap between the two. And that gap is the everything.
Wanting something is cheap.
Everyone in that room would have told you basketball was their life. But there's a difference between the desire you talk about and the desire that shows up when your body is screaming at you to quit. Until those two are the same thing, you're not actually as committed as you think you are — you're just untested.
Adversity is the test that separates the coaches and players who say they want it from the ones who actually do.
You don't need a sink to run this test. Simply ask yourself this question…
Does your commitment hold once it costs you something?
For players: Find the moment where their effort or focus cracks under real discomfort — a hard sprint, a tight game, a tough rep late in practice — and that's your answer key. Don't lecture them about it. Just notice it, and decide what you're going to do about what you saw.
Reply and let me know how it goes.
Stay SAVI,
Tyler
P.S. Want to dive deeper into establishing and upholding standards? Inside SAVI Basketball we go deeper every week! The Preseason Challenge will support you every step of the way.
