What are your feelings on experience versus talent? I mean when the players with experience have pretty close to the same talent, but not quite as good as the younger talented players.

I think talent wins when it doesn’t matter more than when it does matter. I think experience offers players opportunities to manage situations better and negates talent.

Let’s look at Mark Sanchez, the QB for the jets. He started out like fire. He definitely has talent. But after time, the experience of defenses and coaching negated his talent. Even his own coaching staff limited his game to that of a manager rather than big play maker. In time he will make big plays, but his lack of experience versus the experience of others shows up.

Last night, my girls basketball team won their second straight game versus teams that beat them last year. The first game of the year which we lost in double overtime was to a team that destroyed our team last year. My point is, since last season we did a lot of playing during the off-season. The girls learned to play the game against many different styles. The teams that beat us handily last year did not gain much, relatively speaking. I spoke to my team after the game about how their experience played a roll in their wins.

I watched the girls handle pressure from the other team. They didn’t panic, they handled it with poise. The other teams actually had as much if not more raw athletic talent, but our girls had “been there – done that” and knew what I expected and what they could do.

It makes me wonder if I put enough attention into teaching all my athletes, even the ones I only train, about learning from their mistakes. You can’t allow mistakes to speed your game up or slow it down, but you need to recognize and learn from your mistakes.

It is fun to watch players like Kobe and Peyton who struggled when they were rookies, handle the exact same situations totally different due to experience.

This is a fun topic. I would love to hear your experiences and thoughts on this topic.