TUPATALK: Discipline is key ingredient in the fray of the fight

It might very well be that momentary lapse in discipline - or in awareness -- last weekend cost a team a chance to play in the Super Bowl.

I've witnessed this phenomenon a few times in my career.

Several years ago, in one of the oddest football games I covered, the overwhelming favorite football team led, 6-0, with less than 15 seconds left.

The other team, was stuffed inside its 10-yard line with one play left. Rather than go for it on fourth down, the underdog squad decided to punt. It was a non-conference game, after all.

(Their punter would be named All-State and later would be a starting quarterback for the No. 1 junior college team in America and then for Northwestern in the Big Ten.)

The ending seemed antiseptic - punt, catch and down and Victory Formation. I don't even remember if there was time for a formation.

The punter boomed the ball out of the end zone to midfield.

So, let me ask you, the reader, what do you do it you're the kick returner? Do a fair catch.

Only, that didn't happen. The guy tried to return the ball. A player from the kicking team punched it loose from him and a teammate did a scoop and score to tie the game, 6-6 with time expired.

(Just for the record, after all that, the extra point went awry and the game ended up deadlocked.)

Just one lapse in discipline and judgement cost a team a win.

A few years later, one of my teams was perched on winning and going to the playoffs. On a fourth down play, the other team's pass fell incomplete. But, at the end of the play, a defensive lineman roughed the opposing passer.

With that second chance, the team that had trailed tied the game in regulation and won in overtime to deny its opponent the postseason.

Discipline in a competitive situation isn't something an athlete can just dial up when it "really" counts. Discipline of mind, body and emotions has to be a habit. It has to become an inexorable part of character that will result in the right decision no matter how exhausted, how angry, how frustrated or how desperate an athlete is.

An athlete can't decide at the moment of crisis to go from being undisciplined to disciplined - because at the moment emotion has taken charge and logic no longer drives the bus.

Discipline in a competitive situation or time of desperate crisis is painfully developed during time.

So what are some of the ways to build it?

When a coach asks you to do 25 bends and thrusts, you do 26 or 27 of them -- all the right way.

If a coach asks to do springs, you go all out until you feel you're going chuck your lungs out.

If a coach tells you to stand behind the white line on the football sideline, or in a certain place on the ballfield, you do it without question -- even if everyone else is breaking the rule.

If in practice the basketball coach demands you sell out everything in defensive practice, you do it. Then, when you get to the tiredness and adrenaline of a real game you'll be able to succeed.

If the baseball coach tells you how to bunt a ball, you work on it - time and time and time again until you get. Not only are you developing a valuable skill, but you're learning to discipline your mind and your body to do something you don't feel like doing at the time.

That's part of what discipline is - doing the right thing even when you don't feel like it, even when every emotion inside yourself wants to do something else.

Some examples in sports are Larry Bird's unbelievable work ethic in shooting a basketball hours a day, in all kinds of weather. There's a reason why he's in the Hall of Fame and considered one of the greats.

Sammy Baugh hanging up a car tire and throwing a football through it, even as it swung back and forth. Baugh was the prototype of modern pro-style quarterbacks like Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and others would follow.

Back when I was a distance runner - 40 years ago - I disciplined myself to finish every daily run with an all-out sprint, no matter how tired I was. As a result, in the few times it came up, I had the ability to find something extra and pass other guys in the stretch.

I have witnessed thousands of disciplined athletes playing high school sports in this area. The credit goes to their coaches, their parents and themselves.

Diligence in continuing to automatically doing the right thing when the hardest thing to do is put the brakes on emotions is vital in sports.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TupaTalk thought