Close to Home: The brains behind Giants’ success

What are the motivating factors behind the remarkable success of the San Francisco Giants during the post-season in recent years? Experience, leadership, athletic skill?

The one angle that’s not addressed enough, in my view, has to do with the function of the players’ brains - specifically their perception of winning and losing.

For example, I work with young athletes who are often placed in competitive situations that actually lead them to failure. Often, their brains are not ready to compete at a high level and, as a result, they invariably fail. It is not because their bodies or abilities are weak. It has to do with how their brains perceive competition. When an athlete is placed in a competitive situation that prevents him or her from using his true potential, the impact of the experience can be long lasting and can affect him for the rest of his/her life.

As complicated as the brain is with its billions of neurons, we can often simplify the reasons for athletic failure by connecting this to areas of the emotional brain or limbic system. That is, when an athlete suffers from a fear of failure, the limbic system’s thalamus goes into full mode and tries to decipher if the perception is real. If the perception is considered as having validity, the thalamus sends the perception to the brain’s amygdala and the energy goes into fight or flight, which short-circuits the athlete’s emotional and executive brain, which can affect physical ability.

Have you ever noticed the pivotal moment when a football player attempts to turn his emotion in a crucial game situation from flight (blocking of energy) to fight (aggressive energy)? He will push and shove a competitor to fight that fear of failure or flight. On the other hand, if the athlete is emotionally confident about his or her ability to compete, the brain shifts to the hippocampus and forms a positive and powerful relationship to the competition, which results in a zone-like experience. In fact, certain athletes actually rise to the occasion and use their full potential, resulting in a calm feeling of body and mind or zone-like state. I call this the Joe Montana brain.

As the story goes, at the start of the final drive in Super Bowl XXIII in 1989 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Montana looked up into the stands from the huddle and asked his teammates, “Hey, is that John Candy?” Despite the fact that the 49ers were losing at the time, Montana was not in a fight or flight consciousness but most likely was operating from his hippocampus, which resulted in a feeling of calmness and a positive relationship to competition. The next is history. Montana proceeded to lead his team down the field with a consequent Super Bowl win.

Perhaps one reason why the Giants succeed in playoff and World Series situations so often (three championships in five years) is not only that they have been there before but because of this calm presence they have, which is predicated by their brains having a positive relationship to winning. We might call this the Bumgarner, Posey or Sandoval effect.

Again, for one reason or another, this group could be operating out of the area of the brain that forms a positive relationship with winning, and the result is greater athletic potential.

For more on competition, I invite you to go to my blog on pressdemocrat.com and read “In the Zone.”

David Sortino of Graton is director of the Neurofeedback Institute. Email him at davidsortino@comcast.net.