8 — Friday, January 13, 2017
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
From past to present, mindfulness helps Wilton Speight bounce back
For
a
first-time
starting
quarterback,
Wilton
Speight
is
noticeably
measured
on
the
football
field.
Whether
completing a touchdown pass
or an interception, the redshirt
sophomore often reacts in a
similar way. If he throws a pick,
he’ll usually jog to the sidelines
with his head down, but he
won’t throw a temper tantrum.
If he throws a touchdown, he’ll
usually greet his receiver in the
end zone, but he won’t celebrate
much more than that. The most
you’ll see is an emphatic fist
pump.
When asked if he has a
chill personality though, he
responded in a way that might
surprise many.
“It’s funny, because no, not at
all.”
Despite his calm demeanor on
the field, Speight admitted that
his competitive spirit gets the
best of him in other aspects of his
life. He says his temper can flare
when playing a game of table
tennis, where he’s been known
to break the ping pong paddle.
When he was younger, he would
sulk and even refuse to talk to his
mom if she beat him in a game of
“HORSE” in the
backyard.
Though that
competitive
drive
is
still
in him, he has
a
better
way
of
controlling
that
intensity
now. While he
may
release
that
energy
when losing a
no-stakes game of table tennis,
Speight learned long ago how to
avoid doing the same during a
football game.
***
The 22-year-old first learned
how to remain grounded during
his freshman year of high school
at Richmond (Va.) Collegiate,
when he started working with
his varsity basketball coach Alex
Peavey — who also doubles as a
mindfulness teacher.
Though Speight was a three-
sport varsity athlete at Collegiate
— he also played basketball and
lacrosse — it became clear early
on that Speight’s greatest talent
lied in football. In order to work
on what was holding him back,
Speight went to Peavey to learn
more about how mindfulness
could
translate
to
football.
To this day, Speight still texts
Peavey every week.
Speight
slowly
started
to
implement
the
technique
he
learned after realizing the effect it
could have on himself and his team.
“(Speight) has always been as
competitive as anybody on the
court, on the field, at the bowling
alley,” Peavey said in December.
“Wherever you are, he’s going to
be the most competitive person
in that setting. Where I’ve seen
growth is how he funnels that
competitive energy to maximize
his peak performance. Some
of us get so competitive, it’s
to our own demise, where the
competition
undermines
our
own performance.”
As Speight grew up, he fit the
mold of many young athletes,
allowing his competitiveness to
be a detriment. The frustration
from a bad game would affect
his performance, but because
he was so much more talented
than many of his high school
teammates, it never changed
the outcome of the game. Still,
Speight
knew
that
making
himself miserable would catch
up to him if he didn’t learn how
to control it, and the Michigan
quarterback has come a long way.
“I remember in middle school
basketball camp, having to calm
him down in situations and
again, it’s literally like a week-
long middle school basketball
camp, but he’s treating it like
it’s Game 7 of the NBA Finals,”
Peavey said. “Which is a good
thing, but again, it’s how you
funnel your energy so it’s not to
your detriment.”
From Peavey’s perspective, if
an athlete practices mindfulness,
there’s a better chance of being
able to play from a set of skills
instead of a set of emotions. It’s
a process that helps Speight stay
centered after game-changing
plays,
and
it’s
an
essential
component of his success with
the Wolverines.
***
If you see Speight clicking
and unclicking his helmet strap
between
plays,
there
might
be
more to it than you
would think.
Peavey
was
introduced
to
mindfulness
as
a form of stress
management
through Dr. Jon
Kabat-Zinn, who
taught a training
course in stress
reduction at the Center for
Mindfulness at the University
of
Massachusetts
Medical
School. According to Peavey,
Kabat-Zinn encourages people
to find things they do in their
everyday life that they can bring
mindfulness to, like washing
dishes or brushing their teeth.
Peavey teaches mindfulness to
all of the freshmen at Richmond
Collegiate, but he also teaches
his athletes how to utilize
mindfulness in order to play at
the highest level.
Mindfulness is used in many
professions, Peavey said — even
the medical field. Kabat-Zinn
trained
doctors
to
practice
mindfulness
before
their
performance, which can be a
high-stakes situation in which
the performance is surgery itself.
Doctors already have to scrub
in prior to surgery, so focusing
on the act of scrubbing in and
staying in the present moment
acts as a tool for some doctors to
release stress before performing.
It may not be surgery, but
Speight’s responsibilities on the
gridiron carry their own kind of
stress.
Though Peavey doesn’t force
any of his students to utilize
mindfulness in sports, Speight
always
seemed
particularly
interested in it. When Speight
was in high school, Peavey asked
him what he did that was similar
to a doctor scrubbing in, and
he said that he has to click his
helmet’s chinstrap.
“I
practiced
a
ton
with
(Peavey),
almost
like
a
meditation-type thing,” Speight
said in November. “We figured
out whenever I click my buckle
in my helmet or
lick
my
fingers
before a snap, that
kind of brings me
back to this chill
mode. In football,
I feel like I’ve kind
of mastered it, but
I’m still working
on the other stuff.”
Added Peavey:
“What he’s doing
when he unsnaps
and resnaps his helmet is he’s
tapped in fully to the sensory
experience of that two-second
activity. And you’re getting the
mind not to ignore everything
that just happened, but to see
it, to feel it, to experience it, to
let it go and refocus yourself on
something that’s here in this
present moment.”
All of Peavey’s students have
different
ways
of
refocusing.
For some, it’s
squirting
a
green Gatorade
water
bottle,
and for others,
it’s
wiping
off
their
face
with a towel.
The
common
thread is that it
stops a person’s
internal alarm from going off.
One of the first athletes that
Peavey coached at Collegiate was
Seattle Seahawks quarterback
Russell Wilson. Wilson was
Peavey’s
point
guard
for
three years, and at the time,
Peavey wasn’t yet calling it
mindfulness. But he taught his
players different ways to funnel
their competitive drive into a
purposeful place rather than
toward anger or excitement from
the previous play.
“(Wilson) uses the sense of
sight,”
Peavey
said.
“Where
Wilton unsnaps and resnaps
his chin strap, Russell picks
something out in the stadium
and he just kind of looks at it.”
As Peavey explains it, if you
practice your technique every
time you make a mistake, you’ll
get stronger. From a neurological
standpoint, neurons are fired
that predispose you to make it
easier to stay mindful each time
you practice. If it becomes a
routine, it should work during
the game.
Rather
than
lament
the
mistake that was made, that
error becomes an opportunity to
get better.
***
After
seeing
his
former
student throw an interception on
his very first play of 2016, Peavey
couldn’t wait to see what Speight
would do. He desperately wanted
the camera to pan to the sidelines
so he could watch Speight’s
reaction to the pick.
Throughout
the
season,
Speight faced multiple situations
where he had to bounce back, and
it all began with the interception
that started his career as a
Michigan quarterback. In stark
contrast to his first play, he
ended the game 10-for-13 for
three touchdowns. He played
the next three games without
throwing a pick.
Speight faced more adversity
against Wisconsin and Michigan
State, but he cruised throughout
the middle half of the season
with relative ease. His next
biggest
challenge
came
at
Iowa, where he had his worst
performance
of
the
season.
In the electric atmosphere of
Kinnick Stadium, he not only
threw for just 103 yards but also
injured his shoulder late in the
fourth quarter. He was sidelined
for Michigan’s next game against
Indiana.
When Speight
did
return,
he
had
to
battle
both his injury
and the weight
of the Iowa loss.
Making it all the
more
difficult
was
that
his
return would be
“The Game” at
the
Horseshoe
against
the
second-ranked
Buckeyes.
He
sputtered
at
times — throwing a pick-six and
fumbling on Ohio State’s one-
yard line — but the Wolverines
scored touchdowns immediately
after both turnovers. Though
it wasn’t pretty, and Michigan
ended
up
losing
in
double
overtime,
Speight
finished
23-for-36 for two touchdowns.
Speight
then
headed
to
the Orange Bowl to play the
Seminoles, and following a poor
first half where the Wolverines
posted just 83 yards of total
offense, he rallied to lead two
touchdown drives in the fourth
quarter and give his team the
lead.
“I couldn’t sit in here in
halftime and be all stressed and
mad about what happened in
the first half,” Speight said in
the locker room after the game.
“That does no good for anybody.
In the moment of halftime and in
the moment of the plays we were
going to run going out into the
second half, I completely forgot
about the first half, and that’s
what I did all year.”
But Florida State took the
lead back with 36 seconds to go,
and on the next drive, Speight’s
season ended where it began —
with an interception.
Now, heading into 2017, he’ll
have to bounce back again — not
just from that final play, but from
a
10-3
season
that
caused
disappointment
among
fans
and
players
who expected a
College Football
Playoff
berth
out
of
the
Wolverines.
Next season will
present
new
challenges
that
the quarterback hasn’t yet seen,
including taking on a larger
leadership role as a second-year
starting quarterback (assuming
he retains his job). And when
that time comes, he might need
to lean on his high school coach’s
teachings more than ever.
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Speight first began to work on mindfulness after recognizing how his competitiveness could be detrimental.
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Speight will need to use his mindfulness approach more than ever next year after a 10-3 season that has left many Michigan fans feeling disappointed.
SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Wilton Speight often doesn’t react too strongly after either positive or negative plays in order to maintain an calm attitude.
That kind of
brings me back
to this chill
mode
He’s going to
be the most
competitive
person there
I couldn’t sit in
here and be all
stressed and
mad
After learning the technique from his high school basketball coach Alex Peavey, the redshirt sophomore
quarterback regularly uses the approach to keep a cool demeanor during important moments on the field
KELLY HALL
Daily Sports Writer