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My many years of both practicing and playing the game of basketball resulted in significant improvements to my skill level. However, what I didn’t realize at the time, was how much this practice would ultimately aid in my performance on the football field. I had always been a running back growing up, but again as a result of my size disadvantage at the high school level, I had to change the way I played the game of football. My coaches saw that I was too small to play the running back position at the varsity level, so they ultimately made the decision to split me out wide at receiver. I had never played this position before, but I was still relatively familiar with everything that it was going to entail. I honestly did not expect a high level of success at first, but I believe my previous experience on the basketball court aided my transition to the receiver position as I witnessed a lot of positive transfer between the two sports situations.

Through the normal sequence of a basketball game, at least in the offense that my basketball team ran, there was constant movement and cutting in order to get open for a shot. Along with the constant cutting, catching the basketball and processing what to do with the ball next was an integral part of the game. What I didn’t know at that point was how much of an impact playing basketball would ultimately have on the transfer of skills to the receiving position in football. When comparing the two sports in the positions I played (receiver and point guard), much of the same actions and concepts apply. The continuous cutting motions involved in basketball helped me develop into an efficient route runner, and aided me in my ability to get open for my quarterback to throw me the ball.

Getting open was only one aspect: I also had to catch the ball. However, this didn’t really seem to be a problem because of what I encountered through the normal play of a basketball game. The continuous passing associated with basketball, and consequently the continuous catching, primed me to be better able to catch passes from my quarterback; not to mention the added bonus of being able to wear the advantageous sticky gloves in football. Once the catch was completed, I had to figure out where I wanted to go with the ball next, and this was all based on what the defenders were doing at that given moment. This again was very similar to the tasks associated with playing basketball, where I had to decide if I wanted to pass it, go up for the shot, or dribble past my defender. And if I was going to dribble past my defender, I had to use my visual search to decide which way they were going to go, and then I would go the opposite. I could now use all my previous knowledge learned in basketball to allow me to transition into the wide receiver position in order to successfully help my high school football team.

According to the theories of transfer, even if two tasks may seem completely unrelated, some component parts may be shared by the two tasks which can lead to a great deal of positive transfer from one skill to another. This is exemplified in my scenario where practicing and playing basketball played a crucial role in the learning of football skills needed for a position that I had never played. Transfer of learning is defined as “the gain (or loss) in proficiency of one skill as the result of practice on some other skill”.  In the case of my scenario, positive transfer was observed in my ability to play receiver as a result of the many years of basketball participation. Positive transfer is best understood as seeing a beneficial effect of a previous experience (basketball) on the learning or performance of another skill (football receiver). The positive transfer of learning that I personally experienced can best be explained by the identical elements theory which holds the view that “two tasks that share a greater number of similar elements are expected to transfer more highly than two tasks that share fewer similar elements”. The term elements can refer to one of two things: the component parts of the two skills or two performance contexts. The transfer of learning that occurred for myself was related to the component parts of the observable movement patterns during the performance of the skill. Because the cutting actions done throughout a basketball game are so similar to the cutting involved in route running in football, I saw a significant transfer of learning in this area. Additionally, although the shape of a basketball is vastly different from that of a football, the size is still somewhat similar, so the action of catching a basketball throughout my playing years resulted in a high transfer of learning in my ability to catch a football. The same concepts apply for catching in both situations, where I was taught to keep my eye on the ball all the way until it reached my hands in order to successfully catch the ball. According to the identical elements’ theory, because the component parts were so similar in both sports situations, there was a positive transfer of learning observed. Positive transfer of learning can also be observed in numerous other sport scenarios which is why it beneficial for young athletes to be involved in multiple sports.

Below is an image of me catching a football with the help of the concepts I had learned in basketball. Through the constant passing and catching that occurs basketball, I learned to look the ball all the way into my hands before making my next move.

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protective equipment in gridiron football

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#1 ♫ Young man, there's a place you can go... ♫

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#1 ♫ Young man, there's a place you can go... ♫

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It’s December of 2005. I walk into this unfamiliar building with my father, as he has been pushing me to try something new. Little did I know that this day would set me on a path that would define my life for the next 10 years. This was the very first day that I had been introduced to great sport of basketball.

When I arrived at the YMCA to start a youth basketball camp back in second grade, I clearly had no idea what I was doing. It was mainly my father’s decision to sign me up and get me athletically involved, as he believed it would be something I would enjoy and would ultimately set me on a path that would ensure success both academically, as well as in life. I had no previous knowledge of this sport of basketball, other than maybe witnessing a few bits and pieces of games on the television at home, and consequently I had no skills. Luckily for me, everyone else at the gym that day was in the same boat, as it was the start of the annual basketball camp where young kids learn the sport of basketball.

From the beginning I felt very awkward because I had no idea what to do, but the fact that my dad came to every practice with me helped a great deal. We started out the session by doing a warm-up called “popcorn” where we would alternately slam each hand on the basketball in order to warm up our hands. Being a little kid, this was obviously very enjoyable because it gave us the opportunity to make a lot of noise, and every kid had a blast. This led into the learning of the general fundamentals of basketball: dribbling, passing and shooting. I remember it being very difficult to somehow control this bouncy rubber ball using one hand; I had to continuously look at the ball or otherwise I would lose control. Once all the kids started to get the hang of dribbling, we then worked on our footwork to complete a layup. I remember this being almost impossible because I now had to dribble and coordinate my footwork to successfully make a layup. However, as the year went on, dribbling seemed to become a little easier and the footwork for making a layup became second nature. Along with this, we learned to accurately pass the ball through a series of drills that involved throwing the ball through different targets. The target simply consisted of a small hula hoop that a camp instructor was holding a certain distance away.  Getting the ball through some of the farther away targets would result in a higher score than if you passed the ball to a closer target. So, naturally it became a competition amongst all of us little humans to see who could be the best. It was during this drill that my dad said he knew that I was going to be a competitor.

Looking back at this beginning, I am very grateful for my dads influence on me to get athletically involved. Also, it is very interesting to me to see all the gains made, and now be able to incorporate the information learned in Kinesiology 361 to explain how everything actually happened. The daily practice sessions at the YMCA as a 2nd grader greatly exemplifies the concept of the three-stage model of learning a motor skill as developed by Fitts and Posner. This model divides learning into three stages: the cognitive stage, the associative stage, and autonomous stage.

When a task is initiated, most learners start in the cognitive stage where the main goal is to figure out what you are doing and how to do it. Thus, as the learner gets a grasp on the concept of the skill, gains observed in this stage will be dramatic and large. This greatly exemplifies my performance the first day I was brought to the gym. I had no idea what I was doing, and thus had to start from basically nothing.  I started to develop initial strategies to accomplish all the tasks associated with dribbling. I made huge improvements in my dribbling and passing initially, which demonstrated that I was indeed in the cognitive stage of learning. As time went on and I had been to multiple basketball camps within the year, I gradually transitioned into the associative stage of learning. During this second stage of learning, students of the task begin to establish motor patterns, and the movements used to accomplish the task become more consistent. Thus, the improvements seen in this stage will be more gradual than the dramatic changes in the cognitive stage. The learners in this stage will also be able to detect errors more frequently but may not be able to correct them initially.

After a few weeks involved in the basketball camps, I now had the hang of the many general concepts in basketball and knew how to perform them, and from there I simply honed my attention into improving the new skills I now knew how to do. I remember trying to combine the tasks by incorporating passing into my dribbling during the small scrimmages that took place at camp. However, I would often lose control of the ball when I looked up. I knew that I was making errors in my game, but I was not able to correct them during the scrimmages. Thus, I was in the associative stage of learning. Additionally, this stage is the most tedious of learning and someone may be stuck in the associative stage for a long time ranging from days to possibly forever. If someone does overcome the associative stage of learning, they will then transition into the final stage termed the autonomous stage. In this stage, the skill becomes relatively automatic and the detected errors will now be able to be corrected as the skill itself does not require as much attention as was seen in the cognitive and associative stages. The learner in this stage will be able to accomplish the task with little thought or attention devoted to it and will ultimately have come close to mastering the skill. For me, I was still very young at that point in my life and was not able to transition out of the associative stage until later in life. However, after learning how a new motor skill is learned through Kines 361, it is clear to see what was being accomplished through my first exposure to the sport of basketball.

The image below accurately represents how I felt when my dad threw me into the sport of basketball. I had no idea what I was doing, and all the tasks seemed impossible to learn. It felt as though the instructors were saying "here's a basketball, learn what to do with it."

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Now that I finally had developed a shot thanks to my coaches continued augmented feedback, I was now able to incorporate all my previous knowledge into a new and improved playing style. I was still able to dribble and get around my defenders, but now I had a new and improved shot. The game was all starting to come together and became more autonomous for me in every aspect, which left me to develop another skill needed at the higher level: the ability to read and react.

Being able to use visual stimuli and react quickly using my inherent motor abilities became very important as I transitioned to high school basketball, both offensively and defensively.  On the offensive end, I had to use the visual information on whether or not the defenders would collapse and stop my drive. If they did collapse to the lane, I had to be able to read that and then kick the ball out to an open shooter. Additionally, I had to read if the defender was going to try and block my shot on the perimeter, and if they were, I would then use a pump fake, regroup, and then take the uncontested three pointer.

On the defensive end, the visual information was also very important. I had to learn to read and react to where the ball handler wanted to go, and ultimately try to get in front to stop the penetration. In order to accomplish the improvement of these skills, I had to improve my visual search. Visual search is defined as the process of directing visual attention to locate relevant environmental cues. I will admit, I was not very good at this when I was young, but that is simply because I was still a novice at the game of basketball and didn’t know what to look at. You can be told what to do, but you won’t see any improvements until you actually learn what to look at on your own. Defensively, I started out by looking at the offensive player’s eyes, which resulted in me getting beat most of the time. The skilled offensive player would look one way and then dribble the other way leaving me in the dust. Over time, I learned to look at their chest because that would never fail me because the ball handler can’t go the opposite way that their chest goes, it’s just not possible. This allowed me to become both a better defensive player, as well as a better offensive player. I now knew how to stop people on defensive by looking at their chest, but on offense, I would try and trick people with my eyes.

On the offensive end, I learned to do exactly what you shouldn’t do on the defensive end, which is to look at my opponents’ eyes. I learned that when I was driving the ball, I should look at the opponent’s eyes because that would more often than not indicate which direction they were going to go. This would tell me if they were going to collapse on me and try and stop the drive, or if they were going to stay on their defender. Ultimately, if they collapsed on me I would then pass the ball out to the man that they left open so that he would have an uncontested three pointer.

All of this kind of came naturally when I was actually playing, but its very interesting looking back on it because I now realize what my brain was doing naturally. My brain was using different combinations of saccades throughout practice and game situations, which would ultimately lead to the learning of looking at what was relevant information in my scenario, and what was just excess information. Once I figured out what was important, I was then able to fixate on it. Fixation is another important aspect incorporated into the topic of visual search learned in lecture, and is defined as “focusing one’s visual attention on a specific object”, usually only for a second or two. I find it amazing how our brains naturally do this and develop patterns of regular visual search to better one’s self at a given task.

Another concept that is incorporated into the offensive actions previously mentioned is that of the psychological refractory period (PRP). When I would use my visual search to determine if the defender was going to try and block my shot or not, I was actually preparing myself to take advantage of their PRP without even knowing it. The PRP is best defined by the single-channel hypothesis by Welford which states that when two stimuli are presented very closely together, the information processing of the second stimuli is not able to be initiated until the response selection and programming resulting from the first stimuli has been completed. In other words, when I determined the defender was going to try and block me, I would pump fake, thereby creating the first stimuli in which my opponent must respond to. I then would side step and shoot the ball for an uncontested three. Side stepping and shooting would then be the second stimuli in which my opponent would not be able to process or react to until he had completed the information processing from my pump fake.

Below is an image that exemplifies where the defenders eyes should be when guarding the ball handler. With practice, defenders will learn to fixate on the opponents chest rather than on their eyes or the ball, as this will allow them to not be fooled by any fakes.

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With a few more years of practice, the skills of dribbling and passing started to become more automatic, and thus my game improved drastically. Eventually 7th grade rolled around, and I had developed into a new player. I had large hormonal swings at this time, and consequently, I had grown quite a few inches. Additionally, I now realized what abilities I had that set me apart from other players and found out how to incorporate them into my game successfully.

I seemed to have hit my growth spurt quite a bit earlier than many people, so I was able to really establish dominance on the court in 7th grade. Also, I seemed to be naturally gifted with speed and agility which only aided my basketball performance. My play style had now shifted from very tentative and pass-first oriented, to a more aggressive approach in which I would quickly drive past my defender and bully my way into the lane for a layup. Being able to tower over other kids provided a huge advantage, and so I never had to learn how to shoot because I could drive to the lane and make a layup, and if I missed, I could out-jump the opponents to get my own rebound and put it back up because I was taller. Offense was not the only part of my game, however, as I truly prided myself on being able to defend. Because I was very confident and felt like I was quicker and faster than most, I would rely on my defensive ability to force turnovers from the other team which would then result in a fast break opportunity. As humbly as I can state it, many people would wonder why I was better at basketball than them, even though we had practiced the same amount, or in some cases, I would even practice less than them. Using information I have learned in Kinesiology 361, I am now able to explain why.

Every individual, from the moment they are born, are gifted with a specific set of abilities. An ability, as defined in lecture, is a “general trait or capacity of the individual that is a determinant of a person’s achievement potential for the performance of specific skills”. So basically, you either have the ability or you don’t. I believe I was gifted with abilities that are more useful in the skills associated with basketball than other people may have been, at least in terms of individuals in 7th grade.  Some people may have confused the two terms of skill and ability simply because they did not know what each term encompassed at this point in their life. In general, an ability is something you are born with and is unmodifiable by practice, whereas a skill is something that can be learned and modified by practice. So, to answer their question of how I was better at basketball in 7th grade than others given the fact that I may even practice less, I was simply blessed with general abilities that allowed me to achieve success in the game of basketball. Also, abilities can also be considered as limiting factors, and one ability that falls into this category is body configuration. I had reached my growth spurt much earlier than everyone else, and I was thus taller than many people in my same grade. My body configuration of being taller allowed me to perform better at basketball, whereas body configuration was a limiting factor for many other 7th graders as they had not yet reached their growth spurts.

Some other general motor abilities that may have aided in my performance could be reaction time, rate control, and response orientation. Response orientation is defined as the ability to make quick choices among numerous alternative actions. This was exemplified in my ability to quickly decide on whether to take the ball all the way to the basket, or to kick it out to the open man for the three, all depending on what the defender did. Reaction time is defined as the ability to respond rapidly to a signal when it appears. This may have aided me in being able to react to the opponents pass and thus jump into the passing lane to achieve a steal, which would ultimately lead to a fast break opportunity. Rate control is defined as the ability to produce continuous anticipatory movement adjustments in response to changes in the speed of a continuously moving target or object. The motor ability of rate control, along with the ability of body configuration, made me better equipped to out-rebound defenders near the rim to give our team more scoring opportunities.

The image below represents how the ability of height can aid in being inherently better at some aspects of basketball. The taller player does not have to put forth much effort to reach the same height that a shorter player may have to. Being taller will aid in rebound, dunking, and blocking.

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Fast forward to high school, and the learning that initiated in grade school has now continued on and is still just as relevant. However, the high school game is much more fast paced, and I now had to improve my game that much more. Unfortunately, I stopped growing late in middle school and everyone else subsequently caught up, and the great majority even outgrew me as I remained at a solid 150 pound, 5’ 8” stature. While my height worked towards my advantage in middle school, it soon became my nemesis in high school. I was no longer able to drive and score at will, because I would get blocked a great percentage of the time. This caused me to now have to relearn the game in a way that I was not accustomed to: I had to shoot.

Shooting was something that I never really practiced during my younger years, as I would rely on my ability to just run past people. However, because everyone was now bigger and stronger than me, I would get stopped at the rim many times. I now had to learn to transition my game to one that would revolve around the perimeter. My coaches knew that I was small, but they had a great shooting regimen that I was given to practice over the summer. So, the summer going into high school I spent a lot of time in the gym working with my coaches to develop an effective shooting form. I would again go through the stages of learning as I did at my initial basketball camps, however, I was a little more advanced at this point, so I started out the relearning of shooting in the associative stage. I had the general concept of shooting down and knew how to accomplish the skill but needed major form correction. This learning was not something I had to do alone though, because I had my coaches with me every step of the way. This provided me with an additional aid to my learning in the form of augmented feedback. Augmented feedback is information provided about the task that is supplemental to, or augments inherent feedback. In other words, it is feedback given to myself from an external source telling me how I did on the skill, and what I did wrong. I knew that the coaches were very knowledgeable about basketball, so I really valued their input and tried to incorporate it into my relearning of the shooting skill.

The first problem with my shot was that my elbow was not close enough to my body or straight under the ball, which resulted in a trajectory of the ball that was not straight at the hoop. The second problem with my shot was that I had no spin on the ball when I released it from my hand. Over the course of the summer my coaches sought to correct these problems and turn me into a better shooter to make me a better player at the high school level, because my short stature would no longer allow me to be an effective scorer in the paint. To work on my form, my coaches had me start out with some free throws. I would perform three free throws, they would ask me how it felt, and then they would provide me with numerous versions of augmented feedback.  To start off, they initially videotaped me to show me what I was doing wrong and compared my form to that of a professional shooter. This type of augmented feedback is categorized as knowledge of performance because it is relating to my patterns or actions associated with my performance of the skill, and doesn’t necessarily care about the result of the shot. This was actually very beneficial for my learning. I had never been shown the correct form for shooting, or more realistically, I probably never paid attention to someone showing me the correct form because I didn’t think shooting fit my playing style. However, I really respected my basketball coaches and the feedback that they gave me, both verbally and with the video of my shot, and it ultimately helped correct my elbow placement. They even allowed me to use my own intrinsic feedback by asking me how I thought the shot felt. This allowed me to make my own judgments, with them telling me if I was right or wrong, and ultimately made me inherently realize what a good shot felt like.

Even after my elbow placement had improved, I still wasn’t getting any spin on the ball and I had no idea why. Quite honestly, my coaches also didn’t initially know why, so then we videotaped my shooting again. This revealed that my guide hand (my left hand) was placed too far on top of the ball and was thus limiting the amount of spin that I was getting. We then went through the same procedure of my coaches telling me where the guide hand should be placed in order to get an adequate amount of spin on the ball. Once both my shooting problems were corrected, we then worked on developing my shooting from the three-point line. To do this, my coaches would have me shoot ten threes, and they would record if I made or missed, and how I missed the shot (short, long, left, right). I now know that this type of augmented feedback was related to knowledge of results as it provided me information about the movement outcome. It helped me realize what my errors were, and I would then use that information to correct the shot. Needless to say, I became a much better shooter my freshman year than I had ever been previously.

During the time that I was learning how to shoot the basketball, I knew that I was learning, but never really knew the concepts about it. Looking back at that summer with my coaches, I now see that the augmented feedback that they were giving me was very beneficial for the learning of the task. They also didn’t critique me after each shot which I now know is an effective strategy for the learning of a skill based on the lecture material. Additionally, my coaches used both knowledge of performance and knowledge of results to help me improve my shooting. They initially showed me videos on how to correct my form using knowledge of performance, and then transitioned to knowledge of results by writing down how many threes I made out of ten, and if I shot it long, short, left, or right. Learning to incorporate augmented feedback on my shot made me improve tremendously. I don’t think I would have learned to shoot that well on my own if I had never had the additional feedback. This information was all very valuable towards my learning of basketball and I am grateful that my coaches were patient with me and were invested in making me a better player.

The image below exemplifies the perfect shooting form in which my coach sought to teach me. The bottom left portion shows the proper elbow placement of tucking it in and not letting it shift out to the side.