Ryan Day goes in-depth on ‘myth’ players ‘rise to occasion’ in biggest moment

Ryan Day explained the myth of players rising to the occasion, especially when it came to quarterbacks. He used the “Roy Hobbs Myth,” referencing the main character of The Natural.

Coming up big in the biggest comments is a common way to measure greatness in players. The best players in any sport are commonly associated with this type of clutch gene. 

But it’s not actually real, at least when using this specific study as a reference. Day likes to use that in his coaching at Ohio State and he went back to his NFL days as an assistant to explain.

“So I did this study when I was with the Eagles, when I was with Sam Bradford, and it’s called the Roy Hobbs myth,” Day said. “Which is really interesting because if you’ve ever watched ‘The Natural,’ you know, the story is that, you know, he hits his home run, breaks the lights, and he’s running around the bases. But the true story of Roy Hobbs, if you read it, is nothing like that. And so, you know, I did a study on that, because, you know, for quarterbacks, you’re trying to get them to rise to the occasion. 

“But the truth is that, like nobody really rises to the occasion, you really fall back on your training. When you look at Mr. October Reggie Jackson, he pretty much hit his career average during those moments. When you watch Jordan or LeBron, when they’re in those moments, people who are clutch, they’re pretty much just operating under their career average. They’re not doing anything extraordinary in those moments. Now there’s the other side of it. Sometimes the moment can be too big, and you can do, quote, unquote, you can choke, you can struggle. But if you can just sink to the level of your training and be at your career average during those moments, you’re going to be better than the majority of them.” 

It’s an interesting thought process from Day and he wants to instill it in his quarterbacks. Lincoln Kineholz and Julian Sayin are locked in a quarterback battle that’ll likely go through fall camp.

“That’s what it comes down to when you’re playing a quarterback, like, whatever we see in practice, if we can see that in a game, good things are going to happen if we start to see, like, crazy play all of a sudden on the field that we haven’t seen in practice,” Day said. “Now, there’s something else going on. Is there anxiety? Is there whatever those things are? We have to get other people involved and figure out what those things might be. So, again, the long answer, but like that’s it. We just want to see the same things we’re seeing in practice, on the field during the game, and it’s our job as coaches to make practice really hard.”