Have you ever heard the little story of how local tribesmen capture monkeys in Africa and India? It’s very simple: monkeys love banana’s. Put a banana inside a trap that looks much like a crab trap (you’d have to live near the ocean like me to know what one looks like!!!) but… it’s a chicken wire trap with one single long tube in one side. You put the bananna inside the open end of the trap. The only way the monkey (crab) can reach the “bait” is to extend his arm down this chicken wire tube and grab the banana. The problem is… the monkey cannot pull the banana out! The tube is too narrow. So he sits there pulling on the bananna for hours. The captor merely shows up the next morning with a burlap sack and throws it over the monkey’s body. Even then, the monkey won’t let go of that banana!
Our players (and coaches) are sometimes like that monkey. We played poorly last Saturday and lost a game that I feel we should have won. Have your players ever continued to “hold on to the banana”; i.e., that loss into the next week’s practice???!! It’s time to LET GO OF THE BANANA!!! It’s “bounce back” time! You need to get focused on THIS week’s game. This little story is a great way to get your team re-focused!
