Morgan Robinson, director of Mississippi State University’s Institute for the Humanities, hosted a Sept. 24 roundtable, “The Great Balancing Act: Student Athletes at Mississippi State,” exploring how athletes’ habits outside of practice shape their on-field performance.
MSU Athletic Director Zac Selmon, along with five student athletes, gave insight into their day-to-day lives. These Bulldogs were none other than men’s track runner Curt Carman, women’s track runner Zaniyah Jones, women’s track thrower Tafada Wright, and softball players Alyssa Faircloth and Taylor Troutman.
Robinson presented the questions, exploring how the athletes balance school and sport. Taylor Troutman, a junior kinesiology major and outfielder for the MSU softball team, said that these habits began at an early age for her and many other athletes and became habits.
Each athlete had a different routine, but every routine had an impact on how they play. The lifestyle of a college athlete has a pattern of early mornings and early nights, ensuring that productivity could thrive in the parts of the day where their minds were the sharpest.
Athletic Director Zac Selmon referenced an old NBA In The Zone video game that required the player to get “in the zone” to perform at their absolute highest in-game.
“Have have you guys experienced being in the zone?” Selmon asked.
Each athlete had an in-depth response to the question, sharing what clears their heads and fires up their motivation to do their absolute best. Alyssa Faircloth, a junior kinesiology major and recent transfer softball pitcher from Troy, shared that being in the zone is more than just the mind.
“You have to have the physical to go with it,” Faircloth said. “If your mental is terrible, it doesn’t matter how much physical you’re in.”
Both aspects are necessary for a good performance. The mental as well as the physical — and neither seperated from the other. It is a process of the two working together, according to Faircloth.
Sophomore business administration major and sprinter for track and field Zaniyah Jones brought up that being in the game is mental, and if the mental is not there, then the athlete cannot perform correctly.
“Really with sports, I feel like any sport is really like you versus your mind, like your mind is your biggest factor,” Jones said. “You can have a mental block, but it’s like, Is your mind telling yes or no? You have to take that and perform with it.”
According to Jones, the mind is the biggest factor. She also expressed that if the mental is not at top performance, it is the athlete’s responsibility to regroup and get back into the correct mindset.
“So sometimes your mind is not always going to be one-hundred percent, you have to mentally tell yourself, like, no, like, today, I have to suck it up and give it all I got,” Jones said.
After Jones explained the importance of mental performance, Alyssa Faircloth backed up her statements with a personal example. She talked about how if her mind was not ready at the start of a game, then she knew that she would already not perform well.
The importance of the mental and the physical was clear in the words of the athletes, but even more than that, the question also lies with the athletic director himself and where Selmon’s motivation stems from. His response showed his faith and appreciation for the athletes that spoke at the event.
“I think I would say drive now comes from five great individuals you see up here, seeing how they’re making their worlds better, their their surroundings better,” Selmon said.
Not only do these athletes make themselves better from their own training and performance, but they make it clear that they are also inspiring those around them to get in the zone.
