(Photo by Courtney Vondracek/NAU Athletics)
By Brian Hamilton | New York Times
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Three minutes before the weekly mental training session, motorized curtains drop and gradually erase the panorama of pines and aspens crawling up the side of Humphreys Peak. The lights go down. No vista of 12,000-foot mountains set against blue sky over the next 20 minutes. Only a smiling performance psychologist on the auditorium screen for the athletes in the first four rows, the lissome caretakers of a modern college sports dynasty, snacking on health bars and yogurt after a lift, ready to meditate.
Breath is meditation’s most basic focus, they’re told. For many cultures, breath is known as spirit. It’s a sermon to believers: The closed eyes and quieted minds in the room belong to Northern Arizona’s cross-country team, a group that obsesses over oxygen and generally has mastered what to do with it. The program has won six of the last seven men’s NCAA championships. It finished second the other time. Meanwhile, on this particular Wednesday in October, the school has the nation’s No. 1 men’s team and No. 1 women’s team. That hasn’t happened anywhere in 15 years.
As long as you’re breathing, intones Shannon Thompson, the performance consultant running the session, there’s more right with you than wrong with you.
From the top row, Mike Smith watches with a hand on his chin and a black Adidas hat pulled low. His first job was teaching elementary school. Never expected to do this. Too many weekends at meets. He wound up as an assistant for Northern Arizona’s first championship team and has directed the program to its next five titles as head coach. He’s a guy who has Navajo sculptures, a quote from Paracelsus and a book about John Wooden on display in his office. He’s a seeker. In this job, he’s after the way to protect something by letting it go.
