The Clarksville girls’ basketball team had rolled through their schedule. Emily Burton was averaging 30 points a game, and Clarksville was winning by a margin of 22 points. But the game against Martin High was incredibly close until midway through the last quarter. Martin had taken a nine-point lead with just two minutes to go.
In a time-out, Emily had asked to be taken out of the game. Coach Henry had substituted Coral to take her place. The crowd couldn’t believe what the coach had done. Coral had hardly played at all this season; and when she did play, she impressed no one.
The final two minutes were something that would be long remembered. Coral had two steals and a block on defense. More importantly, she had made three, three-point shots. The final basket was with one second to go. She was fouled and was at the line to win the game. She calmly made the foul shot, and Clarksville kept its winning streak alive.
After the game, Coach Henry was asked about his decision to play Coral. His response was succinct: “She’s a closer”. Clearly that was true, but the press wanted to know more. That’s all Coach Henry would say.
Coach Henry did not want to discuss his secret weapon: The Yerkes-Dodson Law. Basically, the law states something we have all seen in ourselves. Our performance increases as our stress levels increase, but only up to a point. After this point, our performance declines rapidly. The performance-stress curve is shown below.
The curve is different for different people. Emily had a curve where her optimum performance was at a stress level that was lower than others. That’s why she performed so well in blow-out games. Coral was very different. It took a lot of stress for her to perform well. That’s why she underperformed in blowout victories. And that’s what Coach Henry meant when he said she was a closer. When the stress of the game was at a high level, her performance reached its peak.
Each of us has a different Yerkes-Dodson curve. For some of us, we do well when we are in a modest stressful environment. Others of us need a fairly high level of stress to reach our peak level of performance.
Like Coach Henry, we need to be aware of the Yerkes-Dodson curve when we put together teams. And that’s something that is rarely considered when we think of the diversity of teams.
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“It’s not stress that kills us. It is our reaction to it.”–Hans Selye (a pioneer in studying stress response)