Show D DIG IG bill tilden ocene opened d up an inter besting u estling angle on the matter of concentration recently in a long discussion we had upon this important topic it was Til dens idea that tennis called for more concentration than golf or any other sport tor for tills this reason in golf you play the game stroke by stroke you know where your tee sh shot 0 t should ou id g go tashi aoth and n d then th theres ere the e 7 green but in tennis you ou have t to m map p ou out t your tactics a or strategy several M strokes ahead you work to get gat your opponent into a certain t spot where lie he cant make a return this may call for many strokes here and there in bill tilden tennis you have extended co concentration in golf and baseball it Is more limited it Is usually only the next play greasy neale coach of the philadelphia eagles disagreed with this as tar far as football goes in football greasy said we frequently run two or three plays to set up the third or fourth play this of Is up to the quarterback or whoever is running the team 1 I know tilden said but in football you have 11 men to figure with in tennis you are all alone j just as you are in a boxing match where it Is man against man not team against team I 1 still say that tennis for the individual calls for more concentration than any other single sport at this point I 1 recalled a story that ty cobb had told me As a rule baseball Is played hit by hit or run by run the main part of baseballs concentration Is on the next play the pitcher the man at bat or the defense but ty cobb once told me of three games he had won against the yankees in the old days three plays he had planned over two months ahead all I 1 worked on ty said was the right opening you have to wait tor for that I 1 just happ happened ened to spot certain weak spots in their defense and when the right time came it was a push over but I 1 still had to remember what these weak spots were over a period of two months this is what I 1 call the peak of extended concentration but there were never many ty cobbs hanging around mind on the game few people connected with sport and this includes hoth both coaches and players quite get the point on concentration cent ration concentration happens to be the ability of thinking of the right thing at the right time do you know tommy armour once asked me that not one man in a hundred can concentrate for more than a minute at a time I 1 chocked checked later and found this was true I 1 mean full concentration the so called human brain equipped any other way it only operates in spots or spells F for or example jack dempsey could concentrate against a big slow moving heavyweight but jack was never so hot against a fast boxer such as tunney gibbons or greb concentration is the most important single word in sport but few even know what the word really means knute rockne used to tell me 1 I want my teams physically relaxed but mentally keen the angle here is wat teams mentally it elizeu en are arc physically relaxed for the brain or the mind or whatever it la Is dominates the muscular sy system stent it I 1 Is from the brain that the message comes certainly the subconscious m mind ind plays its part but it Is the acting conscious kind that plays a much larger part hurry up yost once told me that th a t he would rather coach an army team at west point than any other squad why I 1 asked hinl him because yost said each member of that army squad was listening to every word I 1 said this squad was trained in discipline A at t michigan and other places I 1 found no such response ask the average golf instructor he will tell you that 80 per cent of his pupils never concentrate on any lesson they cant even remember what they were told to do who have been the great concentrators in sport big bill tilden was one so was bobby jones so was walter hagen so was rogers hornsby so was ty cobb possibly the greatest of them all so was harry greb and so is byron nelson victory by putting during the recent nelson snead golf match tor for wounded servicemen we e ran cross across numerous instructors a and d asked for any tips they might have to offer the unwary swinger trying to break a 80 90 or an 85 and here were the main suggestions 1 on the long approach putt fir first s t decide on the speed ol of the green fast slow or normal L 2 get what you think Is the line 3 now concentrate on 00 stroking lne the ball |