Associated Press
Lawrence Jackson was selected 28th overall by Seahawks in this year's NFL draft.
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Like Phllies' Rollins, Seahawks' Jackson in touch with his 'Inner Game'
WHEN SHORTSTOP Jimmy Rollins cleared his head with "The Inner Game of Tennis," it helped the Phillies reach the playoffs, helped make him an MVP and helped end a playoff slump.
When defensive end Lawrence Jackson read the self-help book, it kept his stock at USC high enough to ensure him being a first-round pick in this year's NFL draft.
Jackson and the Seahawks host the Eagles on Sunday. Without working on his "Inner Game," Jackson might not have been a first-rounder . . . or in the NFL at all.
"It is a powerful book," Jackson said.
It was powerful enough to drag him from the doldrums that threatened to ruin his 2006 season.
Jackson logged 16 sacks in his first two seasons at USC. He was a significant contributor to the Trojans, who lost just one game in those two seasons.
Then, through the first eight games of his junior year, he was sack-less. He didn't even manage one against hapless Stanford on Nov. 4.
It got worse.
Only hours after the Stanford game Jackson learned that his cousin, Kevin Shedden, had died in a car accident. Shedden, 25, served as a mentor in the game for Jackson, Jackson's younger brother and Shedden's two younger brothers.
His stock dropping, his spirit flagging, Jackson asked to meet with USC head coach Pete Carroll.
He felt lousy that he wasn't helping the team. He felt guilty at his own self-absorption: In light of his cousin's death, he understood that not having a sack meant little in the grand scheme.
"I was a junior, my name was hot. After a game, even if we won, if somebody else got a sack, I was upset," Jackson said. "Then my cousin died. I mean, I couldn't deal with it on my own anymore."
Jackson met with Carroll on Wednesday of that week.
He told Carroll he was preparing as hard as ever, that he was practicing harder, and, now, with a tragedy in his life, his world was blackening.
"I was kind of stumped," Jackson said.
"I think you're pressing," Carroll replied.
He handed him a little book about a fuzzy ball, a book he first read in the mid-1970s.
Jackson, mystified, accepted it and left. He placed it on his dresser, where it stayed for the next 2 days.
"I thought it was kind of weird," Jackson said.
Things got no better.
So, while packing for the team's Friday-night hotel stay before the homecoming game against Oregon, Jackson spotted the little book. A bit desperate, he figured the book at least would give him something to do in the long hours of waiting for the Saturday night game to start.
Instead of wrapping his ears with headphones and bouncing out to Eminem's "Till I Collapse" and "Lose Yourself," Jackson instead lost himself in "The Inner Game."
"Dude," asked roommate Alex Morrow, "what the heck are you doing, reading a tennis book before the game?"
"I can't put it down," Jackson replied.
He picked it up at 3:30 p.m. The bus left at 5 p.m. He was still reading.
He collected three sacks that night. He got 14 1/2 over his last 18 games of 2006 and 2007.
He was the 28th overall pick in April. He has two sacks in seven games with the Seahawks.
W. Timothy Gallwey, the book's author, recommends that the reader separate the "I" from the "Self."
Jackson and Rollins did that. For both of them, it boils down to not overanalyzing, to not trying too hard and to not being judgmental about the results.
"The 'I' is the inhibitor. The 'I' doesn't trust the 'self' to get things done," Jackson explained. "The 'self' is the 'doer.' The 'I' slows the 'doer' down."
Rollins said he was so impacted by the book when he read it before the 2007 season that it helped him win the National League MVP award and lead the Phils to the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.
Rollins reread part of it Friday, after he went 0-for-10 in the first two games of the World Series: "It simplified me."
He went 5-for-9 in the next two games, both Phillies wins.
Contacted yesterday in Paris, Gallwey was flattered, but hardly surprised.
"Not at all; I'm only surprised, and pleased, that he spoke about it publicly," Gallwey said.
He was in France conducting a demonstration for French coaches. His roots remain in tennis. The book was first published in 1974, when he was a young tennis pro in California.
However, Gallwey stressed, "Most of the readers of 'The Inner Game of Tennis' apply the techniques to something other than tennis."
In fact, most of Gallwey's clients are large corporations: he lists, among them, AT&T, Anheuser-Busch and IBM.
His next stop: England, next week. There, he said, for the fifth consecutive year, he will conduct a 3-day workshop with Rolls Royce employees based on his 1999 helper, "The Inner Game of Work."
Apparently, the "Inner Game" message is timeless and universal. Gallwey has written three other "Inner Game" books: golf, skiing, music. A sixth, "The Inner Game of Stress," is due next year.
Maybe Rollins can buy that one for Phillies president David Montgomery.
Things are going well enough for Jackson that he doesn't need a refresher. However, there might come a day . . . which raises a problem.
"You know, I let somebody borrow it," Jackson said. "I should buy another copy."
Or, he could just call his old coach, Carroll. He probably has a few copies lying around his office at USC.
After all, Carroll wrote the foreword. *
