Drew Brees is/was quite the athlete. Brees held a 3-1 record against Andy Roddick in tennis as youngsters. Pair that with Brees 3-handicap on the golf course (started playing in college), his high school basketball and baseball skills (Brees thought baseball was his best chance at playing pro) and his Super Bowl ring and he’s a pretty good athlete.

I never can decide if I love reading about these natural athletes or if it makes me sick that they get all the talent in ALL sports. And reading this explains where he gets some of his natural talent.

Roger Federer is one of the few athletes I’m routinely amazed by. I’ve been watching him throughout the US Open and have been wondering about his training regimen. I found this article about him conserving his focus for select moments during a match. I’ve lifted some blurbs that are great demonstrations for how he mentally plays the game.

he chooses to focus selectively, and focuses intensely once he does.

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Clearly, Federer was not too stressed about losing the first set, which demonstrates that he has gotten to a special mental state: acceptance of what has happened combined with confidence about what will happen.

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It’s not about the other guy, it’s about what you know you will summon from yourself at times of need.  I suppose winning as much as those two guys have builds something more than confidence, something like faith.

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he uses his mind to make sure he’s ready to concentrate at those crucial moments he is so good at identifying, and once there, doing what comes to him.  That’s what I think he meant when he said, after Isner, “it’s all in the mind and it’s all in the moment.”

In preparation for Wimbledon, let’s revisit the 2006 NY Times article by David Foster Wallace, Roger Federer as a Religious Experience.

I think I could get used to a life as described here:

How I longed to be one of them, to be ranked in, say, the top 250, just high enough to eke out a decent living, to stay in swanky hotels (bliss!) and get free rackets and balls, without the superhuman dedication required to be in the top 20 – that must be the perfect life. (Ideally, I’d have been so far down the rankings as to be able to go on occasional alcoholic benders without radically compromising my pro lifestyle.)