http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/sports/basketball/lebron-james-is-making-the-case-for-the-happy-athlete.html

The Happy Warrior Meets the Obsessive Competitor
By SCOTT CACCIOLA

Is anyone having more fun these days than LeBron James? As he demolishes his opposition nightly, the N.B.A.'s resident megastar has bearhugged a fan who drained a halfcourt shot, elevated the pregame dunk line into an art form and joined his Miami Heat teammates in putting together their own version of a Harlem Shake video. (James is the shirtless one wearing the crown.)

There is a joie de vivre to James’s dominance this season, which stands in stark contrast to the scowl he wore the last few years when he was the world’s favorite N.B.A. player to hate.

Now, he laughs. He smiles. He dances. He wins.

All this sunniness can feel a bit disorienting. We’re more familiar with tortured souls who would sacrifice limbs or loved ones if they thought it would help them win.

Michael Jordan breathed fire on the court. Roger Clemens threw baseballs and the occasional broken bat at hitters. Ty Cobb slid spikes first. John McEnroe, Lance Armstrong, the 1974 Philadelphia Flyers — pick your favorite victorious villain.

Indeed, conventional wisdom is that to succeed at the highest level, you have to be boiling over with the rage of Achilles, bursting with a maniacal drive to win. Happy people are too soft to cut it.

Bob Knight, the patron saint of surliness, recently finished his manifesto on the issue. Its title: “The Power of Negative Thinking.” Bill Parcells, the cloudiest of souls, once said that football was not a game for well-adjusted people.

But cussedness is not the only way. Usain Bolt, the sprinting champion from Jamaica, made winning at the London Olympics look like more fun than a holiday parade.

Perhaps he and James have offered the world a new archetype: the happy athlete.

“You can tell that he’s just so much lighter this season,” Dr. Todd Kays, a sports psychologist, said of James. Kays is based in Ohio, where psychological analysis of James is something of a statewide hobby.

“I think the past couple years, he had all that mental weight on him — from leaving Cleveland, to working on his own maturity,” Kays said. “I think now he’s finally free. He’s just playing.”

Not all athletes make that transition, even after they establish themselves as the greatest in their fields. Jordan, for example, barked at opponents and teammates until the day he retired, and he hasn’t really stopped, unable to unburden himself of whatever it was that fueled him.

“He might be one of the most competitive people to ever walk the earth,” said Chris Wallace, the general manager of the Memphis Grizzlies.

No one suggests that James is less driven than Jordan, or that he loves the game more. Enjoyment manifests itself in different ways.

But athletes like James and Bolt have turned their passion into unusually public displays of joy. Maybe it’s that they are simply so much better than everyone else that winning feels less like work than play.

“The only time I’ve ever seen LeBron unhappy is that first year in Miami,” said Keith Dambrot, who coached James in high school. “He’s never been a guy who’s wanted to be the villain. He’s always been the guy who’s tried to please people.”

The New York Times posed the question to reporters who have studied athletes of every temperament: do happy people make history?


The Manning Brothers

The Lunatic and the Sweetheart

What to make of the Manning family DNA, which holds the genetic code of two very different kinds of champions?

Eli’s nickname in the Giants’ locker room is Easy E, a homage to a demeanor so quiet and cool that when he once said on a radio show that he considered himself in Tom Brady’s class, the swagger surprised even his father.

That Eli said it only a few months before beating Brady for his second Super Bowl championship underscores the point that it is possible to enjoy antique shopping with your mom and still prevail in two of the most thrilling Super Bowls in history.

His older brother Peyton is, well, not so easy. If he has a nickname, it’s the Sheriff. In January, one member of the Baltimore Ravens called him the MacBook. Neither name suggests warm and cuddly.

Peyton’s obsession with football is well known — he studies film passionately; he used to send his Colts coaches text messages with his game-plan ideas in the middle of the night; he largely runs the offense himself from the line of scrimmage, where he is often seen, red-faced, yelling at his teammates.

When Peyton was a child, his baseball coach would tell the players that they had tied the other team, even when they had lost badly. One day, Peyton turned to his father during a ride home and said, “This coach must think we’re stupid.”

His patience for foolishness can be summed up thusly: he once called a Colts teammate “the idiot kicker.”

Such a riddle, the Mannings. From one womb came conflicting answers to an age-old question: lunatic or sweetheart? Pick your son, and your poison. — JUDY BATTISTA


Bob Knight

Living Down to His Billing

In my 16 years as a journalist, I’ve had the fortune — or misfortune, depending on how you look at it — of covering some of the meanest people in sports, including Bill Parcells, Dale Earnhardt and Lance Armstrong.

But none were as ornery as Bob Knight. None even came close.

In 2003, when I worked for The Dallas Morning News, I spent an entire year following Parcells in his first season as coach of the Dallas Cowboys. For one article, I landed a rare one-on-one interview with Knight because he and Parcells were close friends. (Their relationship was proof that misery loves company.)

I flew from Dallas to Lubbock, where Knight was coaching at Texas Tech. One morning, I waited outside his office for him to arrive. I was nervous, and with good reason. He seemed to relish telling reporters how stupid they were. He had been caught on tape choking one of his players.

When Knight finally showed up, he did not disappoint. He gave me a dirty look and scowled.

“You’re here?” he said as he knit his eyebrows and frowned. “I was hoping your plane crashed.” — JULIET MACUR


Bill Cartwright

The Gentle 7-Footer

Imagine how Michael Jordan— Bill Simmons called him the Hannibal Lecter of N.B.A. competitors — would have dealt with Scottie Pippen when Pippen refused to play the final 1.8 seconds of a tied playoff game because he was not chosen to take the last shot.

But Jordan was on sabbatical from the Chicago Bulls in 1994, and it was left to Bill Cartwright to deal with the defiant Pippen.

A 7-foot wide-body and a banger on court, Cartwright was so genial and unthreatening elsewhere that he once confronted a critical reporter (me) by pleading that his wife was upset with what had been written about him in the newspaper.

But in the locker room after that playoff game, he confronted Pippen — tears in his eyes, observers remembered. “Scottie,” he said. “How could you do that to us?”

Stunned by this naked display of distress, as opposed to a more predictable fury, Pippen immediately begged for his teammates’ forgiveness.

Pippen’s refusal to play threatened to make him a pariah in Chicago and haunt him forever, but it became a footnote to his Hall of Fame career as Jordan’s indispensable sidekick. And what Cartwright demonstrated that night was a welcome alternative to the notion that the greatest sportsmen must be driven, tortured and intimidating souls. — HARVEY ARATON


Evander Holyfield

‘I Can’t Be No. 2’

He was among the gentlest souls I’ve ever come across — soft-spoken, thoughtful, self-aware. When you saw Evander Holyfield in a suit at the airport waiting with 2 of his 11 kids, you thought financier, salesman or even preacher, but never undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

He was small, under 200 pounds, chiseled like a garden sculpture, gnarly and wrought together with steel. People rarely called him “Champ” — just Evander or Holy. At one time or another, he wore almost every belt in the cruiser, light and heavyweight divisions. He had no entourage or carnival barkers trailing in his wake, telling him how great he was.

“He’s never needed them,” his longtime trainer Don Turner once told me. “There’s something about Evander that says you don’t need to treat him like he’s special. And nobody does.”

Before his second bout with Mike Tyson, Holyfield trained in a tin shed gym beneath a highway in a warehouse district in downtown Houston. Seven months earlier, he had shocked the world with an 11th-round technical knockout of Tyson, who was on the comeback trail after serving a prison sentence for rape and was thought to have returned to the fearsome form he had shown as a young fighter.

Holyfield, then 34, was supposed to be washed up, raking in his last big paychecks. Instead, he became only the second person to win a heavyweight championship for a third time.

Holyfield, who was getting $35 million for the rematch, started each workout at dawn beneath a naked light bulb in a prayer circle. Jennie Fairfield, a 50-year-old legal assistant, was there. So was Richard Waters, a computer analyst. There were others — regular folks who showed up each morning. He asked them what was going on in their lives as they stretched or performed calisthenics. He knew why they came.

“I’ve never been good instantly at anything,” he said, shrugging. “I have to work and work to catch up. It’s something everyone can understand.”

Then the gospel music would start pumping through a boom box, and Turner would remind Holyfield that “you can’t take a bow today for the performance you gave yesterday.”

It was clear as soon as the rematch started that Holyfield had broken Tyson in the previous fight. Twice Tyson bit Holyfield’s ears, taking a big enough chunk out of the right one that it was found on the mat. Tyson was disqualified and a near riot broke out.

In Houston, Holyfield said he was expecting a war. He was confident that he would be fine as long as he maintained his peace. He had.

“I don’t ever measure myself by somebody else’s strength,” he said. “I’ll be better. He can’t force his will on me, because I won’t let him. If I did something else for 26 years, I’d be great at it. It’s the way I am. I can’t be No. 2.” — JOE DRAPE


Manny Pacquiao

Finding Happiness, and the Mat

A few years ago, back when Manny Pacquiao ruled boxing with a vicious left hand, when he rearranged Miguel Cotto’s face and broke Antonio Margarito’s orbital bone, Pacquiao was not happy. Or at least that was the narrative he later sold.

He drank and gambled and cheated on his wife. That Pacquiao, the unhappy one, played darts until sunrise and lived in a condo with stained carpets and leftover food in the kitchen. That Pacquiao hit big and lived hard. That Pacquiao won fighter of the decade.

So what happened next? Pacquiao said he dumped his vices, stopped gambling, stopped drinking, recommitted to his wife and family.

This new Pacquiao talks mostly about politics and Bible study. This Pacquiao says he has never been happier, more content, more in love. This Pacquiao, happy Pacquiao, vice-free Pacquiao, stepped back into the ring last December to fight Juan Manuel Márquez.

A month earlier, Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, was asked whether a fighter could become too nice, whether all those hours of religiosity could sap a killer instinct. Was Pacquiao simply too friendly to go back to the brutality that brought him stardom?

Roach declined to answer.

So what happened next?

Márquez knocked Pacquiao out cold. — GREG BISHOP



‘Don’t Feel Too Bad for Me’

Roger Federer is going on vacation. After the Indian Wells tournament later this month, he plans to take seven weeks off to spend time with his family.

This is now the life of the greatest tennis player ever. A tempestuous teenager, Federer grew into a well-oiled tennis machine, coolly and gracefully dismantling opponents with his breathtaking arsenal of shots. A student of the game’s history, he was focused on making his own. And he made lots and lots of it.

The pinnacle was the 2009 season, which began with Federer weeping on the court after losing to Rafael Nadal, again, in the Australian Open final. But then he got the French Open monkey off his back. At Wimbledon he surpassed Pete Sampras’s record for career Grand Slam titles. He married, and became the father of twin girls.

Federer had it all, at last. There have been achievements since then, of course: 2010 Australian Open, 2012 Wimbledon. Last year, he made it a goal to return to the No. 1 ranking — and he did.

But he has also been dogged by murmurs that his killer instinct has eroded. For example, he had never lost a match at a Grand Slam event after winning the first two sets, then did it twice in 2011, in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the semifinals at the United States Open.

One thing missing from his trophy case was an Olympic gold medal in singles. He talked frequently about how much he wanted it. When the gold medal match in London came, though, he was steamrollered by Andy Murray and the Team GB train. But that was O.K., he said.

“I think this is as good as I could do during these championships; Andy was much better than I was today in many aspects of the game,” Federer said. “For me, it’s been a great month. I won Wimbledon, became world No. 1 again, and I got silver. Don’t feel too bad for me.”

That sounds like a happy man, a content man, a man satisfied with his legacy.

About six months later, Federer faced Murray in the semifinals of the Australian Open. This time, Federer was glaring and swearing, rallying and fighting. He lost again. — NAILA-JEAN MEYERS



Brandi Chastain

‘Hollywood’ Charms the Crowd

“Hair! Makeup!” Brandi Chastain said in a mock-diva voice backstage on “Late Show With David Letterman.”

It was three days before the start of the 1999 Women’s World Cup. Mia Hammhad begged off, so Chastain took her place. She was not averse to the spotlight. Her nickname was Hollywood. Teammate Julie Foudy referred to Chastain as her favorite actress.

She was unfailingly pleasant and accommodating. After one World Cup match, Chastain tossed a pair of cleats to a fan who had chased the team bus. She always seemed agreeable and at ease, giving interviews, taking penalty kicks at clinics against high school players, throwing out the first pitch at a Yankees game and pretending to shake off the catcher’s sign.

Few were calmer in pressured moments. The 1999 World Cup was then the largest sporting event ever held for women. The championship game against China distilled itself to a penalty-kick shootout. Ninety thousand fans crowded into the Rose Bowl. An estimated 40 million Americans watched some part of the match on television.

Hamm did not want to take a penalty kick but was forced to. Chastain reveled in the moment, scored the decisive shot, and then removed her jersey, her chiseled physique presenting an iconic image of female strength and celebration.

“You have to be willing to stand in front of the crowd and say, ‘I’m the one to take on the responsibility,’ ” Chastain said. — JERÉ LONGMAN


Tom Coughlin

Learning to Smile

Fining players for being two minutes early, because the rule is five minutes. No white socks on trips, no cellphones in the locker room. Two feet on the floor at all times in meetings.

Tom Coughlin treated the Giants players like “schoolchildren,” one said publicly, and the private thoughts were far harsher.

Coughlin’s militaristic and humorless approach clashed so sharply with the veterans and a new generation of players that he was nearly fired as the Giants’ coach at the end of the 2006 season.

He thought the way to win in the N.F.L. was to follow the lead of the fiercest hard-nosed disciplinarians — guys like Lombardi, guys like Parcells, his former boss. But those men had something Coughlin didn’t: an endearing humor about them.

Coughlin was nothing but nerves and anxiety and anger. And he nearly lost his job for it.

Figure out how to improve young quarterback Eli Manning, the Giants’ owners said. Build a better defense. But more than anything, loosen up. Show the world what we see in the hallways — a man of kindness and charity and compassion.

And, unveiled slowly at first, there he was: the new Tom Coughlin, a reinvented man, a man with a smile. Six seasons later, he has two Super Bowl rings — the same as Lombardi, the same as Parcells. Still a stickler, maybe a Hall of Famer, even with the occasional smile. — JOHN BRANCH


Diego Maradona

The Chosen Bad Boy

Divine permission often lies behind geniuses, athletic stars, gangsters and madmen, or some combination.

Diego Maradona, one of the greatest soccer players in history, is best remembered for his goal for Argentina in the 1986 World Cup, when he leapt and punched the ball past the English keeper. The referee somehow missed the infraction.

With a knowing smirk, Maradona immediately said the ball had been diverted by the “Hand of God.” Four minutes later, he made a brilliant run through the English defense for a second goal, which has been overshadowed by his brazen first goal.

Off the field, he indulged most appetites known to humankind. He took drugs; he fired a pellet gun at journalists who stalked him; he was tossed out of his fourth World Cup for testing positive for multiple drugs. His new pal Fidel Castro arranged drug rehabilitation and heart treatment in Cuba.

Maradona’s family had escaped the countryside for a hard barrio of Buenos Aires. He was a child prodigy, performing soccer tricks at halftime in large stadiums. His handlers fed him drugs to bulk him up; he left school early.

“I can talk about poverty because I lived it,” he said in 1982. He played well “because God makes me play well.”

Maradona is currently visiting Italy to discuss a $50 million tax debt. It is unclear if his defense will include the almighty. — GEORGE VECSEY


Bill Parcells

‘Throw Up On Your Own Time’

In his endless quest to emasculate his players and prove to them that he was the man, Bill Parcells perfected the art of being mean.

He meticulously studied each of his players to figure out his weaknesses. Then he harped on those faults to see which players were tough enough to survive his mind games.

Parcells called players clowns and brainless idiots. He used cruelty to control those under him, making even millionaire marquee players wish they had never been born.

Once, when he saw a Jets player throwing up from exhaustion at practice, he said, “Throw up on your own time.”

When a Cowboys running back had a long overdue long run in one game, Parcells bellowed in a packed locker room, “Ooh, did you call your mama to tell her you got by four or five players all by yourself?”

In Dallas, he refused to call the famously arrogant wide receiver Terrell Owens by his given name, instead referring to him as “the player” or “this player” when talking about him to reporters in his trademark gravelly growl.

Even when talking about family, the ever-miserable Parcells barely mustered a smile. Upon the birth of his third grandchild, he grumbled to a reporter as he frowned, “It’s another girl,” as if frustrated that he, despite his omnipotence, could not will the birth of a grandson.

When speaking with reporters, he often prefaced his comments with, “I’m not trying to be a jerk.”

But many players over the years didn’t think he was ever trying to be a jerk. They just thought it came naturally. — JULIET MACUR


Gary Carter

The Anti-Met to the Rescue

The 1986 Mets are revered as a rowdy band of rogues, playing hard on the field and living harder off it. But when they faced elimination in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series — bottom of the 10th inning, two outs, bases empty, down two runs — their nicest guy saved them.

Gary Carter was the anti-Met, the one who never quite fit with the others. Stable family life, deeply religious, permanent smile. He talked a lot, and if it came off as self-promotion, he was really just being himself. Carter liked people, and he liked himself. He also trusted himself — or, perhaps more accurately, he trusted that his faith would allow him to meet the moment, and live peacefully with the outcome.

When hope seemed lost for the Mets in Game 6, some teammates slumped on the bench or retreated to the clubhouse, disgusted at the thought of the Boston Red Sox celebrating on the Shea Stadium turf. Carter had a job to do, and on his way to the batter’s box, he prayed. Then he lined a single to left.

Two more hits brought him home, and Carter clapped vigorously as he crossed the plate. A wild pitch tied it, Bill Buckner’s famous error won it, and the Mets lived for another day. The next game ended with Carter squeezing strike three in his catcher’s mitt and rushing to the mound in joy. — TYLER KEPNER



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