Nick Saban, one of the best college football coaches, retired after this past season. Given his age, it’s not surprising, but his stated reason for retiring was because of the change in motivating the players. Increasingly, athletes are demanding NIL and playing time guarantees to commit to a team. Saban says that his recruitment strategies center around both playing and personal development.
There’s a cynical take that Saban doesn’t want to compete on money and instead wants the players to trust him. There’s validity there.
But there is also the idea of amateurism. I’ve previously thought that the focus on amateurism is to have a reason not to pay players. But why is the default assumption that the best players can be measured by money? It’s assumed that the best players are driven by external validation.
The root of amateur is Latin for love, meaning that an amateur athlete is intrinsically motivated. But in today’s world, amateur athletics is seen as second-rate or a precursor and preparation for the big time.
If you want to maximize your athletic potential, maximizing your salary may be detrimental. A larger salary means your team can’t afford as much other talent. If you believe that the team is more than the sum of the parts, the more talent you have around you, the better you will be. You’ll also focus on outcomes that maximize your salary instead of team success (points over the small stuff).
Should you be extrinsically motivated or intrinsically motivated? I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. It’s hard to eat intrinsic motivation. But it’s also hard to be fulfilled by extrinsic motivation.
Everybody tells you like, 'Yo, this is what you need to be working for, is this gold ball and these rings.' And I'm just like, 'All right, cool, let me lock in on that.' And I locked in on wanting to achieve that, but I also realized it's a lot of stuff that factors in it that's out of my control.
And once I won a championship [with Golden State], I realized that, like, my view on this game is really about development. Like, how good can I be? It's not about, you know, let's go get this championship. I appreciate that stuff and I want to win to experience that stuff, but it's not the end-all, be-all of why I play the game. - Kevin Durant