Blog Post #61, June 5, 2009

The Power of Recognition

Category: Teaching

In the summer between my junior and senior years at UCLA, a friend to both Wilt Chamberlain and I (although we had not met), asked Wilt if he would work out with me. Wilt agreed and met me at Pauley Pavilion. He had come from Santa Monica beach where he had been playing volleyball, but when he arrived, he realized he had forgotten his basketball shoes and socks. He asked if I would ride with him to his home. What do you think I said, “No.”? The man had a red convertible Cadillac El Dorado with white leather seats. As Wilt went into his walk-in closet (twice the size of my dorm room), he handed me three pairs of socks and two pairs of Chuck Taylors Converse basketball shoes. We wore the same size.

Back at Pauley, I discovered just how great a player Wilt was. We found a half-court and played two-on-two. It wasn’t difficult to find two other players since about fifty gym rats were standing around gawking and watching. (Obviously, they had never seen me play up close.) When Wilt got the ball at the low post, he faked to his left, took one dribble toward the hoop, and began to rise. All I saw was a pair of basketball shorts as Wilt dunked the ball through the net. The ball hit the floor and bounced so high I thought it would never come down.

It was my turn. My teammate shot the ball and I went in for the offensive rebound. Wilt stuck out his tree trunk…errr… I mean arm, I ran into it, and at 250 pounds, fell flat on my backside. My fans chuckled while I shook my head to remove the cobwebs. Nevertheless, I kept going after every rebound and Wilt made me work for every one that I got. But, the whoopin’ continued for three more games. I’ve got to hand it to my fans; they stuck around till the end.

Immediately after the last points were scored, Wilt gave me some much-needed recognition. He turned to me, put his hands on my shoulders, bent down to be at eye-level, (I was only 6’11”), and said, “Swen, I like the way you rebound. You can make it in the NBA if you want really want to.” As we walked out of the arena, even though my tail was tucked between my legs, somehow, I believed him.

Now fasten your seatbelt; we’re going to get technical. In his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation, (http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm), Abraham Maslow states that human motivation is stimulated by need. In other words, people are only motivated to act when they believe that action will help fulfill an unsatisfied need. Maslow lists five areas of “basic needs.”
1. Physiological (food, shelter, sleep)
2. Security (safety, health)
3. Social (love, acceptance, belonging, companionship)
4. Esteem (self respect and the respect of others, value to the world)
5. Self Actualization (an interest in fulfilling personal potential).

Maslow believed these to be levels of a hierarchy; a person cannot feel the needs of one level until the needs of the previous level have been satisfied. For example, it is difficult to feel a need for self-respect when your need for being loved and for belonging are not yet satisfied.  

Application:
That’s the end of the technical stuff. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Here is what we can learn from Maslow’s Hierarchy and my experience with Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt’s recognition of my rebounding potential instantly helped satisfied my social needs. I felt accepted. My next mission was to prove to myself that Wilt was right. Through hard work, I gained self-respect and the respect of others. Once I had that, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I set my sights on Maslow’s highest level, self actualization, the goal of fulfilling my personal potential.

When you verbally recognize the improvements of your students, it may not move them up a level, but there is no doubt it will move them forward. Not only that, but recognition has a snowball effect; the power of recognizing progress is that it produces more progress.

During the summer after I led the NBA in rebounding, I saw Wilt for the last time. At a professional tennis match, he was seated alone. I went over and we talked for a good while, mostly about why NBA centers were not getting 30 rebounds in a game anymore. Ironic, isn’t it? The man that knocked me down to the ground, through recognition, lifted me to become a rebounder.