Girls varsity basketball team attends meditation seminar in preparation for season

The girls varsity basketball players attended a speaker at the North Star facility on Tuesday, September 12th. The speaker was George Mumford, who is well known as a meditation coach for the NBA. He is a nationally renowned author, speaker, and consultant who works to help improve young athletes all around the country. Head coach Steve Clark chose this event because he said he wanted the girls to improve their mental game for the upcoming season.

“We do some cooperative work with North Star and they extended an invitation for our girls and coaches to attend the event,” Clark said. “He has worked with NBA players and coaches on their mental approach to basketball. I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to hear how important the mental game is to athletic success. This is something that often goes unnoticed and coaches and athletes don’t often spend time working on the mental game.”

Sophomore Ella Wedergren attended the event and gave insight on tips and tricks they learned to deal with stress.

“It was a mindfulness event, to teach us how to keep our mind right,” Wedergren said. “At first we started with breathing and meditation so you can clear your mind which they said it was good for tests and games, basically anything stressful.”

Wedergren said she felt like she recieved a very helpful message and something that all people should be told on a daily basis.

“One key thing they went into was knowing you’re a masterpiece and that it’s not only LeBron or Kyire that’s really good,” Wedergren said. “You are that great too you just need to know you’re that great and put in work for it. I liked that he was telling everyone they were masterpieces because not everyone hears that stuff at home.”

Clark thought the event was really helpful and he hopes the girls will transfer everything they learned into helpful ways to deal with any adversity. He also hopes they bring all of the helpful tips and teach the other players who couldn’t attend.

“I think the girls that went learned some valuable techniques on how to perform under pressure,” Clark said. “With some breathing techniques ways to clear your mind and believing in yourself they have some strategies to use and share with the rest the team to be successful.”

Wedergren is excited for the upcoming season and how this event will impact their overall performance.

“I think that if we do some of the breathing techniques before games if there are any last minute nerves so we can have really zoomed focus on the game and perform to the best of our abilities.”