Out of all the positions in sports, which do you think is the one with the highest overall pressure, the one where you are constantly behind the 8-ball?
Your choices are not limited here- it can be a player position, a coach, an official, GM, owner, etc.
Obvious choices off the top of my head would be an NFL QB (has the ball in his hands on almost every play, is almost always the focal point of the team), a baseball umpire (must continually make judgement calls that could drastically alter a game), or a hockey goalie (rink is small, puck moves incredibly fast, action can move from one end of ice to the other in seconds).
place kicker is a good one, but the stress comes in short, concentrated bursts. sure guys like Scott Norwood undergo a lifetime of prorated guilt.
i think just as stressful, but more sustained would be coaching a big-time college football program. between handling 50-60 super amped up teenagers’ personal lives, placating the unrelenting boosters, you have to find time in between to scout/coach/recruit. just so much on the plate and so many people yelling at you it’d be unbelievably unnerving i bet.
I would think either NFL quarterback or NHL goalie. Both pretty much have to carry the blame for loses and are often expected to carry their team to a win.
FWIW, a few years back ESPN Magazine called being a goalie for the Montreal Canadiens “the most stressful job” and “the loneliest man in sports” due to the nature of the position and the fishbowl Habs players live in (the feature in on Carey Price).
Close second would be a batter in cricket. Knuckle down and concentrate and you could score a century (ie 100 runs) over a period of several hours. Screw up at any time and you’ll be walking back to the pavilion, your role in providing runs for your team having come to an abrupt end.
Similarly, a cricket umpire has probably the most difficult job of any official in sports. When you have given the likes of Sachin Tendulkar out on a close lbw call or the tiniest of edges, you’ve denied the batting team the opportunity of scoring potentially hundreds of extra runs.
You can have a whole season of bad finishes before losing your ride though. A crew chief also gets several chances to try to fix things before having to worry. I’ve seen tire changes leave a lugnut loose one time and get fired though. Because there are so many out of work pit crew members, there are several waiting in line to replace you.
I wasn’t meaning to say that a bad restart or the wrong tire pressure can effect your chances of winning the race, I was saying that if you slip onto the apron and over correct, you could end up head on in the SAFER barrier at 200 mph.
I’d go with some kind of motor sport, as well (though my first thought was F1). A moment’s inattention in many sports may mean the opposition get some advantage that wins the match. A moment’s inattention in a motor sport could see you and/or other drivers dead or seriously injured.
I think field goal kicker. Even the quarterback can make some mistakes without it effecting the game. But every play the field goal kicker makes is a scoring play that depends on them.
I’ll give a shout out to world cup football referees. What a thankless task that is.
Take Howard Webb, by any objective assessment a top quality referee who is chosen to take charge of the 2010 world cup final. The most high-pressure sporting event in the world. And he is faced with two teams who seemed intent on making his job impossible.
No matter what he did he would stand accused of ruining the final, when really the only people to blame were the players.
(I love football and absolutely hate the stick that the refs get, I think it is the ugliest sight in sport)
I think individual sports beat team sports. If you’re a golfer, a sprinter or a boxer not only do you have no one to blame, but everyone is looking at you at the moment you fail.
Closer- Relief Pitcher. When you go in, the team is in a tough spot. You can be a hero or a goat. You can give up a hit that ends the whole season in the World Series. Fans will hate you. Your team mates may not trust you anymore. It is a tough spot almost every time. When the closer gets the call, the game is on the line.
Ferrari, for example, spends around $400 million dollars per season and Italian fans are cuckcoo for coco puffs over the team and its drivers. They demand perfection. Plus, the world-wide TV viewership of F1 is in the several hundreds of millions per race.
It requires immense physical and mental conditioning and a pure, raw skill achieved by only a handful of people in the world. F1 drivers are some of the most relentlessly trained (physically and mentally) athletes (yes) in the world.
NHL referee. 94.532% of fans will hate 100% of your calls.
Then again, with numbers like that, they probably care too little about getting it right to be stressed about it…!
