By: Justin Bradford

The mental game. Arguably just as important as the physical game for athletes. A player can be able to complete the tasks at hand, but will they be successful in the end if the right mentality isn't present? 

It's seen across all sports. Mental mistakes can be made by even the best athletes. It's a constant battle against oneself. Having a good mentality isn't just important in the field of play, but also as one walks through life. That was one of the main takeaways from Wednesday's "Me vs Me for We" seminar with Gavin Morgan, who was most recently an assistant coach with the University of Alabama in Huntsville Chargers following a long career playing in the American Hockey League.

"Mainly my focus is on bettering myself," said Morgan. "You deal with failures and successes, and you evaluate what caused the success and what was causing the failure. I came to the point that it was my battle with myself. My battle to make me the best person and player I can be. When I say "Me vs Me for We," that internal competition is constantly coming in different forms. I'm never really battling for me, I'm battling for we; my team, my family, many things. I started thinking about it and realized that it's a lifelong challenge, so I wanted to share that as much as I could. I know exactly from a professional standpoint why I played six games in the National Hockey League and not 600. When you use that as a basis, you start to grow. I think it's a pretty productive thing, and I want to share it."

Morgan wanted to share this information and plant seeds of growth with the athletes attending the Elite Edge showcase this week. Something he's realized from being a coach is that it's not just about giving information, but also taking it in and constantly growing.

"When you get into coaching, you have so much to give, but you have to understand that you need to be a sponge," said Morgan. "At the beginning of my coaching career, I wanted to give and just expected the absorption. Sometimes the absorption rate was smaller and I needed to take the time to step back. As I stepped back and looked at those failures as a coach, it helped me analyze why and when and what I want to do differently. That helps you grow. I want to be a lifelong learner. I want to help people get to where I'm going in the sport of hockey."

At times, it may certainly seem like information overload for these young athletes, but they definitely take the information in to apply it. By allowing those seeds of information to be planted in their heads, it will lead to growth in life. Linden Palmer, a prep hockey player in Wilson County, Tennessee learned more about how he can apply commitment to his everyday life. 

"I learned about being better on and off the ice," said Palmer. "He talked a lot about commitment and consistency and following through those things each and every day on and off the ice."

Palmer admits that his mental game can use some work even if he doesn't mind being hard on himself, one of the big points of Morgan's presentation. 

"I mainly want to work on my mental game," said Palmer. "Some people tell me I'm too hard on myself."

A focus of the presentation is on how a person having mental strength leads to better things for them individually along with their teammates and family. It's what helps make strong leaders.

"Part of what makes a good leader is always telling your teammates when they did a good job," said Palmer. "If they make a bad play, pick them up and let them know what they can do better. Always have their backs."

Great leaders know how to evolve. A big step in the evolution of becoming a great leader is understanding when to redefine. 

"What I do is I redefine the word vulnerability," said Morgan. "It has such a negative connotation with being exposed to emotional or physical detriment. When, realistically, you have to be vulnerable. I want to take that word and slice it in half and allow you to be open instead of exposed. Open to the idea of having the ability to do something special. That vulnerability is a productive thing. You have to be able to break yourself down in order to build yourself up to be the best you can for other people. It's not easy, because you're forever your best competition."

The message is an admittedly deep one that Morgan is expressing to these young athletes. His hope is that if they can take just a piece of it away with them, it will get the players to take deeper looks at their own lives and look at ways they can improve.

"I think it's important that when you're giving a message that you're customizing it to maintain their attention," said Morgan. "Get them to grasp something out of it. If you're able to bring humor to it, it helps. It's very easy for me with hockey. It's a great group of kids here. They do a fantastic job here at Elite Edge to help athletes grow. It's been very productive."

The Elite Edge difference is fully expressed in seminars like Morgan's. It's taking real life experience as a professional athlete, passing down his successes and failures and hopefully helping like athletes just budding in their careers, learn something so they can be not just better teammates, but better members of the community.