the Big Buddy sessions: the three ways to fail the plateau
what he calls your Despairing type, who's fine as long as he's in the quick-improvement stage before a plateau [...] this type gives in to frustration and despair, because he hasn't got the humbleness and patience to hang in there and slog [...] he tries to like will and force himself off it, by sheer force of work and drill and will and practice [...] he overdoes it and gets hurt, and pretty soon he's all chronically messed up with injuries [...] the Complacent type, who improves radically until he hits a plateau, and is content with the radical improvement he's made to get to the plateau [...] he always smiles but there gets to be something sort of tight and hangdog about his smile
Context
Wayne's taxonomy of the three ways the plateau destroys a player: the Despairing type quits when improvement stalls; the Obsessive type "tries to like will and force himself off it" and drills until he's "all chronically messed up with injuries"; the Complacent type settles onto the plateau, builds a whole compensatory game around its "chinks in the armor," and smiles his tight hangdog smile while sliding. Each type ends the same way — "a quiet knock at the door" from deLint. It's the developmental doctrine as tragedy: the plateau is where the athletic body's temperament is tested to destruction.