Tryouts and Unconscious Bias

It's a numbers game. Team selection creates hard choices for every coach. When 66 players tryout for fortyish spots on three teams, good players get left out.

Remember, cognitive biases and mental models impact selectors. "Cognitive bias is when your brain starts telling little white lies." Wikipedia defines it, "A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment." Here are a few examples:

Sample size. When we have a small number of observations, they may or may not reflect results from a larger sample. If we flip a coin 10,000 times, the results will be close to 50-50. That doesn't preclude the first five flips from being 'heads' or 'tails'. A player may over or underachieve during the small sample size of tryouts. But seeing a player for about six hours of tryouts isn't that small a look. 

Anchoring. "Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane." Size, strength, or quickness may overwhelm our rational self. Think about the Damon Runyan quote, "The battle is not always to the strongest or the race to the swiftest, but it pays to bet that way." 

Endowment bias. Coaches see a player through coaches' eyes. As parents, we see our children through parental prism. We don't have a choice. In The Politics of Coaching, Carl Pierson described measuring strength, speed, and vertical jump of players. When a parent asked why his daughter didn't make the team, Carl could say that she was in the bottom five percent of measurements. 

Sunk cost fallacy. Two words suffice - Tyquan Thornton. The Patriots second round draft choice last year has been neither productive nor available. In Belichickian terms, players need ability and durability. Teams give high round draft picks, bonus babies, and scholarship students more chances to make good. 

Confirmation bias. People tend to read and 'reconfirm' existing beliefs. Watching the Red Sox broadcasts could make you feel 'gaslit' because the announcers keep telling you how great some players are. Meanwhile, you're stuck with your lying eyes. 

The reality of tryouts includes understanding both current production and weighing future potential. It's an imperfect process. 

Lagniappe. Final thoughts before team selection.