Jake Yono

JY Journalism

12/5/25

How Experience Directly Correlates To Confidence In Sports

Within my experience of playing and watching sports, I've realized and concluded that athletes with experience training, developing skills, and competing at high levels often have higher success. While this seems self-explanatory, many sports spectators don’t seem to realize this and how a team or individual will have more talent than the experience will outperform, and vice versa. For example, in the UFC, when individuals keep defending their belts and are older, the challenger might be more skilled than they are. At the college level, a power four team is certain to beat a mid-major program just because of their experience of the game, High-School those kids are probably in more championship environments and achieving at those levels and even the leaders of the college team might of had NCAA Championship level experience which instills confidence within them over the midmajor team who might have made the tournament and got knocked out early. In this article, I will be showcasing where athletes get their experience and confidence within all levels of sports, how it translates to the professional level, and in my career, how I've used the confidence that comes from experience in my athletics and my life overall.

Beginning at a young age, kids begin playing youth and travel sports, and the ones who cling to the same circuit of teams and players usually succeed and develop their skills together, and win tournaments, or get national attention. It’s not just the reparation and playing part here, it's winning something or getting All-American honors which in future competition should instill an athlete to be more prepared, confidant, and ready to take down competition rather than an athlete who might be more talented but their experience leads them to success in High-School and propels them to play and succeed at the college level.  

At the pro level, I've seen athletes express this same form of confidence from the same level or previous levels. One example is Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, who won the Heisman trophy at LSU, then in his rookie NFL season, he led Washington to their best season in 40+ years. He took the confidence from college and applied it to the NFL and realized he could use the same skills and playstyle to command the game and he did just that by becoming 1 of 6 rookie quarterbacks to play in the conference championship game (NBC Sports) which proves my point of his Heisman winning confidence transcended into the league by applying the same skills and not overthinking. This hasn't worked for all players, though, as teams put thoughts into players' heads that should not have been there in the first place and change their entire scheme, halting their performance. My next example is going to be a polar opposite, but it does indeed prove my point, and it’s from an NCAA women's cross country star, Rachel Forsyth. In her senior year of high school, Forsyth did not lose a single race, including the national championship, deeming her as the best runner in the nation. This past fall, competing for the Michigan State Spartans, she finished 16th at the NCAA Championship, making her the 3rd fastest freshman in the nation. My point is that she used her high school experience of being at the front and winning, and led herself to an all-American place from her confidence without any prior experience at the collegiate level.

Finally, in my tenure within the sport of Athletics, I've realized confidence is key to placing in big races and remaining calm when the pressure’s on. Attaining personal bests and medals in regional and championship races has allowed me to remain calm and collected in races that have a lot of outside pressure. Even in races where I haven’t performed my best, I've realized this makes me stronger and realize what I've done wrong and try to improve, innovate, and collect myself for future performance. If athletes take their time on this, they could transcend to the next level, just like I did in terms of making state meets. 

Wrapping up, I would like to say an athlete can beat a competitor if they are less skilled or talented but have the experience, they are more likely to win at the professional level but at the more youth levels of sports if an athlete doesn't reflect on a winning performance there's a possibility that they can get beat by someone with less experience than them. In my opinion, this should not happen unless a player is truly revolutionary. I’ve applied these tactics to my career by studying and completing research on athletes from all levels and walks of life. I hope you guys enjoyed my perspective on how experience can propel and boost confidence in an athlete's performance, even when their competition is better than theirs. This is my stance on experience and how it can and should boost confidence within athletes at all skill levels. Thank you.