Nevada uses hypnotism to gain edge
SALT LAKE CITY -- Football players will try anything to get an edge. Some have done ballet, yoga, and gymnastics. But how about hypnotism?
Nevada running back
Luke Lippincott said he is one of three or four players on the Nevada Wolf Pack who are hypnotized by Lippincott's father, Brian, the night before games.
"It's not follow the magic thing," Lippincott said. "Hypnotism, I like to think of it as just like getting your body in a totally relaxed state and thinking of a game-time situation to the point where you're in the game-time situation in a real-life game and you're calm."
Brian Lippincott is the director of the psychology department at John F. Kennedy University. He told the Nevada Sagebrush, Nevada's student newspaper, that he'd practiced hypnotism on his son when he was a younger.
"Of all three of them, he was the most hypnotizable," Brian said of Luke and his two other children. "I practiced with my own kids when Luke was 7 or 8. I found out that he really responded.
"The key thing in football is to relax at a moderate level. Sometimes, people get too pumped up. You have to get that happy medium to be aggressive and not make those mistakes."
Brian Lippincott travels to every game -- home and away -- and hypnotizes players in their hotel rooms.
Lippincott said his father will sit a player down, speak slowly and softly to get the player to calm down and focus on football. Then, according to Lippincott, his dad will take each player through a specific play that's relevant to his position. The whole process takes about a half hour.
Lippincott said his father hypnotized Nevada safety
Uche Anyanwu prior to the New Mexico Bowl and asked the junior to envision stripping the ball from a running back. In the second quarter, Anyanwu did just that.
"He came to me on the sideline and said, 'That's exactly how I pictured it.'
"[Teammates] can honestly say that it's really helping them. It really calms them in the moments that get you and it calms them down and keeps them in the state of flow."
Lippincott is no stranger to trying new things to get an edge. This summer he took up yoga and gymnastics to work on speed, flexibility and muscle control. Lippincott, last year's WAC leading rusher, said last season he had the power to push through the defensive line and linebackers, but when he got to the secondary he was often brought down.
He's hoping the speed and flexibility work, as well as studying tape of Vikings' running back Adrian Peterson, will help him juke would-be defenders or speed past them.
"Last summer I thought I did the most that I could do in terms of getting ready for the season," Lippincott said. "It's changed. Last year, I was trying to gain toughness and really push through it. This year, I'm trying to gain the finesse that I was really missing last year."
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