Listen to this post: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube
It was damn near freezing, but we had six people and a football in the car, so we parked and walked out onto the turf. A few other families were practicing baseball and soccer, but we found our field between two unused lacrosse goals.
The players ranged from 72 to 9, so the “game” was more a series of random crossing routes and sporadic defense.
As we all started to feel the chill hit our bones, we decided to pack it in—but I had one more play in me.
“Go deep!” I called to my son, the nine-year-old.
He was fresh off a defeat at the hands of his older sister, but he drifted back a few yards.
“No, go deep—head towards the net.” I waved him further back.
He took off toward the goal thirty yards downfield. Halfway there, I let off a high-arching pass that was right on target.
He craned his neck, caught sight of the ball, drifted under its arc, and reached high above his head.
WHAP!
The ball slapped against his frozen hands and bounced away. Before it hit the ground, tears filled his eyes.
“Why in the hell did you throw that ball?” my uncle said. He looked at me like I’d lost my mind—and honestly, he wasn’t the only one. My cousins were shaking their heads too, probably thinking the same thing: What was he doing throwing that?
I ran down to see if my son was okay. His hands were red and stinging. I knew that feeling. I gave him a big hug, told him he did a great job judging the ball, and pulled his sleeves over his hands to warm them up.
I gave him a piggyback to the car, and the tears had dried by the time we left the parking lot.
But once we settled back at the house, I heard it again:
“As soon as the ball left your hands, I knew it was a huge mistake.”
“You know he’s really been struggling to catch—he took one off the chest earlier.”
I was in my own head about the whole thing. I felt bad. I felt judged. And I kept trying to figure it out.
Why the hell did I throw that ball?
Who Is The Irrational Confidence Guy
Later that night, I thought about Bill Simmons’ concept of the “Irrational Confidence Guy”—the role player who exudes outsized belief, often becoming clutch or energizing his team as a result.
Simmons first wrote about it in 2011, watching Miami’s Big Three stumble:
“You know what Miami is missing? The Irrational Confidence Guy—the guy who isn’t one of the team’s best players, but he’ll have stretches in which he THINKS he is. Vernon Maxwell was the best Irrational Confidence Guy ever—he had so much irrational confidence that his Houston teams fed off it. Feels like Miami needs someone like that.”
Maxwell—“Mad Max”—was fearless. He helped power the Rockets to back-to-back titles in 1994 and 1995. He once scored 51 points, including 30 in a single quarter. Even today, at 59, he claims he’d average 25 a game in the “softer” modern NBA.
Irrational Confidence Guys aren’t confined to professional sports. Once you spot the archetype, you start seeing it everywhere. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized—what I’d done was pure ICG behavior. I’d thrown a difficult pass to a nine-year-old with frozen hands because, somewhere deep down, I believed he could make the play.
And I wanted him to catch some ICG vibes for himself. Not just in sports, but in life. The kid who thinks he can catch anything thrown his way, who runs toward the impossible pass instead of pulling up short and letting it fall to the turf—that kid can carry the same confidence into a classroom, on stage, or into starting a business.
ICG might sound like a backhanded compliment, but it isn’t. Jalen Rose said, it’s “the best compliment I could give a professional athlete.”
Dion Waiters and Jimmy V
In the years that followed Simmons’ piece, Dion Waiters became the poster child for ICG. In a 2017 essay for The Players’ Tribune, he gave a glimpse into his mindset:
“They say, ‘He never seen a shot he don’t like.’
‘He’s got irrational confidence.’
‘He thinks he’s the best player in the NBA.’
Hell yeah I do.
I have to.
Picture yourself walking into a South Philly playground at 12 years old, with grown-ass men, bleachers packed, trying to get a run in.
You think you can survive in Philly without irrational confidence?
You will never in your life hear the words ‘I can’t’ come out of my mouth.
I can. I will. I already did.”
Some people are forced to build irrational confidence on their own, forged in the fires of adversity. Dion Waiters didn’t inherit belief from a parent or a coach; he earned it on the streets of South Philly, where “I can’t” was never an option. His swagger wasn’t a luxury—it was survival.
Others are lucky enough to have it planted in them.
Jim Valvano was one of those people. A three-sport athlete in high school, he played point guard at Rutgers, but his dream wasn’t to play—it was to coach. He told his dad, “I’m going to win a national championship.”
Most parents would temper that kind of talk. You know only .00001% of players make it as pros? There are even less spots coaching.
Not exactly confidence-building.
Valvano’s father had a different reaction. A few days after hearing his son’s dream, he called Jimmy into his bedroom.
“See that suitcase?” he said, pointing to the corner.
“Yeah… what’s that all about?”
“I’m packed. When you win that national championship, I’ll be there. My bags are ready.”
Valvano later said, “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: he believed in me.”
Was that rational? Logical? Maybe not. But in 1983, his NC State team pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history.
Building the ICG Mindset
My step-grandfather, Jack Delany, used to tell us, “You can be All-American AND Honor Society.” He didn’t believe in false choices. At the time it felt like pressure, but really, it was an exercise in irrational confidence. Who says you can’t be both? Only people without enough belief.
But we can help cultivate belief.
Stephen King, after throwing away his manuscript for Carrie and burying it under beer cans and cigarette ash, came home to a confidence-building surprise. His wife had fished it out, wiped it off, and helped him get back on track.
“She had made me a wonderful little nest there: laptop and printer connected side by side, table lamp, manuscript (with my notes from the month before placed neatly on top), pens, reference materials.
She got me positioned at the table, kissed me on the temple, and then left me there to find out if I had anything left to say.”
Dr. Edith Eger writes, “The most difficult part of my job is countering the negative voices in my students’ lives—sometimes even their own parents’ voices—that say they will never make it. You’re so puny, you’re so ugly, you’ll never find a husband.” She learned early that the problem wasn’t that people sang these songs to her—the problem was that she believed them.
The propagation of Irrational Confidence can feel like delusion. It can feel like you’re leading people on. But consider the flip side. Consider how it feels to be told you can’t, you won’t, and you shouldn’t even try.
If you sing that song to your kids, as much as they’ll try to escape it, I have no doubt that they’ll learn the words and hum the tune. And just as Irrational Confidence has a way of transferring from one domain to another, a lack of confidence transfers as well. You start singing that song, and you won’t go out for the team, won’t apply for the job, and won’t ask the girl on a date.
And then what’s left?
I tell my Little League players: “When your time is up, you’ll know it. You’ll get cut. They won’t call. And that’s okay. But until then, if you love to play, keep playing, and act as if…”
Act as if you’re going to make it. Act as if, even when your hands are frozen solid, that ball will land just as soft as a pillow—and you’ll make the catch.
Do You Know Why?
That night I walked into my son’s room. He was playing with his Legos, and I kneeled next to him.
“Out on the field today, you know that long bomb I threw to you—the one that stung your hands—do you know why I threw the ball?”
“Of course,” he said, without hesitation.
“You do?” I was surprised at the response. Curious to hear what he’d say.
“Of course, I do.”
“Okay, why? Why did I throw it?”
“Because you thought I could catch it.”
I was so excited. He understood.
“Yes,” I said. “And I’ll always throw you the ball.”
He turned his attention back to his Legos. I watched for a minute and drifted towards the door.
“Hey.” I paused, waiting for him to look up. “Did you think you’d catch it?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why do you think I ran to it? Put my hands out?”
Satisfied, I left him to it.
His hands felt better, and more importantly, his confidence was intact. Looking back, not throwing the ball would have been much more painful.
Another Irrational Confidence Guy in the making.
If you enjoyed this post, please share it with a friend.
What do you think?