49ers legend Jerry Rice shares how mindset during practice helped him in games originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Telling a tale about the NFL’s history would not be possible without mentioning the legendary 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice.
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By the time Rice walked away from football, he had made 13 Pro Bowls, was named an All-Pro 10 times and was a part of three Super Bowl teams. While generational talents have come and gone, Rice still is viewed as the standard at wide receiver.
When talking to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco at the American Century Championship in South Lake Tahoe, Rice addressed the question of whether or not it was exhausting maintaining his elite mindset and effort throughout his career, even during practice.
“When you’re doing something that you really love doing, you don’t get tired,” Rice said. “I love entertaining so many people. If you paid your money to come to a football game, I wanted you to witness something special. The way I practiced, I needed that, because I knew if I did it during practice, it was going to happen in a game.
“So I had to see that. I had to have that visual of making that catch or grabbing the ball and sprinting 60 or 80 yards and scoring. So I needed to see that; I needed to get that in my head. Once I got in the ball game, I had done it over and over, and I knew I could make that play.”
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His practice and visualizations certainly paid off, as Rice tallied 1,549 catches, 22,895 receiving yards and 197 touchdown receptions during his career, all of remain NFL records that never might be matched.
With some pretty stiff competition in Tahoe, Rice will need every bit of his elite mindset to make sure he can keep up with some of the best golfers that sports and entertainment have to offer.
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