A Story for Halloween: Is Fear Why You Fail? Part I

In a scene from the movie, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, an elderly man, a fellow prison inmate of Bruce Wayne (Batman), tells him that fear is why he has not been able to escape from the prison by climbing up a cylindrical tunnel, just as others had failed for the same reason. “Fear is why you fail,” the man said. Wayne said that he was not afraid and demonstrated that by climbing the tunnel to freedom. In sports, is fear why an athlete fails? Perhaps these articles relating a 19th-century American short story about the supernatural, which is often associated with Halloween (Part I), and a real-life example of an alleged fire-balling high school pitcher (Part II) may help you to understand the nature of fear, how opponents may use one’s fear to defeat them, and how fear can prevent an athlete from becoming successful.