Question 1: Are you married?
Question 2: When was the last time you used cocaine?
Question 3: Which would you prefer, a dog or a cat?

What do these three questions have in common? They are used by the NFL in interviews for potential players.

Albeit these aren't the typical questions asked in an interview, but in the NFL, they are routine.

In an April 20 article by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Colts President Bill Polian was quoted as saying, "These kids are so prepped for the interviews they do nowadays, sometimes you've got to go to extremes to get something worthwhile out of them."

But what's most important to recruiters for NFL teams isn't in the answers themselves, but more so in the way the answer is given. Team officials often use this "pick his brain" tactic to stir something up and see how the player reacts-with anger, discomfort, or by staying calm.

In the same article, Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland said, "Character is going to be a very strong part of what we draft and who we draft."

Because time is of the essence for many teams, the interview process is usually fast-paced, unstructured, and often psychologists are used as a precursor to sense any red flags that need to be explored about a certain player. In fact, decades of research from the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology clearly suggests that unstructured interviews are not good predictors of performance and are unable to tap many of the underlying traits and characteristics associated with problematic behaviors on and off the playing field.

"The most troubling things I have experienced is that when team personnel encounter exceptional talent, they become so mesmerized that they overlook or minimize known problem behaviors in order to have that talented athlete as a part of the team," Dr. Yolanda Bruce Brooks, who has worked with numerous NLF and NBA teams, said in the article.

To curve the costs of a psychologist and discover red flags on their own, coaches and recruiters can use sportsDrive's athlete assessment test, the Sports Performance Indicator (SPI) to profile athletes' underlying preferences and styles in an efficient, progressive manner. sportsDrive is a provider of premier, scientifically-based assessments that predict athletic performance in all types of athletes across all kinds of sports. The test provides valuable information on an athlete or team's areas of strengths and opportunities for development -which is often the deciding factor when it comes to recruitment.

The SPI assesses 16 dimensions scientifically shown to predict athletic performance and help individual athletes understand their own behavior (e.g., gain heightened awareness regarding what motivates them to accelerate and how they interact with others), as well as teams, improve overall performance. By measuring personality facets such as competitiveness, dedication, persistence, fearlessness, and self-control, coaches and recruiters can have a clearer picture of an athlete's underlying motivations, character, and professionalism, thereby minimizing counter-productive behaviors or catastrophes from happening in the future. 

The test will also help coaches determine who is playing for the love of the game versus what Chiefs coach Herm Edwards experiences from time to time. "Do you like football?" he asks potential players bluntly. "It might seem like a simple question to the average person, but the way they answer it tells me a lot because a lot of players play this game for what football brings them, the cars, the money, the ladies. But they don't like the work they have to put in to be ready on Sundays. The guys who love football don't mind that work, and they say ‘give me more.'" (South Florida Sun Sentinel, April 20)

Talent management remains one of the most compelling strategic priorities facing sports teams trying to achieve a competitive advantage. In order to survive and thrive in the public spotlight, teams must continually rethink the way they recruit, engage, develop, and retain talent. By having a better picture of what drives an athletes' performance, teams can help players unleash their full potential while mitigating public relations blunders due to embarrassing or dysfunctional player behavior and/or questionable values. Clearly those teams who cultivate a rich pool of athletic talent will achieve greater success on and off the playing field.