On Monday, Conner Nord, a standout post on the St. Thomas basketball team, walked through the doors to Schoenecker Arena a little after noon.
He wasn't required to be in the gym until the team's 2:15 p.m. shootaround. He spent the afternoon traveling to Bethel for an important game in the MIAC. He arrived early to lift weights and take extra shots.
"Conner doesn't have to be here," St. Thomas coach John Tauer said, nodding at the court. "That's a great example of what we talk about with intrinsic motivation."
After important conference victories this week at Bethel and St. Olaf, the Tommies, 14-1 and ranked No. 3 in the nation in Division III, are building another in a long history of successful seasons. Their story, though, has not remained the same.
Tauer succeeded the highly successful Steve Fritz as the Tommies' coach in 2011. After playing basketball at Cretin-Derham Hall and St. Thomas, Tauer did his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on intrinsic motivation, before becoming Fritz's longtime assistant.
The sports world is filled with extrinsic motivation — scholarships, contracts, screaming coaches.
"That's the carrot-or-stick approach," Tauer said. "Intrinsic motivation is doing something because you love it."
From Fritz, Tauer learned major points of emphasis — "taking care of the ball, playing defense and being tough-minded." He emphasizes four major statistical categories — field-goal percentage, turnovers, free-throw shooting and offensive rebounding.