The Rules of the Game

As reported on NPR (newscast) and in ESPN Magazine (when I started blogging, I certainly never thought I'd say that), Houston chose Amobi Okoye (you may need a subscription to view this link) as a first round draft pick. From Nigeria, he played as a lineman for the University of Louisville graduating at age 19 with a degree in Psychology. In sports news, there's a bunch of obvious stories to follow here...for example, 19 year old graduate makes first round draft pick. However, what caught my attention when I was listening was how he was trained. When Amobi came to school in the U.S. he had apparently never heard of (or at least certainly never played) American football when an assistant coach encouraged him to try out. While he had the physical abilities, he didn't understand the rules of the game. So what did the coach do? Gave him Madden Football (a very popular video game series from Electronic Arts) and told him to go play. It makes me wonder what commercial-off-the-shelf games we could be using to help our employees understand the rules of the game.