I'm a little shocked that this is considered newsworthy in athletics, but that's more than offset by its potential impacts in other physical, but non-athletic skillsets like surgery.

Every kid who's ever done little league knows that the big secret to baseball is actually heeding the advice of keeping your eye on the ball. Every football game we watch reinforces this -- the wide receivers who prematurely turn to look upfield before catching the ball seem to drop the ball an inordinately large amount, compared to those who don't. Anquan Boldin, when asked if the cold weather made it harder to catch footballs responded (in the suave, Lando Calrissian way that he speaks) "You catch the ball with your eyes."

But, like fine motor control, the key is in doing this consistently. It's easy to know that you need to keep your eyes on the ball, but it's hard not to take that for granted. When I was playing billiards competitively, it was easy to realize that making a good shot meant doing all the little things right -- get in a comfortable stance, keep your elbow still, as if hanging from a wire attached to the ceiling, etc., etc., but however easy it was to know to do all those things, in the heat of the moment, it was hard to relax enough to do them without overthinking, becoming tense, or screwing it up in any of a hundred other ways.