There is no single way to break out of a slump. Everyone involved in athletics (even Andre Dawson) has been in one at some point in time and does his or her own thing to try to snap out of it.

Players, coaches and team officials try everything.

Athletes do anything from sleeping with their bats to changing their jock straps. From shooting extra jump shots at 6 a.m. to not washing their jock straps.

Coaches take Tylenol and sleep less. They get up and watch their players take jump shots at 6 a.m. Then they switch to Excedrin.

General managers skip aspirin and then head for real drugs. When the real drugs don’t work, they fire the coach.

All of these solutions might seem logical in their own peculiar ways, but still, after hundreds of years of organized athletics, there is still no proven method of how to break a funk.

The Iowa State men’s basketball team is now in that rut. And who suffers the most? Not the fans. The coach. It’s his job.

Until this point in his career, ISU Coach Tim Floyd has not been forced to endure a slump as a coach at the major college level. But that’s not to say he hasn’t faced his fair share of difficulties.

Floyd faced adversity as a walk-on hoops player at Southern Mississippi from 1972-74. He overcame that adversity by earning himself a scholarship to play at Louisiana Tech in 1975-76.

When he took over the head coaching job at Idaho in 1986, he accepted the challenge of leading a team that had finished last in the conference three straight years. With Floyd at the helm, the Idaho team managed to come through with a fifth-place finish as Floyd led the troops to a 16-14 record.

The changes at Idaho occurred quickly. So did the success in Floyd’s first three years at ISU.

This time it’s different. The success is not immediate.

This time Floyd’s coaching genius will be measured with a different ruler.

It won’t be for reaching the 20-win plateau for the sixth straight year. It won’t be for making a postseason tourney for the seventh consecutive time.

That is, unless he gets this thing turned around and turned around quickly, say, before March 5, when the Cyclones compete in their first Big 12 Tournament game.

His ability to turn this team around — that will be the measure of his genius.

So how will Floyd do it? How does a coach who has never had a losing record break out of a slump? When you’ve averaged 21 wins a year for 11 seasons, and suddenly you aren’t winning, what do you do?

Should he buckle like some coaches and overhaul his philosophy? Focus more on offense and less on defense. Play more up-tempo instead of a slow-down game.

Or should he remain stubborn in his beliefs? Stick it out by continuing to do those things that got him here and his teams invitations to the Big Dance.

The current four-game losing streak is the longest in the Floyd era. In 1995, the Cyclones led by the trio of Fred Hoiberg, Loren Meyer and Julius Michalik lost four straight to nationally-ranked opponents Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri twice.

They broke out of the funk and went to the NCAA Tourney. Can this squad do the same?

And if so, how will Floyd do it?

That’s Floyd’s decision. But chances are that his philosophy will continue, and his sleep time will diminish. And that’s the way it should be.

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Drew Harris is a senior in journalism and mass communication and political science from Peosta who loves Andre Dawson.