Sports Studies and Sports Psychology – Page 5

Ancient Olympic Superstars and the Remarkable Skills They Could Teach Today’s Athletes

Authors: Raymond Stefani

Corresponding Author:
Raymond Stefani
25032 Via Del Rio
Lake Forest, CA 92630
Raystefani@aol.com
949-586-1823

Dr. Raymond Stefani is a professor emeritus of the California State University, Long Beach with over 160 publications covering individual sports, team sports and sports history

Ancient Olympic Superstars and the Remarkable Skills They Could Teach Today’s Athletes

ABSTRACT

A data base of Ancient Olympic events was exhaustively researched by the Perseus Project and combined into one table by Wikipedia, containing nearly 900 results. The Wikipedia table was sorted to obtain the distribution of events and to identify the most successful Olympians of Ancient Greece. From 776 BC through 277 AD, just 30 events were contested, eight of which were offered only once. An average of only 3.5 events were contested in each Olympics. Of the five sports, track and field (called athletics internationally) comprised 49% of all contested events with the 200 m stadion sprint, comprising 30% of all contested events. Competition was so highly focused that winning once was very difficult and winning repeatedly was remarkable. From the sorted winners, 12 superstars of antiquity are chosen for discussion. These superstars include the most unlikely winner in that men’s Olympics, a woman, Kyniska of Sparta, who became a double winner by owning and training the horses that won two chariot races. Leonides of Rhodes won all three of the major running events four times successively, for 12 individual wins, not exceeded until 2016 by Michael Phelps. Herodoros of Megara won the trumpeter’s competition nine consecutive times. Two wrestlers won the boy’s event followed later by five successive wins in the open competition. The emperor Nero of Rome won six times, showing venerability by acting and playing the lyre in public. The pentathlete Phayllos of Kroton outfitted and commanded a battleship at the 480 BC Battle of Salamis, helping Greece defeat Persia. One of the few recorded measurements of Ancient Greece, his long jump of 55 feet has been nearly duplicated by five successive standing long jumps, each employing a re-invented strategy for jumping with weights in each hand. The remarkable skills of those 12 may serve as inspirations for today’s athletes.

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U.S. Sports Academy2020-06-02T11:26:07-05:00January 17th, 2020|Research, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off

Deflategate: The Patriots’ Use of Image Repair

Authors: Greg G. Armfield, John McGuire, William Hoffman, Yejin Shin, Nickolas Eckhart, Bridget Acquah-Baidoo, and Josele Diaz

Corresponding Author:
John McGuire, PhD
310 Paul Miller, Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74075
john.mcguire@okstate.edu
405-744-8279

Greg G. Armfield (PhD, University of Missouri-Columbia) is an Associate Professor and basic course director in the Department of Communication Studies at New Mexico State University. John McGuire (PhD, University of Missouri-Columbia) is a Professor in the School of Media and Strategic Communications at Oklahoma State University. William Hoffman, Yejin Shin, Nickolas Eckhart, Bridget Acquah-Baidoo, and Josele Diaz are graduate students at New Mexico State University.

Deflategate: The Patriots’ Use of Image Repair

ABSTRACT

This study examined the image repair strategies of key public figures involved in the National Football League’s (NFL) Deflategate scandal involving the New England Patriots leading up to Super Bowl XLIX, the sport’s most prestigious event. Researchers examined separate image repair efforts from the New England Patriots owner and head coach for the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLIX, which the New England Patriots won. Results show the New England Patriots favored denial tactics including simple and shifting blame, along with reducing offensiveness tactics of bolstering and transcendence. Findings and future extensions of Image Repair Theory are discussed.

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U.S. Sports Academy2019-07-11T08:17:48-05:00July 11th, 2019|Research, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off

Solutions to Declining Participation Rates in United States Male Fastpitch Softball

Authors: Timothy Hatten, Adrian Thomas and Shaine Henert

Corresponding Author:
Timothy L. Hatten, Ph.D, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, DCT
3301 N. Mulford Road
Rockford, IL. 61114
t.hatten@rockvalleycollege.edu
815-921-3816

Timothy Hatten is a Full Professor and Academic Chair in the Department of Fitness, Wellness and Sport at Rock Valley College. Dr. Hatten has over 30 years of experience, playing, managing and sponsoring male fastpitch softball.

Adrian Thomas, Helford Endowed Chair of Psychology, is currently the Director of Industrial and Organizational Psychology Ph.D. Program and a Full Professor at Roosevelt University.

Shaine Henert is an Associate Professor and Program Director in the Deparment of Kinesiolgy and Physical Education at Northern Illinois University.

Solutions to Declining Participation Rates in United States Male Fastpitch Softball

ABSTRACT

The sport of fastpitch softball (FS) has been popular in American sports and recreation dating back to at least 1933 with the formation of the Amateur Softball Association (ASA), the sport’s governing body (5). In the United States, after a meteoric rise in participation through most of the century, more recently male fastpitch softball (MFS) has seen an equally dramatic downward trend in participation rates.

The purpose of the current study was to obtain baseline beliefs about the etiology of the decreasing participation rates in MFS from current participatory stakeholders. A survey of nine questions was distributed to the FS community via Survey Monkey through two softball websites that disseminate information about MFS. The survey was placed on Al’s Fastball and Fastpitch West FS internet sites for one month and (n=415) current and former participants, coaches and/or sponsors completed the survey. The current study participants felt strongly that the major reasons for the decline in participation included the importance of local adult leagues (95.9%), lack of media exposure (88.9%), loss of boy’s youth FS programs (88.6%) and the increasing costs (88.2%) associated with MFS. When asked how the governing body of softball might address these reasons for the observed decline in participation respondents deemed increasing youth involvement (42.4%) as the number one potential solution. In order, the other areas that participants felt were important were developing new pitchers (36.9%), improving grassroots programs (29.6%), and increasing media exposure (27.1%). Declining participation rates in MFS has been an ongoing issue for many years and many rationales for the decline have been offered by both experts and novices. By going directly to the real stakeholders, in MFP, it is hoped that outcomes of the current study include empirical confirmation for some oft voiced reasons for the decline in participation as well as providing some real solutions for reversing the trend.

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U.S. Sports Academy2019-07-08T09:55:08-05:00July 11th, 2019|Research, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off

Stakeholder Evaluation of the Policy Effects of University Decisions Regarding Athletics

Authors: Brad Stinnett¹, Scott Lasley², and Josh Knight²

¹School of Kinesiology, Recreation & Sport, Western Kentucky University, United States
²Department of Political Science, Western Kentucky University, United States

Corresponding Author:
Dr. Brad Stinnett
Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd. #11089
Bowling Green, KY 42101
Phone: 270.745.4329
E-mail: brad.stinnett@wku.edu

Stakeholder Evaluation of the Policy Effects of University Decisions Regarding Athletics

ABSTRACT

At public universities across the country, key stakeholders see intercollegiate athletics as a mechanism to raise the profile of their institution. Specifically, many universities have identified moving up in level of athletic competition as one part of a strategy to enhance a school’s visibility and reputation. Like all decisions made by public institutions, these are policy choices made by public officials that have consequences for institutions of higher education. The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes of two stakeholder groups (faculty and staff) at a Southern regional public university that has made the transition from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Specifically, this study examined and compared how key stakeholders evaluate the decision to move from the FCS to FBS level of competitions. An electronic survey was administered to university faculty and staff to collect data on their attitudes relative to intercollegiate athletics. Aggregate faculty and staff evaluations of the transition from FCS to FBS football and other strategic changes to athletics were compared to each other. Additionally, faculty and staff opinions on the emphasis placed on academics, athletics, and the arts at the university were explored. Results indicate that staff generally view the impact of transitioning to the FBS level more favorably than faculty. Additional findings reveal that faculty, more so than staff, feel that too much emphasis is placed on athletics. This study draws attention to the apparent division that exists on how faculty and staff view decisions made regarding athletics. This divide between faculty and staff relating to decisions and outcomes can make policy questions involving athletics difficult to address. This study can help shape future research on university athletics and how it influences higher education policy. University administrators, such as directors of athletics, can utilize the findings for more effective decision making and to build a bridge with key constituents such as faculty and staff.

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U.S. Sports Academy2019-05-16T10:17:09-05:00May 16th, 2019|Research, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off

An Exploration of Female Athletes’ Experiences and Perceptions of Male and Female Coaches: Ten Years Later

Authors:Melissa Rima, Rory Weishaar, Brian McGladrey, Erica Pratt

Corresponding Author:
Brian McGladrey, Ph.D.
400 E University Way
Ellensburg, WA 98926
brian.mcgladrey@cwu.edu
509-963-1972

Dr. Brian McGladrey is an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Education, School Health, and Movement Studies at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington.

An Exploration of Female Athletes’ Experiences and Perceptions of Male and Female Coaches: Ten Years Later

ABSTRACT

Athletes’ experiences and perceptions of their coaches will be different based on differing lifestyles, personalities, and characters (16), and gender may be a mediating factor for the building of effective relationships between athletes and their coaches (11,12). The purpose of this study was to explore six female athletes’ experiences and perceptions of both male and female head coaches, and to compare results to those reported by Frey, Czech, Kent, and Johnson (4), who investigated the same issue 10 years prior. In this study, four prevalent themes emerged from semi-structured interviews with participants: (1) structure and communication; (2) personal relationships; (3) positivity and aggressiveness; and (4) coach preference. Although the results specific to coach gender preference were split (three participants stated they preferred a male coach, and three stated they preferred a female coach), other differences emerged with regard to different coach qualities. Results are discussed from the perspective of the participants, and compared to the 2006 study.

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U.S. Sports Academy2020-06-02T13:47:24-05:00May 9th, 2019|Research, Sports Studies and Sports Psychology|Comments Off