Being an athlete in college is stressful. Many hours of film, practice, weight training, traveling, as well as keeping up with your schoolwork can be tough. Some student athletes are able to come up with a plan that works for them so they’re not as stressed, while others burry themselves in stress. Lazarus and Folkman (1996) have defined stress as the negative feeling that occurs when an individual feels unable to cope with the demands placed upon them by their environment. One of the stressors that many freshmen experience is having their start status taken from them. If you come to a college for sports you are more than likely on a scholarship. You also were likely to be the star on your high school team. Coming to college there is a lot of talent and not having a full developed body, as well as an understanding about how fast things are on the colligate level can weigh on you. …show more content…
They will also realize that student-athletes are responsible for taking care of their business on and off the field. There was a study that found that almost half of the male athletes and slightly more than half of the female athletes, who were involved in the study, implied that stresses like pressure to win, excessive anxiety, frustration conflict, irritation, and fear affected their mental and emotional health (Humphrey et al., 2000). This is important to know because this can later or even immediately affect a person’s confidence and self worth. Freshmen are not the only class that deals with stress, which will affect their performance. Although these stress factors are brought to their attention early in their careers, most do not seek help nor do they find a solution to their problem. It is important that coaches have sport counselors that sit in and talk with these often to insure they are doing ok. These athletes are psychologically and physiologically hurting and need
Because of these factors student athletes can be at a higher risk of anxiety and depression.
This structural-stress gives all of them time to develop their time-management skills as well as many other advantages. The training is designed to produce well-conditioned young athletes that will be ready to out-perform the next team they face. This also leads towards the athletes living a healthy lifestyle and develop problem-solving skills. (Runya, Robin) One good habit can lead to many good habits to form. Some more advantages would be a rise in self-esteem, higher social competence, and students striving for higher levels of academic achievement. (Robin) Collegiate sports also can reduce the rate of arrests, unplanned pregnancies, and lowers the dropout rate. (Robin) In addition to these social and emotional benefits, sports can also bring about intangible benefits to the school and community as a whole. “Sports also create important opportunities for students to contribute to the school community, which may cultivate an increased commitment to, or identification with, school and school values.” (Taliaferro 397) The teamwork skills these men learn from playing football with affect them every day of their lives. They learn to trust each other on the field, as well as develop skills that can and will help them in their future careers. This leads to a greater social benefit we experience as they enter the
Some might argue that sports puts students under stress. Different types of stress such as time management, getting homework done, pleasing parents, etc is what some students unfortunately go through. Although things such as time management is a struggle, students eventually learn how to handle these situations. They adapt certain skill that will also be beneficial later in their lives. If some students still struggle that can be excused from a few practices or games to catch up with school work. Stress can be avoided, but some still worry that injuries can’t.
College was a dream that was made possible by playing more than one sport. College is an easy transition for these athletes because it’s not that much different from their high school lifestyle. The routine is easier for them, they can manage their time with homework, practices and a social life at a stress free cost because of their time management skills. In the early stages of an athlete’s recruitment, many coaches are drawn to them because of their multi-sport abilities. Making friends comes easy to those athletes and they have the ability to become close to all of your new teammates and with the coaching staff. Athletes can go into this season ready to play, healthy body at hand, and fully confident in their success in this year. This was all possible because they played multiple sports. It laid down the path to their dream. And like everyone else they did everything possible to help them achieve
There are these ongoing stereotypes that student athletes are “dumb,” “lazy,” and “privileged.” It’s understandable that people believe these stereotypes, news magazines and reports are always talking about how athletes are “coddled” and “cheat” their way to success. Though it is nowhere near true for the majority of student athletes, a select few situations encourage this negative categorization of us, thus putting student athletes under even more pressure to perform. Student athletes are constantly misjudged and the assumptions are affecting us.
All of the publicity that is attained by success, and the possibility of this success, places a great deal of pressure and stress on these young single-sport athletes. This stress and pressure takes the fun out of some sports. Youth sports are becoming serious and based more on winning than on having a great time and learning good sportsmanship. Adu points out the winning mindset of athletes in this day and age when he says, “Teams will do anything to win the game. My coach told me to expect that going in and that is exactly how it was. . .I felt like everybody was out to get me” (Goodall, 2003). This
Over 460,000 college students participate in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) in the United States but research on the cohort is quantitatively and qualitatively unsupportive of athletes on and off the field. Athletes make up a particularly stimulating population for mental health professionals as athletes and their teams operate within their own culture and systems allowing for mental health professionals to expand their innovative skills to deal with the multidimensional realm of “no pain, no gain”. There is stereotype threat that follows athletes, the idea that athletes are less motivated in the classroom and over privileged in comparison to their student peers. In turn, peers and professors alike create their own biases towards or against the benefit of the student athlete; not allowing make up assignments for class time missed due to collegiate athletic events or, on the other end of the spectrum, giving preferential treatment to athletes (in turn perpetuating the negative stereotype). Although research indicates this threat to be strong, research also indicates that the stereotype is seemingly unfounded. Student athletes are recruited into university less academically prepared and must devote upwards of 20 hours a week to their sport while the graduation rate for student athletes (51%) is virtually equal to that of non-student athletes (52%). (Fletcher)
Almost all student athletes get butterflies before that Friday night football game, before the fans get to watch them compete, or even the to get the ability to practice. Many argue that high school sports are a distraction in the classroom or even cause career ending injuries. There are many different scenarios that prove that high school sports do the exact opposite of those. When it comes to high school sports, it keeps students fit, boosts a student’s academic performance, and enhances a student’s self-esteem. High school sports are very beneficial and for anyone who is looking to take on a new challenge to take on.
It is said that the reason for student-athletes experiencing higher stress levels are because of their extensive time-demands, pressures to achieve, physical burn-out and conflict with teammates, coaches and teachers. (J. W. 2015). In one hand I believe that this overall statement is true, but on the other hand I believe the amount of stress depends on the individual and there involvement with their academics and athletics (Sudano, L. E., Collins, G., & Miles, C. M. (2017). With social stress, the
Throughout youth sports there is a lot of stress that comes along with playing a game that is supposed to be fun. Stress not only harms the body physically, but it harms it emotionally. There are all sorts of stressors that come from youth sports, stress can cause anger, anxiety, fear happiness, and pride.
According to research college athletes are viewed of having two different roles, one as a student and one as an athlete (Settles, Sellers, & Damas, 2002), Research has shown that college student athletes endure multiple complications throughout their college life. This specific study is looking at the amount of stress student athletes experience by comparing the average amount of stress they deal with to college
The two-dimensional coping conceptual framework depicts four main strategies for dealing with athletic stress. The four main strategies include approach focused, emotion focused, avoidance/problem focused, and avoidance/emotion focused (Cox, 2007). This framework may allow for operational analysis of athletic coping strategies due to in-game stress. This model may also present a coping template making ensuing intervention application more efficient.
When it comes to emotions and psychological well being athletes are not machines and they should not be expected to deny any mental struggles. Trainers, coaches, and physical therapists are there for their physical training but they also require psychological support. Those closest to the athletes need to learn to recognize the warning signs such as an overly self-critical nature, perfectionism, and fear of failure to be able to seek out help for the athletes. Sport governing bodies and organizations should induce protocols and procedures about how peers, coaches, and support staff can help when dealing with an athlete suffering from a mental illness. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has released “Mind, Body and Sport - Understanding and Supporting Student-Athlete Mental Wellness” which is a resource developed to provide information and outline the roles and responsibilities of sports staff and coaches as well as identifies the Models of service, and NCAA resources and policies. This is an extremely helpful and reliable source that other sporting organizations should follow. Also, high performance programs for both individual and team sports should require programs to have a team sport psychologist to be readily available for athletes, and to work with them on throughout the sporting season to be able to develop mental skills to better them on, and off the court. It should become the “responsibility (of the sport association) to provide the services and care to help each athlete reach his or her full potential” (Hainline 2014, 7) In some situations, Sport psychologists may find themselves having to address mental health issues with the athletes they counsel that they may find is out of their capability to deal with mental health problems. It may be
Sports are generally stereotyped as physical activities that require little to no cognitive abilities, but this could not be further from the truth. Sports are extremely mentally driven, and the psychological maturity of an athlete greatly influences their physical performance. These athletes’ coaches play a key role in not only strengthening the physical component of their game, but also the mental maturation within their chosen sport. Many researchers have studied how the coach affects the athlete on a psychological level, but one of the most prominent studies is, “The Association Between the Perceived Coach-Athlete Relationship and Athletes’ Basic Psychological Needs” by Hunhyuk Choi, Seongkwan Cho, and Jinyoung Huh. This study would appeal to a vast majority of the population, but would specifically intrigue both current, and future collegiate-level athletes, and coaches. It would inform both parties of their role within the Coach-Athlete-Relationship (CAR), and what a healthy CAR should both mimic and produce. This matter would also be of interest to anyone working in positions of authority over both the athletes, and the coaches. This could be parents, athletic directors, psychologists, department directors, or psychiatrists to name a few. All of these people holding leadership roles should know how the CAR will affect the athletes on both a physical and psychological level. This study shows that the CAR impacts every area of the athletes’ loves including
Stress is not only affected in the work place and at home, it is also affected during sports. There is a ton of pressure in many high school sports especially individual sports. Stress is the body’s way of