The Importance Of Pressure On High School Sports

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

Coach Steve Rocker is one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in Kentucky’s history. Coach Rocker was very successful in previous years. Strangely, this year was very different for him. For the first time in his professional life, he is falling short of his expectations, the community expectations, and the team’s expectations. His team lost a lot of games, but most importantly the boys had no motivation or desire to bring the team out of the rut they found themselves. His players have lost their will to win, their love for their teammates, and their passion to play. Coach Rocker’s motivational methods that have always worked before and resulted in success are now failing, and he doesn’t know why. He argues that his players have become selfish and bored with winning because they have been so successful in previous years. “And there’s no question that my guys have lost their drive to win because they’ve won so much in the past. Now all they want is individual ‘wins’…which just doesn’t cut it on a team” (Gongwer, 2010, p. 17).

With the Christmas tournament aside, we entered the post-season without a loss. We had a plan for each playoff game from districts to regional. We never deviated from the plan, keeping our eye on the target –

A prominent reason why high school sports is detrimental to academic accomplishments of students is because of how sports act as a powerful distractor to education. When a student starts to play sports in school, their mindset shifts from being focused on learning to now focusing on improving at their sport of choice. Sports are just another thing that consumes the time and attention of people. This simple fact clearly presents a problem because it means less effort can be dedicated towards academics. A perfect example of how sports teams magnify this effect of reducing academic effort is presented in the article “Why Student Athletes Continue to Fail” when it explains “Tight-knit student athletes will seek ways of fitting into a culture that they perceive as neglecting academics (by defaulting into majors of dubious merit and spending less time doing homework), knowing that their habits are observed by teammates” (Oppenheimer). Clearly, this statement demonstrates that school sports create an environment where students feel pressured to adopt a callous attitude towards academics. Since sports teams form a strong bond between the members of the team, the impact of peer pressure is emphasized because each student wants to behave like the others simply to feel connected to the group.

It is my job as a coach to help develop athletes physically, psychologically, and socially while helping them have fun by playing a sport. I will do this by being enthusiastic and having a positive attitude in practice, games, and while not coaching. This cooperative approach to coaching will create a sense of community within the team I coach, and the athletes will feel more welcome to discuss their thoughts, ideas, questions, and concerns with me. Creating this setting and relationships with athletes will only benefit the team by creating a team culture necessary for the well-being and success of high school sports’ teams. Success in sports means accomplishing goals set by the team, not winning. Winning is important, but just striving to win is even more vital toward the success of teams. As a coach, I will also be a motivator for athletes. Athletes will see me come to practice with a positive attitude, displaying my passion. This is the beginning of how I will motivate athletes. Motivation starts with my attitude, and athletes pick up on this. In order to motivate and want to be motivated, there must be a reason, a why? I will use the teams’ goals they will set, in order to motivate them to give their best effort in order to achieve success by reaching their

High school football over the years has become a huge spectacle lets just talk about the DWF area or we can even get smaller to make a point if you made a 25 mile radius these local high school teams play at the Star (seats 12,000), Allen stadium (seats 18,000 cost 60 million), and McKinney’s new stadium (seats 12,000 costs 69.9 million). This is just high school football these young kids playing under tremendous pressure from the start. The pressure to play high school football is immense, there are so many media outlets for these kids, and they get coverage from what it seems like all the time during the season, yet this is all just considered a recreational activity I think it has become more than that now. The pressure for coaches is high as well dealing with parents, board members, keeping up with classes as a teacher, and oh you also have to win since football is a performance-based business (forewarning this will be said a lot). For example I will refer to Boobie Miles from Friday Night Lights for one final point. Boobie knew if he did not make it in football there was nothing special for him. That is why when he got hurt he still wanted to play, because he knew that’s all he had. That is a lot of pressure for a 16-18 year to handle, and if they are not up for it they crack.

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

Having that many players on your football team is overwhelming at first, but you get used to it after a while. Being an athlete, you always want to be the best on the field at all times. That is just a college football players mentality. When they are put into a situation where everyone is better than them; that makes them work harder to be better. When that all comes together it makes the team better on both sides of the ball. With everyone coming together, that creates competition and grudges towards the players. Having that grudge make a college player jealous about the starting position. They tend to start doing more and more everyday to earn that starting spot and to get on the travel squad. In high school, there was not that much competition, so it was pretty much set in stone that the starters were going to start the whole season. That also creates competition. Although there is competition in high school football, some players quit caring about the sport and end up not coming out for the team in the future. In college that does not happen, because the players are on a scholarship to be their and they do not want to lose that scholarship. That makes everyone work hard and that is why college football practices are so intense; because everyone is there for a reason.

Let’s all be honest, when in a tight situation where a lot is on the line, having someone say, ‘No pressure.’ is the worst thing that could be ever said in that moment. Regardless, this is what was said to me and my 10-year-old baseball team, The Oklahoma Kaos before hitting the field to have a chance to get to finals in the State Championship. It was June 18th, 2010, and we had clawed our way out of losers bracket to get to the semifinals. We had come too far to give up or fail now. We came across a team called the Pawhuska Huskies, a team we had creamed in an earlier tournament 23-3 in one whole inning. The team joked back and forth about how easy this would be and how we already made it to the finals. But while

The excitement and happiness are what we wanted to feel when hopefully lifting up a trophy. We needed to prove that not one person can talk down about us without there being a consequence. Every day for hours we pushed ourselves and each other. We became stronger individually and as a team. It was time for preseason, and this is where we must justify our position in our division. We played in one of the hardest group divisions in the whole country, which was exceptional because that left no room for failure, it just left room for us to

“I have high expectations for everyone, all the time,” said Coach Koepp. “My my expectations for my underclassmen, freshmen more so than others, I’m hoping they don’t feel the pressure of a high school varsity game. You want them to have a lot of good opportunities, so that when we move on to playoffs, it just feels like another game to them.”

Our team went undefeated for our first 16 games, and then our 17th game we had our first tie. We were used to killed the team we tied to, but that proves if you don’t come ready not everything is going to go your way. Some of the kids kind of took it the wrong way. We won 14 more games after that and kept playing strong. Then we had our final playoff game to see who was going to state or not.

“A loud and spirited crowd has the potential to alter the result of a game” (Benavidez). Almost every sport’s fan in the world would agree. A large crowd is one thing, but a large crowd who is passionately cheering on their team plays a crucial role in sporting events. When asked the question on how school spirit affects his team’s performance, Seth Mcgowen responded, “It increases the morale of the player. When we see there’s a big crowd there cheering us on, we feel like we have to do better so that we don’t let them down. If they’re shouting my name and cheering for me personally, it makes me step up my performance and do something great.” Key words in Mcgowen’s response are “cheering us on” (Benavidez). Mcgowen said an enormous crowd is not what encourages the team, but an enormous crowd that cheers does. Former Tupelo High School basketball coach Jerry Lee Clayton preached the importance of having school spirit and used to tell his players, “A school without spirit is nothing, but a school with spirit has the power to do miraculous things.” Athletes want school spirit from their town and school because they have the chance to feel an emotional connection with the fans. What team wants to compete for a school that does not support them, but all teams want to compete for a school that gives them full support. School spirit has the power to affect a team’s performance, and that is a benefit almost everyone can

“Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser,” Vince Lombardi once said. This saying could be the unsung anthem of American sports for children and teenagers. Everyone loves to win. In sports there is always competition. Is there too much emphasis on “the win” for kids and teens? This issue is important because it essentially develops the way children and teenagers think and react; it will affect them later on in life. Too much emphasis on winning is a problem because there is extensive pressure from parents and coaches, and the consequences can be severe.

With more and more children participating in some sort of organized sport than ever before, there is a constant concern regarding the pressures kids are brought into to excel. Emotionally over-involved parents often think that it is their