My Struggle Within Sports

I have played sports all my life ever since i was 5 years old. I played football up until junior high and played basketball my whole life until I arrived at Kutztown University. When I was young, I loved playing sports. Sports was my passion and my get away from the real world. When i got to the higher levels of playing basketball like in my junior high day or my freshman year of high school, I noticed myself getting more and more nervous before game and even practices. 

As you get up in those levels, the games start to get really serious and you are playing for something more than just having fun. It was not about the fun anymore, it was about representing your school and winning. I began to notice that I was trying so hard to be the best player I could be that it just dragged me down. When I made a turnover in a game, or even missed a shot, I lost all of my confidence and it made me feel as if I was hurting my team. There were also many different pressures that you felt from friends, family, and your coaches to preform to the best of your ability or you will be criticized.  As I got farther up in my grade level, the more anxious I got. I started to noticed that my grades were even declining.

On the days that i had games, I would be so focused on that game that I would not be able to focus on anything at school that day. I would be so focused on getting mentally prepared to not mess up during the game that I would not be able to do school work. I would walk around all day with this pit in my stomach that would not go away as hard as I tried. The only time I could really focus on my work in school would be when i get home from my game because I am not worried about playing then. Not only were my grades declining, but even my relationships with other people would decline. I would not want to talk to many people on game days either because i would just be so worried about the game that I just wanted to be alone. 

Looking back on my career in sports, I would still play them because I have such a love of the game. If I were to go back in time, I would look more into the treatment of the sport anxiety and some of the treatments I could utilize to treat it. I would not let just playing basketball get in the way of what is more important which is my relationships with other people and my grades. It sucks that I let playing a sport in high school get in the way of that, but now I know a lot about this topic so I can help other people that are struggling with it. 

Academic Article

The first great article I found is titled,”Self-esteem and self-perceptions in sports and exercise.”  The title of the journal is Routledge Handbooks and is written by Kenneth Fox and Magnus Lindwall. The audience that this article is addressing is people that struggle with self confidence issues. The main point of this article is to write about how you can feel confidence issues while playing sports. If you were to make a bad play in a game or do something embarrassing and people laugh, that really hurts you as a layer and just a human in general. 

In the second article I found that is titled, “Perfectionism and competitive anxiety in athletes”, it describes how some athletes that strive to be perfect and never make mistakes which often results in having competitive anxiety. This relates back to the first article in many different ways. When you strive to be perfect in the sport that you are playing and you don’t live up to being the “perfect player” you start to lose your confidence and self esteem. As you start to lose your self esteem, you get more nervous about being the perfect player you want to be. I was interested in this because I have gone through this as an athlete and wanted to learn more about why this happens. I found this article on google scholar. 

This is all a rigor-is cycle that some athletes go through that can be detrimental to their game and even their life. This relates back to my initial research question on how it hurts your student life. When you are all focused on improving your game and trying to be a perfect player, you are . not really focused on being the perfect student which is a little more important then high school sports. 

Primary Source

For my primary source, I interviewed a person from my high school basketball team named Harrison Linfoot. I played with him throughout youth sports as well as all of my high school career. Through this interview, I asked many questions that relate to my topic such as, “Did your struggle in managing your time?” This interview is very appropriate for my topic because he was a high school student and that is what my blog is focused on how sports can negatively effect students. This is a primary source because it is first hand interview with a person that has experienced the same things that I am writing about. 

This interview was held on the phone and I asked him a series of questions that relate to my topic. I asked him about how playing sports and how it effected his grades. He responded by talking about how it distracted him from his school work sometimes and how it was hard to balance friends sometimes too. Like me, he also got very anxious before games and that would hurt not only his performance, but his schoolwork. He also played football in high school which takes up a lot more time then basketball does. I learned that I am not the only one to think this way about playing sports in school. I also learned there are many problems that i didn’t talk about in my blog yet. Issues such as depression came up in the interview also. I still want to know if even more people feel the same way, but just don’t want to talk about it. 

Book Review

The book that I am going to be reviewing today is titled, “This Is Your Brain on Sports.” This book is written by Dr. David Grand and Alan Goldberg. This book is a monograph. This book goes into detail about the certain aspects of your brain and how you can overthink while playing sports. Through this book, It describes people personal stories of overcoming the certain anxieties and stresses that go into playing sports. While telling these stories, the authors go into detail about the what the people are going through specifically through definitions somewhat like a textbook. 

The main purpose of this book is to help athletes beat certain blocks and anxieties to preform to their fullest potential. One part of the book focuses on a pitcher for the mets named Mackey Sasser. He excelled his whole life and was one of the best pitchers at his age. When he turned 19, he entered the MLB and was playing for the Mets at the time. Once he got to the Mets, everything changed. He could not do the simple task of aiming the ball and that is a big part of being a pitcher. The New York Media killed Mackey and was the butt of many relentless jokes. He then returned to his hometown in Alabama and tried to work out the kinks. The book then procedes to go into great detail about what he needs to do and how Alan Goldberg (the author) could help him. 

Now imagine going through all of that stuff while being a student. There would be absolutely no way you can balance the school work and achieve your academic potential and even balance having a social life. Going through all those phychological problems would be terrible for your academics. From reading this book, many athletes will find everything helpful. If you struggle with anxiety with playing playing sports, there are many tips throught the book. There are also many stories that you can relate your issues too to show that this is a normal thing and you can get though it. 

Op-Ed (Sports Anxiety)

When I was searching for my op-ed, I noticed that there are a lot of op-eds about the certain anxiety in sports. Both of the op-eds i found are about the anxiety. Both of op Eds talk about anxiety and one of them talks about them in sports specifically. One of the article talks about how anxiety isn’t really real and the other talk about how you can cope with it. The differ from each other which is good for this topic. 

The first article is titled, “Anxiety, The Troubles that Rarely Happen.” This is written by Tom Dorsal in 2015. This article is basically saying how anxiety can be solved with a couple simple steps and don't need medications and such. It says in the article that you just have to relax, but that is very difficult for a person with anxiety. Another step says that you can just pray your anxiety away. This article mainly downplays anxiety and how its not a real disease and that people just get nervous. There is no data that back these things up, it just states things that they thing helps get anxiety away. This is very bias towards not believing anxiety is a thing and that you can just get it away easily. 

The second op ed is titled, “Sports Anxiety can be a Real Problem.” This is written by Anthony Alessi in 2009. This article talks about how anxiety really can effect an athlete. It talks about how it is hard to deal with it itself, but when you bring sports into the conversation, it just gets worse. The rates among atheist getting anxiety is increasing over the years. When you are playing in your game, all you can think about is your anxiety. It is bias towards thinking anxiety is a real thing for athletes which I believe is very true. 

My whole blog is about how sports can be detrimental to students. Imagine having anxiety and playing a sports and having to balance everything. You will not be able to focus on your grades which is the most important thing. The op ed that talks about sports anxiety is a really good op ed and it talks about how detrimental anxiety can really be.

Documentary: Sports Psychology

Have you ever felt anxiety or stress before practices or games?

In, “Sports Psychology” this documentary goes through different elements of how you think and how your brain directly impacts your athletic performance. Through different interviews with people, the narrator asks them questions about what they do to keep their own mind healthy to preform to their full athletic potential. In this documentary, they also go through information about how visualizing and certain techniques to improve athletically. In the end of the documentary, it goes depth about some of the anxiety disorders that can come with playing sports and how it can not only effect how you play, but other important things in your life.

Now coming back to my original question to you in the beginning of this post. This documentary does a good job in explaining ways that you can combat the anxiety and stress. This documentary says that sometimes we just overthink everything and it can be very detrimental to our mental health. You can combat this by staying calm and visualizing yourself doing good things in the game. 

This documentary had many people interviewed throughout. One of the people interviewed was an old kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs name Nick Lowery. He talked about how hard it is for a kicker to stay calm through a game because of the amount of pressure that is on them. He says he just tries and remains calm and not think to hard about anything so he doesn't end up overthinking. They also interviewed an old basketball coach and how he has seen players fold under pressure He made it a point to not put too much pressure on his kids to preform, instead motivate them to do better. 

This documentary also somewhat tries to make you feel very informed. It is not making you feel an emotion such as happy or sad. This documentary is mainly just to help athletes struggling with certain anxieties or stresses in their sport. This documentary talks about how these athletes feel these certain pressures to preform, but what about the students? These students also have their grades to worry about which is more important than playing the sport. How are these students supposed to reach their full academic potential when all they are worrying about is their game later in the day. 

Librarian Visit

To start off, my meeting with my librarian was not very helpful at all. There were no sources that were discussed that I could use to do any research on my topic or anything. Something that we did do was discuss my topic. I talked about what I was thinking about writing about and she gave me more ideas I could utilize through my blog. The librarian did briefly talk about the library website and how it is good for doing research and such, but no specific sources. She also spent most of her time talking about the other side of the argument of my topic instead of focusing on my side of the argument.

 Since that is all to know about my librarian visit, I am going to talk about the teacher conference that was a lot more helpful. I was introduced to some of the sources that I could use for this blog project. The main one we used throughout the conference was WorldCat. It is really good because it searches the whole world for a specific piece of material that you need. I expect this source to be very helpful because my topic is going to be very hard in finding information about it. I wish that my librarian visit was more successful so I could write a little more about the information she taught me. 

Through some of my research, I have struggled to find many sources on how sports can be detrimental to students and such. After many hours, I found an e-book on WorldCat that is a great source and explains my topic perfectly. Sport Psychological Interventions in Competitive Sports  talks all about the psychological issues students go through while playing competitive sports in school. Some of the basic things that this book talks about is the different types of anxiety the students go through as well as some stress prevention techniques. I am going to be able to get some great information from this book.

The Warm Up

Did you enjoy sports in school?

In, “For the Love of the Game...(or is it?),” I will be talking about many aspect of how playing sports in school can be detrimental to students. Certain aspects of my blog will include the pressures that can be put on students to play and preform. Sometimes student athletes parents will put too much pressure on the athlete to preform and it can effect the student psychologically and physically. According to Livestrong.com, “Although these students often feel substantial pressure to perform both on the field and in the classroom, the benefits of athletic endeavors seem to counterbalance the challenges they present. Nevertheless, many youth athletes become increasingly stressed as they strive to maintain academic eligibility while advancing through their school years.”

Student’s grades can start to decline even though you do have to maintain a certain grade point average for sports. The sport could hold the student back from reaching their full academic potential. The student can get so emotionally and physically involved into the game that it can just take over their whole life and school can start to come second for the student. I will also talk about time management. Many students will struggle with this while playing a sport in school. You need to make time for your sport, friends, family, and school. I found my self usually slacking in at least one of these categories ad i am sure i am not the only one. Those are all important things to fill your day with, but it is a lot harder when playing a sport is taking up much of your time. In this blog, I will not be talking about some of the positives about playing sports in school. I know there are a lot of positives out there and I am just going to focus on the negatives. 

Throughout this blog, I am going to give you insight into my personal experiences with sports in school and am going to give facts and information to back up my experience and maybe even other peoples. I can get insight from a lot of my friends and family that have played a lot of sports in their lives. I believe that is what is going to distinguish me from other web material is the personal experiences that I have had. There are many facts out there, but what those web pages don’t have is what I have done and experienced within sports. Another thing that is going to separate me is that I am just focusing on the negative affects of playing sports in school. Many of these web pages will focus more on the positives then the negatives. This blog will be one of a kind.