Competitive sport ethos

A. The readings for this week’s assignments provide evidence of a very unique sports ethos and positive deviance that athletes (and their coaches, administrators, and even some medical professionals) practice in sports.

This mindset surrounding playing through injuries and pain results in many collateral consequences for athletes when they have to continue to live with pain, discomfort, and mental health challenges in their life after sports (especially in a life after playing a violent sport like football).

Athletes that compete in sports inherently understand the health and injury risks associated with their participation, and often are more than willing to play hurt and/or take medication to mask their pain in order to compete in their sport. Others that know better still comply with these expectations because they fear losing playing time or letting their teammates or coaches down.

For this Discussion Board question, provide a short script for how you would define and describe the competitive “sport ethos” to a family member or friend that is less familiar with sports.

Provide this family member with at least two examples from the readings (5 attachments below) that sheds light on how the sport ethos manifests itself in college or professional sports.

B. Outside the Lines: An injured rower says she was mistreated at Indiana University.

http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=19213200

The athlete quotes her coach telling her team that they “did not have any room for injured people” and to continue training or be kicked off of the team.

As the story suggests, IU has claimed some responsibility for how they allocated medical professionals and health testing in their athletic department, but did not address how they might address the hypercompetitive sport ethos that their coach championed, an attitude that resulted in a less than optimal standard of care for their athletes.

For this question, assume you came across UF Athletic Director Scott Stricklin at the Reitz Union one day while you are eating lunch. He sits down with you and for some reason you decide to discuss this excellent OTL story you just watched in SPM 3012 with him.

You tell him how this one coach at IU apparently forced his players to practice and compete through their injuries and ask him what his expectations are for the coaches he oversees here at UF.

For DAY 1 of this Board, describe the following:

How do you think he would respond to the question of his expectations of how coaches should respond to injured athletes continuing to train?
In 2-3 sentences (and based on the readings and video reports we viewed this week or last week), provide him with your recommendation for what expectations he should place on his coaches here at UF and why you think it is imperative that he adhere to your great advice (do your best here….we realize this is a stretch).
Your response should look something like this:

Stricklin: Thanks for the great insights, here at UF....

SPM 3012 Student/You: That is interesting Mr. Stricklin, my recommendations for you would be to consider....