United States Sports Academy
America's Sports University®

The Sport Digest - ISSN: 1558-6448

volume 17 number 4

Book Review: The Yankee Years (2009) by Torre, Joe & Verducci, Tom

The Yankee Years gives an in depth review of Joe Torre’s stint as the manager of the New York Yankees. The highly successful run of Torre’s early years with the organization (Four World Championships from 1996-2000) contrasts his later years and the events that led to his downfall. Students involved in sport management have an opportunity to examine the relationships between administrative positions-Manager, General Manager, and Owner-of the most famous professional sport organization in the world.

Leadership Skills and Power Used By Athletic Directors and Head Coaches in Interscholastic and Intercollegiate Team Sports

Introduction

The use of effective leadership skills and its relationship to success in interscholastic and intercollegiate team sports have lead researchers to conduct studies to determine if leadership skills used by athletic directors and head coaches contribute to success and employee satisfaction. If we examine the alliance of coaching, we will detect the authoritarian behavior style of leadership is used by athletic directors and head coaches in their interaction with players, assistant coaches, and staff. Furthermore, athletic directors and head coaches are confusing power and intimidation with effective leadership. Power is not a form of leadership it is form of control by intimidating employees.

Assessing the Importance of Building Self-efficacy to Impact Motivation, Performance Levels, and Team Effectiveness

Introduction

As I have studied leadership in this course and compared and contrasted self-efficacy and self-confidence for an assignment in an earlier course, it seems obvious to me that leaders can impact follower levels of motivation, performance, and team effectiveness by building individual and group self-efficacy. Not wanting to place an overemphasis in regards to building self-efficacy, I am on a quest to learn more about this issue and discover research-based answers. In an attempt to recognize the essence of an increased self-efficacy, I will begin by searching for what self-efficacy really means. The focus will then turn to essential factors for increasing self-efficacy and attempt to identify ways to build a stronger sense of self-efficacy. It will then be determined if communication and feedback can improve follower self-efficacy and conclude by looking at authority dynamics to see if there is a certain style that works best to improve overall self-efficacy levels.

Stressing: Understanding and Coping with Acute Stress in Adolescents Athletes Competing in Team Sports

Introduction

Stress has no boundaries. It affects children, teenagers, and adults. It crosses gender and ethnic divides and makes no distinction between social class, religious preference, marital status, or educational levels. Stress takes many different forms and affects everyone in different ways, and, left unchecked, negative stressors can lead to serious health problems. Some people may stress over burdensome financial obligations while others may stress over which item to purchase while shopping. Employees stress over job security, promotions, and workloads. Students in all grade levels, from kindergarten to graduate school, stress over assignments and exams. Stress is everywhere and is felt by everyone. This concept is no different in competitive team sports.
Athletes at all levels feel a certain amount of stress while participating in sports. When thinking of stressful athletic situations, we tend to think of classic examples such as the long field goal attempt by the placekicker as time expires; the free throws to tie the game with no time left on the clock; two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the winning run on second; and the double-overtime penalty kick to win the match.

Stress and Anxiety in Athletics

Introduction

All athletic trainers should be concerned with how stress and anxiety affect their athletes. Many athletes struggle with stress and anxiety on a daily basis. Each athlete reacts to the stress and anxiety differently. The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences between stress and anxiety, as well as how these conditions affect athletes.

When Does a Football Player Get Old?

Introduction

Over time, all athletes eventually see their on-field performance decrease. Athletes in all sports are at an advantage physically early in their careers, before age takes away some of their natural athletic ability. More than any other sport, football is about being athletic, fast, quick, and strong. These physical attributes are vital in the sport, but are also the first attributes that any person loses with age.
In addition, the physical pounding that most football players take can break down even the strongest bodies over time. Therefore, football players tend to “lose a step” earlier in their careers than most other athletes. Football players often see a steep decline once their athletic ability fades even just a small amount.

2009 Deaflympics Sport Tourism

Introduction

2009 21st Summer Deaflympics was take place in Chinese Taipei and Deaflympics was originally known as World Games for the Deaf.  The first Deaflympics in 1924 in Paris France, was the first games ever on earth for athletes with disability. There were 145 athletes from 9 European countries taking part, the number of athletes in the Summer Deaflympics have been increasing since the Inaugural Games. 3,660 athletes and team officials from 97 countries participated in the Melbourne 20th Summer Deaflympics in 2005, and the results in men's 100m and 400m race in track event excelled that of the Chinese Taipei team's national records. Currently there are 20 sports on the 21st Summer Deaflympics Program: Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Bowling, Cycling, Football, Handball, Orienteering, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis, Volleyball, Beach Volleyball, Water Polo, Wrestling Freestyle, Wrestling Greco-Roman, Karate, Judo and Taekwondo. In fact, for large sport events like FIFA World cup, interest in the event and perceived constraints should derive from the level of fan motives, travel motivations, and the potential attendee’s background (Kim, Chalip,2004).

Investigating Wrestling Injuries

Introduction

Grindstaff & Potach (2006) showed that wrestling is one of the oldest sports in the world, with its roots embedded in the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. Wrestling , both a contact and collision sport, places extreme demands on the entire body and much demands all too often result injury. Two common styles of wrestling exist in the FILA (International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles): freestyle, and Grexo-Roman, all with a common goal of pinning the opponent. It is a highly anaerobic sport, requiring maximal power and strength for explosive attacks during each mach. Wrestling match may last up to 10 minutes in the official competition (Kraemer et al.,2001; Grindstaff, & Potach, 2005).