Athlete Burn Out from Social Pressures

The pressure exerted by adults on young athletes can be overwhelming.

The majority of young athletes in the United States do not continue with sports past a young age, and especially rarely after high school. An article in the Washingtonian argues that not only can more intense sports in high school have a drastic physical effect on developing athletes, but there can be a great mental strain that may turn them off from athletics. Many coaches do not socialize their athletes properly, and focus too much on athletic excellence, instead of looking to see if the kids are ready to perform.
When people focus too much on the excellence of the athletes, especially those who are successful, these kids tend to get turned off from the sport. These kids often feel like they were no longer in control over their lives. They also end up feeling like they can't be normal kids or that they don't fit in with their friends. ESPN's 30 for 30 series included a documentary called Little Big Men. This film was a series of interviews with the players from the 1982 Little League World Series championship team now that the players have grown up. Part of the film focuses on Cody Webster, the star pitcher on this winning team. The amount of press and expectation from fans after the Little League World Series led to exactly this kind of burn out in Webster. He felt that the expectation for him was too high and struggled to cope with it throughout the rest of his sporting career into college.
Burnout caused by people focusing kids too much on the sport instead of building friendships can be avoided. Just like the Washingtonian article says, great coaches like John Wooden practiced techniques that allowed athletes to grow as people and players at the same time will lead to more kids who continue with and enjoy sports.

It may be a little late, and I'm sure it was on very few radars in the sport world because Track and Field is hardly in the forefront any longer, but something should be said about the IAAF false start rule.

This year at the World Championships in Athletics in Daegu, South Korea, Usain Bolt was disqualified for false starting in the final of the Men's 100m Dash. While you can't say it is unfair for Bolt to have been disqualified, he absolutely jumped the gun, you can say that today's media has altered the rules of the sport to the point where arguably the most famous athlete on Earth at the moment is not allowed to compete on the sports second biggest stage simply to save ratings.

Now when i say "save ratings" I don't mean that the ratings went up from Bolt not competing, because I am certain NBC took a hit for that, but the one false start DQ rule instated in 2010 was designed exactly for the increase of rating during the small amount of air time that track and field receives. Up until 2003 the IAAF had a False start rule that allowed each athlete to have a false start, and then if that individual athlete false started again they would be disqualified form competition. In that year the IAAF made the first false start by an athlete charged to the field, and the successive false start would disqualify whichever athlete committed the second offense, no matter who false started first. In 2010 the latest modification was made to the false start rule so that any athlete who false started would be disqualified from competition on the first offense. These rules didn't come about for the improvement of the sport, and as shown by the 2011 100m final, it can certainly be detrimental for the promotion of athletics. The IAAF made these changes at the urging of television corporations. Because having numerous athletes false start is obviously hard for sports anchors to cope with, and the amount of time between heats without false starts already takes it's toll on viewer attention spans, networks have pushed the IAAF to change the rules to discourage athletes from false starting.

A few days after the 100m final Usain Bolt ran the second fastest 200m dash of all time, showing that he was in stellar form, and he made it look easy. This begs the question, what would he have done if he had not been ousted from the first race? Having rules that leave the possibility of excluding marquee athletes is a terrible policy for any sport organization to have. Sacrificing the excitement and the draw of the sport simply for a better television contract is not a great way to attract fans. I hope personally that the IAAF changes this rule to something better before the 2012 Olympics, or you might see some drop in the fan numbers, even if NBC will be more likely to give you more air time.

Welcome

Welcome to this blog which will now become an outlet for talk about sports and how they relate to my life and what's going on in the US.

My name is Alec Villiva and I am a Sport Management Major at Slippery Rock University. I don't like to put myself in a "year" because i feel that college is too fluid for many people to follow the traditional four year plan, but in reality I'm a senior.
I have done a fair bit of traveling in my lifetime and have been to numerous countries in Europe and Africa. Since my mother is a civilian working for the US Army I have lived in Atlanta, Georgia, Heidelberg, Germany, and Burke, Virginia. I have lived in Germany and Atlanta twice, at two different times.
Here at Slippery Rock I run track and cross country for the university and am a member of SMA.
I am honestly very unsure of what I want to do when I have finished school, but I know that I want to find a career that focuses on helping people in some capacity.

Hopefully this helps you learn a little bit about me, and if there's anything else you want to know just ask.