Essay Public Argument

Pressures of College Student-Athletes: Annotated Bibliography

Kaufman, Keith A., Ph.D. "Understanding Student-Athlete Burnout." NCAA.org - The Official Site of the NCAA. N.p., 10 Dec. 2014. Web. Mar. 2017.

Keith Kaufman’s publication to the NCAA, “Understanding Student-Athlete Burnout”(2010) claims that college athletes burnout due to immense “training stress” that can derive from all aspects of the student-athlete’s daily life. The author collects data about student-athletes experiencing burnouts as well as the common factors causing these meltdowns. Kaufman’s purpose is to emphasize risk factors in burnouts, in order to give student-athletes the proper knowledge on this topic. The intended audience for this article applies directly to student- athletes, along with the medical staff that directly manages the health and well-being of the collegiate players.

The author provides me with the baseline to my project. The article directly states all the possible pressures put into a burnout. The publication supplys my project with not only the different types of pressure put on student-athletes but how the built up stress and emotion is released. Kaufman expresses similar thoughts to mine, which will prove useful to my paper.

*Madrigal, Leilani. "Gender and the relationships among mental toughness, hardiness, optimism and coping in collegiate athletics: a structural equation modeling approach." Journal of sport behavior (2017): n. pag. Academic Search Complete. Web. Mar. 2017.

Leilani Madrigal’s academic article, “Gender and the Relationships Among Mental Toughness, Hardiness, Optimism and Coping in Collegiate Athletics: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach”(2017) argues that mental toughness is the ideal coping method for athletes rather than hardiness or optimism. The author supports this idea by conducting a survey experiment with 570 collegiate athletes, male and female, to see which coping method is predominant in athletes. Her purpose is to find how athletes cope with demands in order to do further research on how this might affect emotion and interaction. The formal relationship is established with scientists and researchers interested in the effects of sports on student-athletes.

The text Leilani Madrigal presents is solid insight on the inner workings of college student- athlete minds. I can use this information to help prove the real life pressures put on college athletes today. However, I need to further understand if the effects of coping with mental toughness is greater or worse than other coping methods such as hardiness or optimism. Often times being mentally tough allows no emotion to be shown, I now have to ask myself is this always healthy in regards to coping.

*Massengale, Kelley E. C., Alice Ma, Kelly L. Rulison, Jeffrey J. Milroy, and David L.

Wyrick. "Perceived norms and alcohol use among first-year college student-athletes' different types of friends." Journal of American College Health 65.1 (2016): 32-40. Web. Mar. 2017.

Kelley E. C., Alice Ma, Kelly L. Rulison, Jeffrey J. Milroy, and David L. Wyrick’s academic journal article “Perceived norms and alcohol use among first-year college student-athletes' different types of friends”(2016) implies that student-athlete’s perception on alcohol and other drugs is easily influenced by friends and older student-athletes. The authors put together an online survey done by student-athletes to test descriptive and injunctive norms in surrounding friends and the student-athlete. The author’s purpose is to identify the leading factors of influencing student-athletes in order to effectively make change and lower unnecessary pressures put on college athletes. The intended audience for this text is formally the Athletics departments' alcohol policies and prevention programming, allowing the information to be used effectively.

This article can be effectively used in my project, simply due to the fact that it adds another pressure to college student-athletes. Alcohol and drug pressure from peers is a different approach to my project, an approach I would like to further explore. This text exploits my weak ability to expand on a topic: however, reading a variety of different articles has allowed me to get a solid grip on which ideas are most relevant and useful in regards to my project.

Melton, De'anthony. "Pressures on Student-Athletes." Skype Interview. Mar. 2017

In his interview (2017) De’anthony asserts that there are unforeseeable pressures that come along with being a student-athlete. Melton can confidently support this assertion due to the fact that he is currently a freshman playing basketball at the University of Southern California, first hand experience of coping with the pressure and stress. Melton’s purpose for giving this interview is to give a first hand account of the challenges student-athletes face in order to educate future collegiate athletes. Although De’anthony was talking to me, he informally addresses the generations younger.

Talking to De’anthony, I gained very valuable information about the average day and workload of a student-athlete. The interview allowed me to get a feel for what it's like to be at the stage directly below professional. I can not yet say I know the struggle of student-athletes, however, I plan to continue talking as well as gaining knowledge from De’anthony Melton.

Stricker, Paul R. "Pressure to Perform." HealthyChildren.org. N.p., n.d. Web. Mar. 2017.

Paul Stricker’s article “Pressure to Perform”(2015) suggests that there can be possible repercussions, positive and negative, on children due to pressure and intense competition. The author develops this thesis by conducting research on children as well as research on how pressure and intense competition affect adolescents. Strickers purpose is to raise awareness in parents about the pressures put on their children in order to improve the long term well-being of

adolescents. The intended audience for this article is mainly parents who live through their children, establishing an emotional connecting with the reader.

This web article can support my topic in a different way than the others. Although the article is not directly related to college-athletes, it does give some important insight on how children are pressured. Everything has to start somewhere and this text opens my eyes to the beginning, the beginning of pressure in sports. However, the author expresses the potential benefits of competitive sport, giving me a different path to explore for the future project.