Online Poster Session: Room 3
Ball is Life: Black Male Student-Athletes Narrate Their Division I University and Athletic Experiences
Virtual Poster Attah Meekins Attah Meekins
This study focused on the experiences of Black male student athletes in Division I university sports programs and utilized Critical Race Theory as its framework. This exploration sought to understand to what extent the legacy of racism in the United States has impacted the collegiate experience of these student athletes. Through the use of Critical Race Methodology the researcher presented counter stories that highlighted successes and heightened awareness regarding the needs and concerns of an extremely important, but often silenced population. This research examined the experiences of Black male student athletes in the Division I revenue-generating sports of basketball and football. This study acknowledged and presented how Black males perceived the effectiveness of NCAA supports in place for their academic success, degree attainment, and post-collegiate leadership and career opportunities. The researcher offered suggestions which Black male student athletes believed more effectively served their needs during transition into, for the duration of, and beyond Division I University sports participation as an opportunity to move towards more socially just practices in Division I academics and athletics.
Media, Money and Fame in Women’s Sports in Australia
Virtual Poster Chelsea Litchfield
Women’s sports in Australia have traditionally placed a distant second to men’s sports. Such second-rate treatment has been obvious through remuneration and media interest. Nevertheless, the last two years have seen the establishment of the inaugural women’s Australian Rules Football competition, a new Australian ‘National Netball League’ and the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) cricket competition. All of these sporting competitions have one thing in common, that is, media interest. All competitions have broadcast deals with major television networks in Australia. The message in the sports media in Australia is that women’s sports are taking over our screens, being remunerated more handsomely and becoming more high profile. However, there remain enormous disparities between male and female athletes and sporting competitions. These disparities focus on the amount of media coverage received by male and female sporting competitions and the remuneration paid to male and female athletes. In particular, this study focuses on the Australian Rules Football competition and the WBBL competition in Australia. These themes will be analysed using a third wave feminist lens to more clearly understand the differences (or similarities) between men’s and women’s in sport in Australia.
Gentrifiction Legacy
Virtual Poster Peter Evans
This papers examines the consequence of regeneration in the aftermath of the London 2012 Olympic Games. In particular, the issues of gentrification and displacement are discussed in examining the unique impact that the Olympic Games have had, and continue to have, in reshaping social and urban areas across the London Olympic Boroughs. Legacy has become a core dimension of mega-event bidding and hosting strategies. Since 1999, the principle of sustainable development forms (a discretionary) part of the contract between the IOC and host city. However, one of the impacts of regeneration is to create an environment that is appealing to property investors, which increases property values and can lead to the displacement of the very people that regeneration seeks to assist: low-income families (Lees et al, 2008). The paper is based on mixed method research, which facilitated both confirmatory data (the House Price Index - HPI) and exploratory case studies. The qualitative data is based on a "key case" approach. Supplementing the case studies, 54 questionnaires were administered to random residents, with the objective of establishing the interviewee’s positive and negative perceptions towards London 2012 legacy. The HPI provides evidence that, between July 2009 and July 2014, the Borough of Hackney has experienced enormous levels of gentrification-related house price growth (82%), significantly above the London average (48%). The qualitative case studies provided rich and contrasting data.
Re-establishing Identity through Sport: The Influences of Participation in an Elite Paralympic Military Sport Program on Active Duty Service Memebers with Acquired Disabilities
Virtual Poster Lindsay Hammond
=A phenomenological approach was employed, using a three phase semistructured interview protocol to capture military journeys of four (4) service members who had sustained a physical disability as the result of a combat injury and chose to remain on active duty status as a part of a specialized unit designed to prepare service members for the Paralympics. Results: Three themes were identified with implications on the saliency of the service members’ identities. These were goal orientation, champions through transition, and the unit. Participants reported that participation in the specialized unit provided new challenges and opportunities, inspired both athletic and military goals and provided the opportunity to continue to serve. Conclusion: Concepts self-determination theory (STD) were evident across the participants’ accounts of their military careers. The findings portray a group of highly self-determined service members, who throughout the course of their military journey experienced a strong sense of competence, relatedness and autonomy. The elite military sport program provided infrastructure required to foster the salience of a service member identity.
Exploring the Importance of Coach-Player Relationship in Inclusive Tennis Programming
Virtual Poster Nadina Ayer
Athletes can develop many interpersonal relationships. The most important relationship can be the one athletes develop with their coach as it can have the greatest influence on the training process, performance outcomes, and satisfaction with sport experience. The understanding of the importance of coach-athlete relationship in inclusive sport continues to be limited. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to describe the role coach-athlete relationship can play in inclusive tennis programming, to demonstrate adaptation techniques and strategies using an athlete-centered approach, and to present potential implications for practice and research. The complexity of the coach-athlete relationship including its meaning and key components are discussed. Accessibility to inclusive sport is considered.
Formalization of Sports
Virtual Poster Sravya Gurram
There has been a long standing discussion whether sports can be considered as an art form. Various scholars have laid down their arguments on why sports can or cannot be considered as an art form. The sports-art conundrum originates from the lack of a formal definition of sports. The aim of this paper is to put an end to the sport - art conundrum by constructing the tools required to arrive at a formal analysis of sports. Building and gathering the tools required to arrive at a formal grammar of sports, thus formalizing sports, contributes to the majority of the work.The tools constructed for the formal analysis are graphical representation of sports, typologies and vocabulary. The graphical representation of sports takes shape with the help of the serializability factor, events and the governing rules of the sports. The graphical representation of sport allows us to glance at the concept of sport in a technical point of view - as a list of events and as a list of sequence of events, instead of granting sports, a higher respectability by juxtaposing sport with art. Typologies and Vocabularies help in the abstraction of the graphical representations of sports.The abstraction allows us to arrive at a formal analysis of sports, which is the main focus of this paper.
Surf Therapy and Differently-abled Children: Extending Waves for Change's Child-friendly Mental Health Surf Therapy Program to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Virtual Poster Nicci Van Der Merwe
This paper provides the findings of an internal study of Waves for Change’s (W4C) surf therapy program, piloted with a group of learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Learners with ASD often present with ongoing social-communication problems that include difficulty communicating and interacting with others, repetitive behaviors as well as limited interests or activities and sensory integration issues. W4C’s surf therapy program has proven that children who complete the 12 months program have increased school engagement, decreased anti-social behavior, as well as increased school performance. Given these and other positive changes the surf therapy program has proved to have on the well-being of participants, W4C conducted research on the pilot ASD surf therapy program, to establish whether the program brought about similar, or different, changes to the children with ASD. Two qualitative data collection methods were used to collect primary data, namely direct observation, and in-depth, unstructured interviewing. Secondary data was collected through the revision of existing literature on surf therapy and differently-abled children. The research found the effects of the program were positive on the participating children, reporting more confidence, improved social interaction, an increase in communication initiation, increased verbal output, an improvement in peer relationships, and less aggressive outbursts. In addition, the immediate effects of the ASD surf therapy pilot program extended to the W4C surf coaches and mentors; including increased confidence to work with differently-abled children, improved non-verbal communication, an increased understanding of and empathy toward disabilities, with a decreased stigmatization toward people with mental illnesses.
