Athlete Behavior Management and Coaching
The athlete behavior is often driven by different factors and the main task of coaches is to present effective techniques for teaching and coaching athletes in a more appropriate way. This problem specifically concerns the accurate identification of athlete characteristics that are necessary for working out successful strategies used to improve learning. In this respect, coaches should be careful and consistent enough in implementing various management techniques aimed at enhancing athletes’ performance. Coaches may encounter several problems while introducing particular training. Among them are athlete resistance to change, verbal communication difficulties, and certain physical problems, like difficulty with stability, balance, and coordination.
To solve the first problem, coaches should provide more consistent and continuous transitions and reinforce the concept of flexibility. Such a strategy will be successful if it is based on logical sequences. Problems with communications can be solved through clear identification of additional time for interaction. Coaches can also resort to a specific picture board for their athlete to understand the signs while training, which will create a favorable ground for mutual agreement and understanding and reinforce appropriate behaviors on the field.
Quality of physical performance depends on a great variety of factors that coaches should take into the closest consideration. In particular, if athletes have problems with coordination, the coach’s task involves an in-depth analysis of the athlete’s physical abilities to introducing much easier movements to progress and allowing extra time with one-to-one assistance. Physical limitations should also be carefully tackled and the coach should develop an effective plan for training stability and gross motor skills as well as provide the athletes with the necessary equipment for faster adaptation.
Arthur Blank’s Strategies for Atlanta Falcons Team
Arthur Blank, the owner of Atlanta Falcons, presents resolute and straight strategies for improving the competitiveness and performance of the team. In particular, three winning seasons prove that Blank’s management philosophy has turned out to be quite effective. The owner believes that each play should be considered and, therefore, he often asks them for help to improve the quality of the game. Blank also asks the players about the advantages and disadvantages of his management. Such a strategy has helped the owner to decide to reconnect Falcons’ fans with the community and pay more attention to the surveying supporters. The second aspect of Blank’s management involved the analysis of the facilities and equipment necessary for conducting effective training sessions.
About the above, it should be stated that enhanced attention to communication issues and fan treatment as well as Blank’s aspiration to meet the player’s requirements have appeared to be quite effective. Establishing favorable relations between the team and its fans can greatly contribute to image improvement. The owner has managed to introduce effective communicational techniques enabling the players to express their ideas concerning how to change the situation with fans, stadium, and training conditions for the better. Blank, in his turn, takes into account all the requirements to base his decisions on them. Supplying the team with necessary equipment and facilities is an effective approach to meeting the quality of the game because players are now less concerned with some side problems, but are more concentrated on the course of the game. Moreover, the players are now more focused on working out effective tactics, which creates a favorable ground for cooperation and interaction.
Violence in Youth Sport
Recently, very few high school graduates receive sports scholarships. Nevertheless, triggered by financial problems, and taking into consideration the expense at which students are accepted into sports teams, parents invest much effort and money turning youth sport into a financial competition. Fan violence is another problem that youth sports teams face during sporting events. In particular, parents often encounter the coaches if they are not satisfied with the game due to the increased financial pressure, but not due to the increase of negative attitude to game performance. Many parents work day and night to supply their children with sufficient financial support and ensure their prestigious training with the best coaches. Therefore, it is obvious that they become angry and resort to violence if something is going wrong. Such an intrinsic atmosphere significantly aggravates coaching and training. So, coaches realize that this situation can lead to great frustration and stress for the players.
To avoid such a situation, there is a necessity to establish policies separating financial problems from players’ training and performer. Specifically, coaches should establish a code of conduct during the match and warn players’ parents about possible risks and problems they may encounter. Besides, they should also avoid conflict both with parents and with their children to create a more favorable climate within the team. Also, it is imperative to keep the sporting events affordable for the entire family to prevent bad experiences and the occurrence of violence in the playing field. Finally, the coacher should monitor inappropriate behavior to eliminate immediately the consequences of this problem. Coachers can invite specific communities that can monitor critical situations.
College Athletics
The deficiency of institutional control creates several serious problems that negatively influence football-recruiting season in colleges. Specifically, multiple schools in Colorado experience indecent activities initiated by the players and recruits so that it turns out to be impossible to reconcile two sides of debates while speaking about fan’s attitude to games as well as entertainments initiating by the recruits. Therefore, the players, the coaches, and sponsors still stay ignorant toward the problem that needs immediate resolution.
To face the challenge, Masteralexis and Hums propose a bulk of approaches improving fair cooperation and performance (58). To begin with, coaches and managers should be involved in strategic thinking to evaluate, develop, and implement changes. Second, the capability to re-direct a diverse and large staff and make them re-evaluate their moral and ethical behavior is another strategy that must be implemented. Third, the college team must develop strong writing, public speaking, and media skills for avoiding misconceptions with mass media and for delivering objective information to the press. Finally, human resource management will be only effective when it enables us to settle the conflict with parents, faculty, students, and sponsors. In this respect, the main task of the coach here will be creating philosophical underpinnings that would be encouraged by all the parties concerned. Hence, students should be more concerned with developing their careers, but not with conflicts caused by financial problems. Coaches should do their best to make their players more focused on the quality of the game, but not on the issues that are connected with them. On whole, all these management options must be introduced to improve the player’s involvement in training and development.
Racial Issues in Sport
In contrast to other social areas of life, sports often identify people within a meritocratic system where non-whites can compete with others on an equal basis and, sometimes, take advantage in terms of their abilities. In this respect, racial issues in sport are tackled in a completely different way than in other fields of human activities. To be more exact, racial discrimination is experienced less intensely as in other departments because it is often difficult to discriminate when the majority of talented and prominent players are black. Despite this percentage, the managerial positions are more likely to be occupied with white coachers, which still ignite conflicts and create tensions among the players. To reconcile the struggling parts, coachers should resort to civil rights and freedoms while working out management strategies that must not concern discriminative policies.
Civil rights consideration does not only concern African Americans but players originating from other nationalities and races, including Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Players, coaches, and their fans are the main stakeholders that are often considered as the main reasons for igniting the conflict. Another problem that should be taken into consideration is power allocation among the representatives of different races where white people hold most of the managerial positions. The managerial staff often dares to deprive racial minorities of some privilege, despite the explicit evidence of their superiority over the white players in terms of physical characteristics and performance. Finally, coachers and owners should realize that racial minorities could contribute as much to the sports industry as all other players could because the color of the skin is not an indicator of sport professionalism.
Gender and Disability Issue in Sport
Gender issues in sport have gained much greater popularity in the light of football events. So far, women’s participation in football was discouraged until the 70s of the past century when female soccer players were introduced. 2002 soccer tournament became the most prominent event in England and, at the current moment, women’s participation in football events has become much more encouraged among the English fans. The popularity of women’s participation has also spread over the United States so that fans managed to watch the women’s national team playing with China in the 1999 World Cup. Such a growing tendency also meant that coaches would have to deal with training girls, which required specific approaches.
The main problem is that many coaches are reluctant to train girls because they do not exactly know which strategies should be implemented to manage this issue properly. Nevertheless, they should realize that strategies should differ greatly due to the attitudes and perceptions of girls and boys experience while playing football. Sports managers should be ready to conduct a thorough evaluation of existing differences and take an initiative to act. Their particular attention must be directed at organization, opportunities, and structural development. New shifts and introduction can provide coacher with valuable experience allowing them to better cognize the difference between male and fame psychology and behavioral patterns. They can also enhance their vision of existing norms and conventions as well as changes that must be introduced, specifically when it comes to equity issues. An in-depth assessment of existing problems can allow sport managers to avoid misconceptions and lawsuits due to gender discrimination.
International Sport Issues
International sports issues have evolved from the emergence of the Olympic Games that have introduced policies, rules, and procedures to the international community. The Olympic Games are often a reason for burning debates and legal challenges because a lot of money is involved in this industry. Particular focus should be made on professional athletes who should also comply with existing rules established by the Olympics. As an example, the Olympic Committee in the United States now rewards the American athletes with money prizes for their outstanding performance during the Games and this practice takes place in other countries as well. This possibility of financial awards often tempts athletes to resort to unethical and even illegal means to gain a competitive advantage over their rivals. Racial discrimination is another serious problem that the Olympic Association had to face many times throughout the history of the Games. The tragedy that happened in Munich, 1992, was the most serious one that resulted in racial conflict.
No doubt, international conflicts have much more serious consequences for other spheres of life. This particular case reveals that racial and gender inequality still exists even the sports community, which is the least deprived of existing negligence of human rights was subject to doubt during the tragedy in 1992. The society, therefore, was under great pressure because of the separation and cruelties that happened during the 1992 Olympic Games.
On the one hand, sports contribute to alleviating the most serious ethical and moral misconduct existing in the globalized community. On the other hand, the sports industry disguises the most serious social vices that affect fair competition where race, nationality, and culture should not matter at all.
Science and Medicine Issues in Sport
Scientific innovations and medical researchers have contributed greatly to the sports industry. The studies on dietary and genomic of fitness and physical performance allow sport managers, as well as professional sportsmen, to know more about effective strategies of success. The scholars are working on gaining several methodological issues and they are interested much in presenting an objective evaluation of physical activities and behavior patterns of various social groups. The research findings have also revealed the emergence of treatment applications that assist in defining more accurate diagnoses of diseases.
While discussing the medical and scientific contributions to the field of sport, it is important to add that sport managers, players, and sports associations should be concerned much with possible professional diseases and disorders that most professional players may encounter. In this respect, they should consider more carefully medical innovations as well as a technological advancement that could help to diminish the physical injuries. Reliance on scientific findings attributes greatly to the development of a more secure environment, which also leads to improving the image of the sports industry.
The proposed management action will be quite beneficial not only for sports representatives but for the globalized community in general. In particular, it will be more willing to provide sufficient financial support to this sphere aimed at enhancing healthcare issues and providing a more favorable environment for coaching and training future sportsmen. More importantly, greater emphasis on security will make society perceive sports in much more beneficial terms and create a positive reputation for sports associations.
Media Issues in Sport
The presentation of aggression and violence in media generates more aggressive patterns of behavior. Sport is also heavily influenced by media and this problem is particular connected with journalistic self-realization and understanding of sport through violent representations. In this respect, the great influence of sports journalists does not contribute positively to a peaceful image of the sports industry. In the quest for sensations and profits, they often overemphasize particular events making fans to be more aggressively focused.
To overcome these problems, a set of activities and programs should be scheduled. The first step involves imposing restrictions on delivering information with exaggerated clarity because unfairness on the part of professional and successful athletes can be accentuated and often accepted as normal behavior of sports athletes. Ban for creating false stereotypes should be established through developing press censure. Sports managers should carefully check the material before it is printed to avoid further misconceptions. Media programs often take control of the most scandalous events that happened in sport and, therefore, sports associations should make sure that all events are objectively presented. Finally, legal issues should be introduced to impose restrictions on using obtained information in commercial terms. Certainly, the increasing impact of media on sport leads to a decline in the autonomy of sports events because leading media creates specific moral and ethical stereotypes that fans rely on while attending major sports events. This is a major constrain that should be overcome with the help of creating independent TV and print media channels. In particular, discussion of sports events as well as sport behaviors recalls social and ethical codes, including those connected to gender, race, and social position.
Betting on Sport
Gambling and betting on sport are differently considered in various countries. Hence, the U. S. government considers this activity illegal, except for several states. European countries impose fewer restrictions on these terms so that bookmaking is commonly accepted, particularly in England. Gambling, however, can be considered as a serious offense when sports agents use their players and coaches to get more financial benefits by betting on the game. The case with Michigan wolverines proves the worst expectations because it has now been proved that Coach Rod’s sports agent Mike Brown is connected with gambling.
On the one hand, the case with betting can be quite beneficial for the team reputation because the higher the betting rates are the higher the image of the team. On the other hand, the gambling of sports agents is legally and morally unjustified because sports communities can appraise it as abuse of a managerial position and using team performance for personal interests. One way or another, the case at issue is not about reputation, but about financial profits and benefits because the sports agent Mike Brown was more concerned with the money he would gain from the stake.
To avoid such ethical and legal issues, more strict laws and regulations should be imposed. Alternatively, the U. S. government should accept the law that would allow all the states to introduce the gambling business on a legal basis to avoid shadow operations. Considering the issue in more global terms, it can be stated that bookmaking is commonly accepted all over the world and there is nothing wrong with that, yet certain moral aspects should be considered her to avoid conflicts.
Importance of the Problem Consideration About Sport Issues
Conflict management is indispensable while dealing with coaching and training sportsmen. Specific sports programs are worked out to eliminate misconceptions connected with race, gender, and many other issues that emerge as a result of financial, social, and economic problems. The main strategies and theoretical frameworks implemented to solve problems and provide solutions can also be applied to my career goals. Particular emphasis should be placed on consideration of racial and gender issues that constitute a serious problem in other social spheres as well. Consequently, the above-proposed management options of great significance for my profession. Hence, immediate action, a person-oriented approach, and a reasonable allocation of resources are the main pillars of successful conflict management.
Knowledge of psychology is also of primary importance while dealing with people because conflict is, first of all, a moral and ethical dilemma that can be solved only when applying to psychological concepts. Therefore, the information and case studies presented in the lessons provide me with a clear picture of existing problems as well as how these problems can encounter most effectively.
Because the solutions provided to the cases under analysis are based on V, C, and R scheme allowing to consistently evaluate the seriousness of the issues as well what possible results can be achieved while implementing a particular set of social activities. Such a scheme can also be applied to my long-life learning that can make a difficult situation less problematic because the objective assessment of existing constraints and resources can help me avoid problems in the future.
Works Cited
Masteralexis, Lise Pike, and Mary A. Hums. Principles and Practice of Sport Management. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.