Dehydration: A Concern for Basketball Players

(2 Minute Read)

Proper hydration is a key component of effective athletic performance. However, the importance of hydration during a basketball practice or a game is often overlooked by athletes and their coaches. Many players don’t recognize the effect dehydration has on their on-court performance.

As little as a 2% body weight loss during practice/game can reduce decision-making and basketball-specific skills, slow response times and cause tiredness to occur faster (Baker, Conroy, & Kenney, 2007; Baker, Dougherty, Chow, & Kenney, 2007; Dougherty, Baker, Chow, & Kenney, 2006). Therefore, it is necessary for players to enter a game well-hydrated and maintain hydration throughout the game, as the result of the game may depend on split-second decisions in the closing minutes.

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How to Fund Your Climbing Wall

At Everlast Climbing we have a funding guide that can help you raise funds for a climbing wall. The guide is a free download on our website and includes lists and information about national and state grants that provide funding for physical education equipment, like climbing walls.

How to Fund Your Climbing Wall: A Comprehensive Guide of Funding Opportunities, Ideas & Resources

Other fundraising initiatives are also included in the guide. They are crowdfunding, restaurant fundraising, fundraising through sales, fundraising partnerships, and do-it-yourself fundraising ideas. In addition, a multitude of resources, like sample letters and rationale statements, help physical educators achieve their funding goals.

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FSU COACH: Changing the Scope of Coach Education and Development

(2 Minute Read)

Recently, FSU COACH Director Tim Baghurst wrote a PHE Quick Read on the concept that anyone can coach, but to do so safely and effectively, the coach needs to be well-trained. Unfortunately, most coaches in the United States, from the recreational to professional, lack any formal education in coaching.

FSU Coach Youtube

For example, according to the National Council for Accreditation of Coaching Education (2011), only 5-10% of youth coaches have received any formal training. Fortunately, a number of universities are beginning to respond to this tremendous need, and Florida State University (FSU) is adopting a unique approach to revolutionize athletic coaching education and research.

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Effectively Utilizing Social Media With Your Sports Team

What often happens in the real world transcends the sports world. This is also true regarding social media. With today’s technology advances, it is essential for sports coaches to utilize social media platforms in teaching their athletes.

Mullin, Hardy, and Sutton (2014) noted that Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Foursquare, Tumblr, and Pinterest are the most popular social media platforms. Additional popular social media platforms include Snapchat, YouTube, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn. Social media enables us to watch and share videos and photos, read and write blogs, post on social networking sites, and have online conversations (Newman, Peck, Harris, & Willhide, 2013). In today’s world, new media is defined as digital & social media. Social media encompasses all of the interactions between people online and all the ways they participate in and share information, knowledge, and opinions while using web-based applications to communicate (Newman, Peck, Harris, & Willhide, 2013).  In regard to sport, Coakley (2017) noted four characteristics of new media or digital and social media:

  1. Extend and radically change (potentially) our connections with the world.
  2. Are not limited to sequential programming.
  3. Enable each of us to be the “editors” of our media experiences if we wish.
  4. Give us the potential to create our own sports realities and experiences as spectators and virtual athletes.

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COVID-19: Isolated Without Sport

As a sport ethicist, I am often asked to comment on current issues in sport.  With COVID 19, there are a variety of challenges facing sport.  Most of us have lived our sporting lives on the court, on the field, in the pool, in the pitch, or in the gym, I will limit my remarks to the experience most affected by COVID 19 as it relates to sport – we cannot physically play.

I was driving past our city park when COVID-19 first began and littered around all the children’s beautiful playground equipment was yellow plastic caution tape, barricading the area.  A sign prominently said, “OFF LIMITS.”  However, scattered about the park were children running and playing with their parents, present.   A few days later, I was in a meeting and made a comment about the barricaded playground equipment and then errored when I asked, “When is play off limits?”  I was lectured by others for not understanding the ramifications of children playing together and taking their germs home to their grandparents.  Interestingly, I continued to hit a sore spot on this issue of children getting the chance to play.  I asked several other people in the community about the yellow caution tape barrier around the playgrounds, and all of them agreed this was an essential action by the city council.  I wonder, is this action essential and is it an ethical issue for this COVID 19 time we are living in?

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How to Help Students Develop Resilience in Your Classroom

Michael Jordan famously said, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Jordan’s quote indicates that his past failures were one reason for his success. Specifically, his perspective demonstrates the importance of growth and resilience in his achievements.

Photo by: NeuPaddy (pixabay.com)
Photo by: NeuPaddy (pixabay.com)

For teachers, this same attitude toward failure and resilience can shape students’ attitudes, and ultimately, their success long after their time in the classroom. With this perspective in mind, helping students develop the skills necessary to demonstrate resilience should be prioritized. This article will help readers better understand the types of resilience, how each type appears in an academic setting, and provide suggestions for creating an environment where students leverage their own skills and environmental resources in demonstrating resilience.

What is Resilience?
Resilience is conceptualized in two distinct manners (Fletcher & Sarkar, 2012). Rebound resilience, the more commonly mentioned form, is the ability of an individual to respond to minor or temporary setbacks and return to normal functioning. A second form, robust resilience, is the ability of an individual to maintain both well-being and performance in pressure type situations. Every individual will encounter challenges during their life (although the severity of those might differ), and how well they respond to those stressors and bounce back from their failures will influence their future success. How this looks like in the classroom can be best illustrated by two examples:

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Why Learning Matters: An Effective Coach’s Perspective

(3 Minute Read)

The question, “How does one become an effective coach?” is something that I have pondered and my perspective on the answer to this question has changed over the years. Previously, I equated effectiveness with the coaches that had the highest winning percentage or had earned the most championships. However, the more I talk with, observe and research coaches at different levels, my perception of effective coaches now focuses on the holistic development (e.g., athletically, academically, civically, socially, etc.) of their athletes.

According to Côté and Gilbert (2009), effective coaching is “consistent application of integrated professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge to improve athletes’ competence, confidence, connection, and character in specific coaching contexts” (p. 316). Based on this description, effectiveness is reached when a coach consistently works on his or her development through the following three types of knowledge to positively develop one’s athletes in and out of competition:

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