United States Sports Academy - "America's Sports University"

Introduction

Recent studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show the number of overweight children has more than doubled in the last three decades, 5.3 million, or 12.5 percent, of Americans between 6 and 17 are overweight or obese. The CDC estimates sick care costs associated with obesity such as diabetes and heart disease at $100 billion a year, about 8 percent of the national health care budget.

Introduction

The opportunity for a city to host the Olympic Games constitutes an enormous economic social and cultural commitment, as it is the world's biggest sporting event. It is an opportunity that, if properly managed and marketed, will bring a number of positive long-term benefits to the rest of the country as a whole.

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an orderly process designed to implement and establish a sport management major within an undergraduate Exercise and Sport Science Department. This research examined and evaluated established and accredited undergraduate university based sport management programs within the United States. This investigation was an empirical study of developmental occupational competencies and areas of curriculum content ranked by importance for inclusion in a sport management educational program.

ABSTRACT

Changes in cognitive strategies can improve performances and lessen perceived fatigue during distance activities (Padget & Hill, 1989). However, such changes may be difficult and annoying for participants (Masters & Lambert, 1989). This study identified subjects' preferred cognitive strategies and examined the effects of a complementary cognitive strategy. 22 subjects performed an 800 m free-style swim while being timed and assessed for heart rate. One week later, subjects read a Behavioral Instruction Sheet (BIS), appropriate for their style in the first swim and followed it during the second swim. Results showed that associative thinking was used more frequently than dissociative thinking by 73%, t(21) = 6.68, p<.05. No significant differences were found from the first to the second swim in performance times, RPE and heart rates with the exception of more muscular fatigue in the second swim t (16) = -2.17, p<.05. This study suggests that cognitive strategy training can not be completely associative or dissociative.

Abstract

Pain intensity and pain duration of Contact and Non-Contact male and female athletes were measured using the Pain Apperception Test (Petrovich, 1957). The PAT consists of 25 line drawings grouped into three series: (a) Situations of felt pain sensations (n = 9), (b) Anticipation of pain versus felt-sensation of pain (four counterpart pairs), and (c) Origin of pain - whether self-inflected or other-inflected (four counterpart pairs). The athletes evaluated each drawing for intensity and duration of pain on a seven point Likert-like scale. Each drawing had differing facial and bodily characteristics to facilitate the subject's projection into the various pain situations. MANOVA indicated that there were statistically significant differences (.05 level) in pain apperception among (a) male and female, (b) contact and non-contact, and (c) athletes who participated in different sports. Stepwise Multiple Discriminate Function Analysis (SMDFA) was used to test the dispersion of group centroids in the discriminate space and to identify variables that contributed the most variance to the between group differences. SMDFA's classification procedures assign athletes to groups based upon their pain apperception scores.

Abstract

The Internet is one avenue for recruiting potential student-athletes that universities are beginning to explore because it can be used for nearly every phase of the process (Hornbuckle, 2001). Given the difficulties in recruiting for non-revenue sports, as well as the concerns of NCAA Divisions that have little or no recruiting budgets, use of the World Wide Web for recruiting may hold even more importance (Hornbuckle, 2001; Walsh, 1997). The purpose of this research was to: 1) determine the content featured on NCAA women's cross country websites; 2) determine the differences in frequency of exhibiting content between the NCAA divisions; and 3) determine areas that could be strengthened to enhance recruiting potential. A content analysis was used to analyze randomly sampled NCAA women's cross country websites (N=108). In general, it was found that the sites provided basic information that might be of interest to recruits, such as information about the coach and a means to submit personal information to the coach. Few sites included coaching philosophy, highlighted individual athletes or contained photo albums, all relevant information that might be of interest to potential recruits.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the preferential individual offensive strategies of male Taiwanese collegiate students. A self-designed questionnaire was utilized to evaluate students' perception on offensive strategies. Subjects were asked to select top-5 preferential strategies from nine choices as they were put at specific spots based on the role of a position. Among the 185 completed surveys, the number of valid surveys was 163 that yielded a 78% return-rate. The statistical methods for analyses included descriptive statistics and Chi-square analyses. The alpha level was set at .05. Based on the results of Chi-square, there were significant differences existed among subjects' choices on offensive strategies (p<0.05). No significant differences (p<0.05) were found when subjects' choices were compared at different side of blocks. The descriptive analyses indicated that the number-one offensive choice at the both sides of low post area for center, power forward, and point guard were "pivoting", "screening", and "catching the ball", respectively. The favorite offensive strategies of small forward and shooting guard were "catching the ball" and "getting open" at the right block, and their choices were simply switched at the other block. At the top of the key, the number-one offensive choice for center, power forward, small forward, shooting guard and point guard were "setting screen", "pivoting", "getting open", "getting open", and "catching the ball", respectively. Apparently, subjects' top-three choices on offensive strategies had clearly demonstrated the common mentalities that were instructed by many basketball coaches. However, since "shooting" was not a top-3 choice at any spot for any role, coaches may need to encourage students to take more shots.