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.