Summary
Brianna Muniz
Professor Ding
ENG 2150
August 9th, 2023
The insights of Student-Athletes
Student-athletes lean towards motivation to get them through. The satisfaction of accomplishment and the thrive of one’s self-determination participating in a sport of interest. Now what happens when one no longer feels required to seek that push in the front door we all need at one point in our life? In this essay, three rhetorical aspects will be demonstrated throughout the paper Pathos, Logos, and Ethos. Along with, three articles that expand on how the passion of a sport can have its positive and negative consequences. Moreover, the comprehension of the role sports held amongst student-athletes will be shown throughout the piece to help the readers have a greater grasp of their feelings.
Some may perceive the role sports have on student-athletes are underestimated at most times. It's the passion of the sport that drives the mind to keep persevering toward a long-term goal. Along with dedicating time to the sport it provides an image of how one can view themselves through these activities internally. Based on the article “Role of Passion For Sport In College Student-Athletes..” the author Lescroart introduces the Self Determination Theory; the two kinds of motivation intrinsic and extrinsic both have on individual goals. In personal experience, the extrinsic motive has more relevance to capturing the gratification of accomplishment within the self. To clarify, motivation is uplifted through a personal significance that is formed when we are adapting to one's autonomy. It is highlighted in the article there can be different levels of extrinsic motivation, such as identified and integrated. Identified is explained to be when the athlete views the sports as having personal significance. While integrated is described as more of an adaptive factor in one's behavioral success.
Moving along the article, Lescroart expands on the Self Determination Theory on how intrinsic motivation captures more of the enjoyment aspect of the sport rather than the emotional attachment. The thrill and excitement of participating in the game correlate with the entertainment aspect of staying interested. The satisfaction it brings to athletes is announced in the article to be labeled as Basic Psychological Needs that Lescroart dives deep into which analyzes the importance of determination driven. For instance, she states in her piece how numerous studies have shown the connection between high ratings of performed effort and the psychological needs that affect each other. She emphasizes how motivation brings out the effort to bring out energy to pour into the sport. The desire of satisfying those needs in your sport to value it and making the choice of partaking consistently.
Moving into our second article, “ How does motivation affect sports performance” the piece touches upon an intriguing hypothesis known as the Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management. It’s clarified as a central prompt that usually motivates the employee to look forward to a successful outcome down the road. Now you may ask yourself how this applies to student-athletes, because in sports this can be relevant towards expecting an outcome of either expecting winning a game or as simple as thriving towards that gold medal on the team. Whatever your end game is It allows you to create a personal motive in a direction where success is known to be a result. This can be recognized as a more emotional factor that can affect your successful outcome. Creating an end goal for yourself is always the easy part of your plan but having to fall through and wake up with the drive and motivation to keep going is where it can get difficult. During my sophomore year softball suddenly became much more intense than I imagined it could be. The competition was slowly creeping up from behind and pushing me down every time. I thought it was a fight I was never going to win no matter how hard or often I practiced it just wasn’t enough. Then eventually the weight on my shoulders found its way to my head and took me off track. The eagerness and agony dial down as the days go by as if it doesn’t get any better. Suddenly this theory is brought to reality with the idea of how fast any student-athlete may lose a sense of direction in their path to success. Some may argue that there can be no negative result in having too much passion for your sport and it will only become more beneficial along your journey but not many know the emotional attachment it can grow on an athlete and take over in ways they don’t recognize as time goes on.
On the contrary, passion can easily be overturned to the negative side regarding consequences in the future. Further analyzing the article “Passion and Pacing In Endurance” the authors mention there are two sorts of passion: obsessive and harmonious. Harmonious passion is defined as more of a commitment of needing to fill that void with practice consistently to maintain a balance in life. Athletic students turn to their sport despite uncovering a form of self-importance through it. Additionally, it’s recognized as a positive outcome but the further you mentally fall into the game the harder it will be to try to get out in the long run. This is what isn’t known by the people nor understood from a student-athlete perspective on how difficult it can be to start over with an outlet that became a norm of theirs. Then on the other hand, we have our obsessive passion; the irresistible desire to want to practice more constantly because your efforts are reflected in how you view yourself through your performance. The mind begins to slowly frame a proposition that you must put your all into the game to become a better version of yourself. The article “Passion and Pacing In Endurance,” highlights the proposal it oversees your mental state to apply more pressure than needed due to your eagerness of wanting to become greater, it then evolves to a higher level of stress. It is widely known that other studies have gathered that 30% of college athletes experience some sort of mental health issue. Moreover, the pressure of wanting to become better on the field becomes a level of stress that student-athletes experience and drawbacks during their season.
In conclusion, given all these points rhetorical elements all play a role in how any reader may perceive this reading as. Beginning with logos trying to construct an argument to catch the eyes of our readers by using factual evidence to highlight our points. Secondly, moving on to pathos in which we try to sympathize with our readers to get them to feel emotionally connected through our piece. Lastly, ending off with ethos creating a form of trust that can be built between the author and reader along the piece. Additionally, it is a form of credibility distributed throughout the paper to strengthen the reader's certainty in what they are reading.
Work Cited
Yukhymenko-Lescroart, Mariya A. “the role of a passion for sport in college student-athlete motivation and effort in academics and athletics.” 2021, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266637402100025X. Accessed 1 June 2021.
“How Does Motivation Affect Sports Performance?– Gaspari Nutrition.” Gaspari Nutrition, 13 August 2019, https://gasparinutrition.com/blogs/fitness-facts/how-does-motivation-affect-sports-performance. Accessed 9 August 2023.
“Passion and Pacing in Endurance Performance - PMC.” NCBI, 20 February 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5317098/. Accessed 9 August 2023.