Summary

Brianna Muniz

ENG 2150

Professor Ding

August 17, 2023

How Does An Athlete’s Passion For A Sport Affect Them Overall As A person?

Student-athletes rely heavily on their ambition to motivate them to thrive in their designated sport. The satisfaction of accomplishment and the drive of one’s self-determination assist one to push through and participate in a sport. Many athletes struggle with the negative effect that passion can drive them towards with their identity and performance, on the other hand, other athletes are fortunate to experience more beneficial results within themselves. Remaining highly motivated throughout your sport is a key factor that is often taught but no one prepares the athletes for the mental aspect that comes along with it. In this essay, there will be several references to articles brought up throughout this piece branching their stance on what they believe. Along with these articles, they all expand on how the passion for a sport can either have positive or negative consequences on an individual. 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 and experiences.

It's an athlete's passion for the sport that drives the mind to keep persevering toward a long-term goal. In Lescorat’s “Role of Passion For Sport In College Student-Athletes..” She will help you create a greater understanding of the motivation and effort these student-athletes apply. Lescorat introduces the self-determination theory; “the two kinds of motivation intrinsic and extrinsic both have on individual goals. (Lescorat).” 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 feature of staying intrigued. “The satisfaction it brings to athletes is announced in the article to be labeled as Basic Psychological Needs. (Lescorat).” Lescorat dives deep into the importance of determination driven, for instance, Lescroart states “Numerous studies have shown the connection between high ratings of performed effort and the psychological needs that affect each other. (Lescorat).” She emphasizes how motivation brings out the efforts to boost out the energy to pour into the sport. This is significant because both of these examples demonstrate a shaping effect it can have on a student-athlete performance internally and externally. In addition to this, the author of “How Does Motivation Affect Sports Performance?” mentions a concept of Taylor’s theory of scientific management which is defined as a central prompt that usually motivates the employee to look forward to success down the road. “To apply this logic in a sports setting, we would have to say that winning is the motivating factor. Either way, a person is motivated by the thing for which they are directly striving. (How does motivation affect sports performance)” This indicates that whatever your end goal is, passion allows you to create a personal motive in a direction where success is known to be a result. This example can be recognized as a more emotional factor that can affect your success outcome. Creating an end goal for yourself is always the easy part of your plan but having to follow through and wake up with the drive and motivation to keep going is the real thrill to it all. In both articles, they establish the driven determination that arises to result in a successful outcome direction along your journey.

Furthermore, the importance of passion in a sport is highlighted as a motivation to help us become better and maintain focus on our goals while balancing the rest of our obstacles. In the article “ The Importance of Passion & Purpose for Sports Success” Stankovich states “Mental toughness is perhaps the most important set of skills an athlete can develop to maximize potential. ( Stankovich).” In other words, he briefly mentions the concept of the mental state skills that athletes all should have to work towards to reach their maximum capability. This is important because as the practices/training begins to become more intense your level of performance has to rise with it and exceed the standards to stay on top. Moving along, in the article “ Passion For Sports” the author establishes a clearer definition of the harmonious passion and the effect it can internally result in. “With harmonious passion, there is a smooth integration between the passionate activity and our identity. (Passion For Sports).” They are distinguishing the concept between your identity becoming too mentally involved with your sport and allowing yourself to be able to focus on it without becoming too tangled in it. The harmonious passion is more of a significance of choosing to engage in your sport without feeling any emotional attachment to it. Therefore, both of these authors expand on a different theory correlating with the mental aspect that can play a role in slowly forming an athlete's mindset throughout their journey.

On the contrary, passion can easily be overturned to the negative side regarding consequences in the future. Further analyzing “ Passion and Pacing In Endurance” Godart and Hettinga mention there are two sorts of passion: obsessive and harmonious. “ Harmonious passion is defined as more of a commitment needing to fill that void with practice consistently to maintain a balance in life. (Godart, Hettinga).” 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 fall mentally into the game the harder it will be to try to get out of it in the long run. On the other hand, we have our obsessive passion; the irresistible desire to want to practice 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. In the article “ Passion and Pacing In Endurance” “Those with an obsessive passion for their sport perceive an unstoppable urge to practice, for example, because their self-esteem relies on their athletic performance. (Godart and Hettinga).” Their proposal on obsessive passion 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. This is a prime example of indicating how passion can become so deeply involved within a student-athletes head and result in a negative consequence in relevance to building more stress amongst yourself to create a more successful image. Moreover, the pressure of wanting to become better on the field comes with a level of stress that student-athletes experience on and off the field which later results in drawbacks in their season. In the Gustafsson and Hassmen article “ Are Athletes Burning Out With Passion?” They touch upon the two kinds of passion, harmonious and obsessive but in this article, they correspond it with the effect of athletes having a burnout. “An athlete burnout is known as an emotional and physical exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment, and devaluation of sport participation. (Gustafsson and Hassmen)”. To clarify, this burnout tends to build up when an athlete has reached their maximum point of extreme tiredness. For example, “Much of the burnout research among athletes is guided by Smith’s (1986) cognitive-affective model. According to this model, burnout develops as a result of chronic exposure to stress as a result of a long-term perceived inability to meet situational demands. (Gustafsson and Hassmen).” This explains the relevance stress has with an athlete's determination of striving to meet certain standards given within their sports. For most student-athletes they are striving to achieve their end goal, along the line when you realize the competition only continues to build up so does your stress and determination. You're driven to achieve your goal and partake in any obstacle but alongside it, you're exhausting your mental health to get there. Overall, both of these articles give an idea of how the negative aspects of passion can result in driving you to mental exhaustion.

In conclusion, given all these points on both points of view that demonstrated how effectively passion played a role in positive and negative outcomes. All the sources established their perception on how they viewed the shaping of an athlete's passion being interpreted by their mental attachment or performance. Becoming emotionally involved in your designated sport has proven to alter your mental state of mind and cause more stress levels along the line. However, the sport tends to bring out a driven determined side of you that enjoys the game because of the thrill it strikes in you and the satisfaction it leads to one's needs. All in all, throughout all the sources the authors were able to form informative reasoning on how an athlete is capable of experiencing either positive or negative outcomes.