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Academics and athletics take up such a tremendous amount of time in the student athlete’s life, because of this student-athletes are forced to sacrifice the attention paid to their social and leisure life.1 One of the biggest disconnects that a student-athlete has, is feeling left out and not in touch with campus life. A student-athlete’s lack of involvement on campus also makes it more difficult for the greater campus community to get to know who this student-athlete is. This lack of contact and interaction interferes with the discovery by the campus community that student-athletes are not the “prima donnas” or dumb jocks that they are made out to be.1
One plus of being a student-athlete is that they have a built in social group that shares similar interests, they have a built in support system to help them deal with certain types of stress.2 Because the student-athletes have a built in social group they are less likely to have feelings of isolation from certain social groups around campus.
- Parham, W. (1993). The Intercollegiate Athlete: A 1990's Profile. The Counseling Psychologist, 21(3), 411-429. Retrieved October 29, 2014, from the SAGE database.
- Wilson, G., & Pritchard, M. (2005). Comparing Sources of Stress in College Student Athletes and Non-Athletes. The Online Journal of Sport Psychology, 7(1), 1-7. Retrieved October 29, 2014
I agree, when I was in college I felt as though my social life was very limited as far as going out with my friends or teammates because we were always so busy and usually had something to do on thursday nights or saturday nights when everyone else was going out. Luckily the team bond that we had helped to combat by not being able to go out because we were all still hanging out with our closest friends.
ReplyDeleteSince April is Stress Awareness Month, it's important for student-athletes to recognize what triggers their stress. It all starts with our mental health. Stress and anxiety eventually transforms into physical aches and pains, even more for athletes. Excessive stress may result in tendinitis, dislocations or other sports-related injuries. Relax and ease stress before it turns into physical distress.
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