Taking a Timeout to Ensure Well-Being: Social Work Involvement in College Sports
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: In 2013 there were over 450,000 college athletes competing in 23 sports across the United States. Many of us follow college sports to cheer for our favorite college athlete and team but may be unaware of the negative impact athletic participation can have on a college athlete’s psychosocial well-being (Watson & Kissinger, 2007). Current literature examining psychosocial risks of college athletes correlates athletic participation (both scholarship and nonscholarship) with high levels of depression and suicide attempts (Armstrong & Oomen-Early, 2009), alcohol use (Yusko, Buckman, White, & Pandina, 2008), illicit substance use (including performance enhancers) (Yusko et al., 2008), the development of eating disorders (McLester, Hardin, & Hoppe, 2014), and lower levels of overall well-being (Watson & Kissinger, 2007). Recognizing the correlation between athletic participation and the development of a psychosocial risk, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA, 2013) is establishing recommendations for best practice as it relates to the health and safety of college athletes. A key part of these recommendations will be a push for interprofessional collaboration among the helping professions. This includes partnerships between sport psychologists, athletic trainers, academic advisers, campus counseling centers, and, ideally, social workers. To make a leap into athletics, the social work profession must be prepared to share how it provides the ecological, theoretical, practical, and political competencies needed to affect the lives of college athletes.
Source: Social Work
DOI: 10.1093/sw/sww020
Author: Matt A. Moore
Institution: Ball State University
Language: English
Subfield: Public Administration
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2290883195