School Counseling and the Student Athlete

College, Careers, Identity, and Culture

Adam Zagelbaum

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781136279676
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

School Counseling and the Student Athlete explores empirical, theoretical, and practice-based issues that demand consideration by school-based counseling and educational professionals working at the pre-collegiate level. In its pages clinicians and students will find insights into both why student athletes experience many of the issues they do as well as the steps that counselors can take to help these individuals and their families. Theories of motivation and theoretical approaches to counseling student athletes are covered in order to provide an orientation to working with this group, and the book also includes a thorough discussion of the most important elements of counseling the student athlete: the academic, career, personal, and social issues they face; consultations with coaches, teachers, and parents; commercialism and the student athlete's identity; and gender, sexual identity, and culture issues. Each chapter ends with discussion questions and available resources for counselors. Grounded in research and pioneering in its analysis of sports psychology for students in grades K-12, School Counseling and the Student Athlete is a must-have for school counselors, clinicians, and other professionals who work with elementary and secondary students.

1 Orientation to Working with Student Athletes

DOI: 10.4324/9780203111758-1

Mike¹ was a 16-year-old student in the Midwest who was rigorously playing on the high school football team’s offensive line, and had shown a lot of talent in the eyes of his coaches. His father, Mike Sr. (age 46), had played football in his youth and had a position on his high school team in a similar capacity, and was highly supportive of his son’s “ability to make it” and believed there could be “possibilities for the next level”. Mike’s mother, Linda (age 44), was not a student athlete herself, but had interest and passion for the game, and it also appeared that his sister, Lynn (age 15), was strongly bonded to his mother in this way. There were always concerns about Mike’s potential for injury, as he appeared to be a bit of a risk-taker in terms of physical activities that he engaged in as early as age 9, where he would jump from high places into the local lake, or swim out as far as he could in order to “outdo” everyone else. He would engage in a lot of rough-and-tumble play with friends and family, and often engaged in competitive games that required endurance, strength, and dexterity. Local community residents and friends of the family saw this child’s potential to use his talents on the football field, and he had it in his head early on that he would be able to go far with this pursuit. Mike believed that everyone would fully support him, even though there were other things he had to do to succeed along the way, such as attend school.

When he began his freshman year of high school, Mike started to recognize that the game was becoming more competitive, the stakes were higher, and the proportion of players trying to make the squad was greater than he had grown up with in his community. He had to dedicate a large amount of time to practice and training sessions, making his academic studies a little challenging for him to keep up with at times. Though he had many talents on the gridiron, Mike would often feel like his Math and English classes were too difficult to handle. Teachers were often frustrated by the amount of late, incomplete, or missing work that he would turn in, and parent–teacher conferences would often focus on issues of motivation and time management. Mike was not a disruptive student, but he did not appear to be focused enough on course material. Coaches would try to encourage Mike to work harder on keeping his academic pace up, but with the talents that had to be focused on for him to succeed as a football player, these messages were sometimes conflicting or mixed in terms of how Mike was receiving them. A referral to the school counselor was suggested as a way to see if Mike could better address these needs.

Mike Sr. was not certain about this referral. He was used to his son being able to work through various challenges and expectations that others had for him. Also, Mike Sr., to the best of his recollection, had not used the services of a guidance counselor in his school days for anything more than scheduling of or transferring from classes, so the idea of seeking out this service seemed like a strange concept. Linda and Lynn, because of their relationship and ability to communicate about stresses and struggles they and their close friends had encountered with school-related issues, were able to suggest to Mike Sr. that he be more open to the idea of having Mike work with the school counselor, and helped to reduce some of Mike Sr.’s initial concerns.

Mike and his school counselor would meet about once or twice a month for the next few years. Plans were constructed to have him schedule his practices and homework, and the parents were able to get on board with these plans by way of weekly progress reports, feedback from teachers, and consultation with the school counselor. The improvement in his schoolwork was not nearly as remarkable as the amount of rapport and disclosure that Mike would make during the course of this relationship. Mike did not appear at any point in his meetings with the school counselor to be lacking in academic potential or educational talent; he did not appear to fit any stereotype of a “dumb jock” that society had prominently depicted by way of media and water-cooler discussion. There was no record of him requiring special accommodations for physical, mental, or emotional needs. He did not appear to have struggled with alcohol or drug abuse issues, and was not engaging in any sort of delinquent behaviors on or off of school grounds. Mike was a good player, and appeared to be meeting a lot of expectations. Ironically, it seems like this dynamic may have been part of the problem.

The messages that he had often been hearing were about the fact that he “wasn’t into” doing the work. Father did not necessarily think that schoolwork was unimportant, but there did not appear to be a lot of emphasis being placed on it at home. Teachers, on the other hand, were expecting a level of academic performance that emphasized his schoolwork quite a bit. Coaches would try to bridge this gap in some ways, but with the emphasis they had on athletics, Mike was not always able to apply these principles to the classroom. His peers were not necessarily any more aware of these concerns than other people in his life. Though many of his friends were on the team as well, Mike was not a team captain or quarterback. He was an important part of the team, but not necessarily a prominent figure who garnered as much popularity as the other players. Part of him was happy that he did not have this kind of attention, but part of him would also be frustrated about the fact that he was not always a part of the same clique as other players were. He was able to express his concerns and vulnerabilities in ways that helped him eventually get on track academically, and mediate some of the social pressures he would face regarding friends and community issues. He would eventually attend his senior prom, and make a commitment to a state college in order to play football and study the professional field of education. Eventual discussions between Mike Sr. and the school counselor also took a more supportive and open discourse as well. Some of the skepticism that the father had expressed about whether or not a counseling professional would add any major benefit to Mike’s plans appeared to give way to more encouragement and belief that school counseling helped to link some of the concepts that Mike needed to transfer into the classroom. One of the quotes shared by Mike Sr. would best sum up the relationship: “For someone who may not have played sports in school, I was impressed with the game plan. Thanks for being part of the team.”

Before the school year ended, Mike would have one more meeting with the school counselor. There was a final check on academic requirements and eligibility status performed, and his folder was complete. Mike was appreciative of several things that had happened during the course of the counseling relationship, but it was the departing message that seemed to carry the most impact. “Thanks for understanding how serious I am about my stuff,” he said. “Not everyone understands how much there is to do sometimes, and it’s not that I don’t want to do it, but it’s hard to do it all when people don’t necessarily know how much each thing adds up.” I did not know exactly what happened to Mike once he entered college, but I like to think that he was able to face the next level with an understanding that he would be able to find someone to seriously help him focus on the next goal(s) he would have.

Unique Influences on the Client

Mike, though he was a silent student in many of his classes, had a lot of expectations on and off the field to live up to. There was also some apprehension about the fact that some of the more popular peers did not seem to struggle in the same way that he did with balancing his social, academic and athletic demands. He felt that something may have been wrong with him, in that he would take some of the academic demands seriously, but parents and coaches may not have been completely reinforcing of his same level of seriousness. Mike would distance himself from some of the work because he would sometimes question if it would really matter if he was destined to be a successful professional football player, but at the same time, recognize that he was able to meet the demands of his physical practices and training schedule: so why quit on the schoolwork? Sometimes he felt that teachers were looking at him as if to say, “you may be good on the field, but this is a different game.” His father, in trying to be supportive, would send him messages like “well, as long as you do your best in class, that’s all that really matters.” Mike was most likely confused more than anything else, and probably did not want everyone else to know how confusing it all was to him.

I had encountered students who played recreational sports or had other extracurricular involvements before, and were used to “blowing off” assignments or having disagreements with the importance of needing to learn certain things. My work with Mike, though, helped open up a new angle on what many student athletes face: pressure and confusion about having to deal with so many expectations and not necessarily knowing how to process it all. I would also encounter numerous other school counselors, counseling professionals, and educators in the years to come that would indicate Mike was not an isolated case.

There have also been high-profile and quite dramatic cases that have involved far more dangerous and traumatic crimes involving student and/or professional athletes over the past few years. Rape and sexual assault cases, murder and manslaughter are just some of the matters that comprise this list. Sometimes, the perception and athletic culture associated with athletics has a significant impact on how the crime and the individuals involved are handled and valued by public and community stakeholders. Though this text explores some of these issues, it must be noted that the vast majority of student athletes and coaches who participate in K-12 sports and beyond do not become involved in crimes to this degree, and that it is important to work with athletic communities and cultures with this specific notion in mind.

There have also been high-profile and quite dramatic cases that have involved far more dangerous and traumatic crimes involving student and/or professional athletes over the past few years. Rape and sexual assault cases, murder and manslaughter are just some of the matters that comprise this list. Sometimes, the perception and athletic culture associated with athletics has a significant impact on how the crime and the individuals involved are handled and valued by public and community stakeholders. Though this text explores some of these issues, it must be noted that the vast majority of student athletes and coaches who participate in K-12 sports and beyond do not become involved in crimes to this degree, and that it is important to work with athletic communities and cultures with this specific notion in mind.

There are communities that are said to have a “win-at-all costs” mentality, wherein issues and acts that occur off the playing field are sometimes given less emphasis because of the successes that take place on the field. Though legal aspects of law are to remain unchanged, moral aspects and conduct-based elements of one’s off-the-field antics can be malleable. Media perceptions and community judgments can often portray individuals as people who should have known better, because they have unique talents and skills that would make them more likely to succeed in life and more people to support them in times of crisis or distress. However, with these talents often comes expectations and demands that can create conflict, confusion, and drama.

One important lesson I uncovered from working with Mike and his father was that athletic and academic expectations can have different meanings for different people who are all part of the same system_ be it a family system or school system. Mike Sr. believed in his son’s abilities, but did not necessarily define Mike’s academic success in the same way that teachers, coaches, and even Mike himself were attempting to do. The school stakeholders also appeared to believe in what skills Mike possessed, but had different types of contact and context with him to harness his potential in the academic realm. The well-intentioned but cross-communicated perspectives which exposed an underperforming area for Mike in his schooling may have directed him to seek out additional help: something that may not have normally been expected of him when engaged in his athletic pursuits. However, it provided Mike with a different type of support which allowed him to refocus his energies and his family to feel better about the resources available to him if he were ever to struggle again.

Nothing can be more frustrating to a student athlete than an adult who does not understand the gravity of what it means to compete for a sports position at the next level. It hurts credibility, potential for empathy, and becomes more concerning about how they perceive authority figures in some cases. This principle is not unlike the concept of Amir’s (1992) contact hypothesis, whereby a counseling professional who makes contact with a client is encouraged to start from the perspective of locating strengths and positive expectations of how these strengths can be applied to both the counseling relationship and the client’s everyday life. This approach has been applied to clients who are culturally different (Zagelbaum & Carlson, 2011), but considering that student athletes are part of a unique school culture (Chandler & Goldberg, 1990), extending the contact hypothesis to include these individuals appears to be a plausible move. As a result, various other issues can be revealed in the working alliance between counselor and student athlete.

Considering all the pressures that are already associated with K-12 schooling, coupled with the attention that a student athlete has for his/her performance on the field, there are many reasons that a school counselor or other school-based counseling professional would be involved with a student of this type. Student athletes participate in sports for various reasons, all of which it is intended to explore throughout this text.

Types of Student Athlete

There are many ways that student athletes can be defined. The terminology used can be as varied as the number of positions on a team or the amount of sports that exist. There are over 50 types of sports officially recognized...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Orientation to Working with Student Athletes
• 2 Theories of Motivation and Student Development
• 3 Commercialism and the Identity of the Student Athlete
• 4 Theoretical Approaches to Counseling the Student Athlete
• 5 Family Approaches to Counseling the Student Athlete
• 6 Gender, Sexual Identity, Cultural Issues, and the Student Athlete
• 7 Consultation with Teachers and the Student Athlete
• 8 Consultation with Coaches and the Student Athlete
• 9 Consultation with Parents and the Student Athlete
• 10 Academic Issues for the Student Athlete
• 11 Career and College Issues for the Student Athlete
• 12 Personal and Social Issues for the Student Athlete
• 13 The Transitional Student Athlete: Movement Away from Sport
• 14 The Future of Student Athletics and School-based Counseling Services
• Index