3 of 3: Built to Benefit All Athletes
3 of 3: Built to Benefit All Athletes
Would You Rather
Would you rather have a competitive sport experience that is built to benefit all athletes or just a few? I imagine you want all athletes to have a beneficial experience, but how can this happen when competitive sports are competitive by nature? Why is this conversation even relevant? To answer these questions, we start with the last portion of my collegiate career as a student-athlete.
A World Where…
Various accomplishments occurred during my first three years at the Division I level of collegiate athletics. My career was trending upward until everything fell apart during my senior year when I redshirted.
When an athlete redshirts, he or she focuses on training and does not regularly compete. By prioritizing training, my body and mind could heal from a string of concussions while also solidifying the excellent skills taught by my coach. Becoming a healthy diver with rock-solid fundamentals was the best chance I had in accomplishing my goals of making a third national championship meet and qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Trials.
As a redshirt student-athlete, I stayed back as my coach and teammates competed at other schools. Before my team left for one competition, I asked my coach, “May I dive while you are out of town?” Knowing my love for jumping high and flipping fast with little regard for how I landed in the water, she wisely said, “Yes, as long as you stick to the basics. You are still healing. Be smart.”
The short version of the story is that I rejected my coach’s words and announced the end of my diving career in front of my teammates and coaches about a month later. In the end, I left my competitive sport worse than when I started with no chance of returning as an athlete.
Why did I approach competitive diving this way, ultimately suffering a career-ending injury with lifelong implications? Reflecting on my journey as an athlete, I discovered three questions I would not answer:
1. What perspective is keeping my competitive sport in its beneficial place?
2. Are the principles I align with time-tested and comprehensive?
3. How am I doing in applying those principles as an athlete?
If I had answered those questions, I would have trained differently and not pushed while in an injured state. Although my story is not everyone’s story, those questions are worth your attention. Answering those questions means you could enter into a competitive sports world where:
• The pursuit of athletic excellence is trackable.
• The coaching approach is golden.
• The requirements for winning are ethical.
• The advice athletes receive is time-tested.
• Everyone sees athletes as people first.
If this is appealing to you, then the follow-up question is how to engage in a competitive sport experience that is built to benefit all athletes.
3 A’s, 2 Whys, and 1 Question
For over thirteen years, I was fortunate to develop multiple collegiate curriculums and teach a variety of classes ranging from leadership in sport to major & career exploration. As occasionally done in my lessons, we will use alliteration as the way to engage in a competitive sport experience built to benefit all athletes.
For you start from within by adopting a key perspective. From there, you align with time-tested principles from the oldest multi-sport competition still occurring today. The final step is to apply those principles within your role in competitive sports. However, why are these 3 A’s important when it comes to engaging in a beneficial competitive sport experience?
The absence of them hurts the three areas of every competitive sport experience: the doing, the coaching, and the governing. Imagine watching diving with no athletes. Consider the growth rate of divers following a coaching approach based on trying to lose. Picture diving competitions awarding the highest points to divers who barely miss hitting the diving board. Even though these scenarios are improbable (and even silly), they hint at the harm athletes can experience when competitive sports go unchecked. Those damages include athletes isolating themselves from their greater pursuit in life and injuring themselves in temporary and permanent ways beyond just the physical.
The positive side of pursuing the 3 A’s comes in the form of thirteen benefits. Not every benefit is listed below. Nevertheless, when we adopt, align, and apply, we:
1. Reinforce excellent effort, even when winning is out of the picture.
2. Value life over winning, removing avoidable injuries.
3. Understand injuries will happen, but not the ones we can prevent.
4. Reward athletes who are disciplined in their training.
5. Lift up those coaches who are perfecting their craft.
6. Leverage competitive sports as a part of an athlete’s greater life pursuit.
7. Produce honest athletes who follow rules that are built to benefit them and others.
8. Go for the ideal competitive sport experience for all athletes.
With our 2 Whys for engaging in a beneficial experience being the removal of harm and all athletes having those thirteen benefits, I have one question for you. What is your next move in confirming you are doing, coaching, governing, supporting, or popularizing a form of diving built to benefit all athletes? If you want some ideas, here are five.
Possible Next Moves
If you are interested in governance, consider checking the competition rules of your governing body. Articles one and two in this three-article series discuss the importance of fundamentals and the risks when voluntary dives are excluded.
If you are interested in coaching, you can send your own or a coach’s coaching approach through the G.O.L.D.E.N Coaching Approach review. The review involves answering three sets of questions. Each set has a pursuit-oriented question and an injury prevention question. The focal point of these questions is not to judge the coach, but to identify the strengths and growth opportunities of the approach used by the coach.
• Set 1: How many of the fundamentals taught are good for divers 25 years and older? Are any of the fundamentals contributing to physical ailments?
• Set 2: How often do divers enjoy doing the dives they do; are they lovely to do? Do the divers have a pattern of dreading any of their dives? If divers have a pattern of not liking their dives, consider having a conversation with the diver about what is driving the dislike.
• Set 3: How much of the coach's method of teaching diving is excellent for newcomers? Are divers coaching themselves due to the coach’s methods being overcomplicated or incomplete?
If you are interested in the doing aspect of diving, talk to people who dive at a high level and have a pursuit in life beyond their pursuit of winning. The Diving Pod interviews many athletes who have shared their beyond-diving pursuits.
If this article’s broader conversation about the competitive sport experience has intrigued you, consider the fuller version of this discussion found in the book, Sporting Standards at www.SportingStandards.com. If you are hesitant about jumping into the book, you can still visit the website to learn about Sporting Standards, including the five roles within every competitive sport experience and if you are a good fit. You can also connect on X (SportingStns) or Instagram (SportingStandards) to see quotes from the book and reviews.
Finally, you can reach out to me directly at SportingStandards@gmail.com.
The Rest of the Story
Thank you for spending time on the ambitious topic of engaging in a competitive sport experience that is built to benefit all athletes. Epictetus wrote in his Discourses, “In every act consider what precedes and what follows, and then proceed to the act” (Long, 1890, pg. 234). Please consider the trajectory of your competitive sport experience or the trajectory of the athletes you know. Continue what is good and seek change in what is not.
The rest of the story for athletes still competing brightens as we engage in a competitive sport experience we know is good.