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Transitioning From College to Professional Sports
In this episode of the Culture in Sports Podcast, co-hosts Dr. Jeremy Piasecki and Sydney Moore discuss her journey of transitioning from a collegiate athlete to a professional volleyball player in Germany’s Bundesliga. She discusses the challenges of finding an agent, negotiating contracts, and the importance of cultural adjustments, including language barriers. Sydney reflects on…
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The Right Time to Make Positive Change
Both NCAA basketball tournaments have been very exciting and have proven that there are always Cinderella stories and games that come down to the final buzzer or whistle. There are heroes, villains, officials, and heartbreak around every corner. There is also at least one feel-good Disney story from each of the tournaments. Fortunes were also…
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Hope For A Great Sea Change?
Nobel winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney authored these lines in his translation of Sophocles’ drama, The Cure at Troy: “History says, Don’t hopeOn the side of the grave,’But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed for tidal waveOf justice can rise upAnd hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea- change” On Wednesday, the…
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The Black and White of Ethics
Sport has had a long a varied history with ethics and ethical behaviour from the systematic abuse of gymnasts to the systematic doping in the peloton. Recently there seems to have been a split into two forms of ethical behaviour: not getting caught vs not doing it at all – we would all agree that…
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Torture on the Track: The Human-Animal Sporting Partnership
Notwithstanding the skills and athleticism of the jockeys, the horses are athletes in the horseracing equation too. The jockey and the horse are teammates in the sport, a combination of muscle, mind, skill, and instinct from both parties. The horseracing industry certainly has its problems, these animals are collateral damage in a multibillion-dollar industry that…
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Tough Coach, Caring Coach
It is self-evident that the most effective sports coaches have a major influence, not only on their athletes but also on the sports organisation in which they coach. For sports coaches, especially those classed as ‘serial winners’, there exists what might be considered something of a paradox – that is, as a leader they are…
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The Wide World of Sports
We are all from somewhere, and this is important because it is the beginning of our story. We don’t know how our story ends but we know where it started. Everybody has a story. Each story is different, and each one is interesting. People enjoy sports for many different reasons, but I want to hear…
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Take Risks, Take A Stand
With everything in life, there are risks. Getting out of bed in the morning can be a risky move in some cases. Even driving down the street to the grocery store can be a risky option. However, how you respond to those risks can determine your fate in life. In sports, it can come down…
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The Pitfalls of Player Health and Safety
Player health and safety has always been more of an abstraction than a concrete practice in the sport of football. In an ideal world, “players play and coaches coach”, each relying on a third party (trainers, physicians, administrators, etc.) to set standards and make decisions on player health and safety. However, in reality, this is…
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Teasing Out the Talent from the Chaos Within
Talent may not always have character and attitude,however attitude and character will always contain some level of talent. Bill Sweetenham (elite swim coach) swimmingscience.net 23 October 2017 Take a deep look at the eyes of coach John Mosley in Netflix’s Last Chance U: Basketball series as they meet the camera lens head on. The extent…
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Straw, Sticks, or Bricks?
You can tell a lot about an organization’s culture or an individual’s character by how they handle setbacks. There are two paths to go down, acceptance or denial. Setbacks are inevitable. We know this. Lately, it seems that they are coming at us more frequently and with more incredible velocity. They are coming after us…
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Out With the Old, In With the New?
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get the results you’ve always got. Sometimes, that’s great, when your past results are winning. How long should leaders stay in their position of power? Some very successful coaches and leaders have had very lengthy stays in their positions: Bill Belichick, John Wooden, Pat Summitt, Nick Saban,…
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The NCAA and the Winds of Change
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is in full swing, and teams are jockeying for this year’s championship trophy. The tournament is both a cultural staple, with millions of Americans filling out brackets each year, and a massive revenue source for the NCAA, top universities, and bettors. In 2019, March Madness generated over a billion dollars…
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Today Is a New Day
As a leader and coach, I have always gone to bed always thinking about what I could do better for the athletes, team, or the people that I lead. I always try think of ways that I can help others on our team, help shed problems that a member of the team is dealing with,…
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Despite Disparities, the Women Have Got Next
This week, three of the best known women’s college basketball coaches in the history of the game, made unprecedented public statements about inequitable treatment involving the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Culture in Sports’ own Jeremy Piasecki reported on this last week. https://cultureinsports.com/it-only-becomes-equal-ish-when-it-gets-too-loud/ South Carolina’s Dawn Staley, Stanford’s Tara Vanderveer, who just happens to have more…
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We Need a Culture of Consistency in Believing
How do you feel about athlete abuse? How do you feel about athlete abuse when it’s in your sport? Is it still abuse? How do you feel about athlete abuse when it’s by your friend? Is it out of character? Loyalty to sport and people we know and/or admire is a positive in sports culture.…
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It Is Just a Game
It is just a game. No, I am not belittling or discounting any of the hard work that athletes, coaches, and staff put into competing. But I am talking about what people do after their team loses. Some coaches will yell at their team, others will blame the officials. Some coaches will even call out…
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How High: McDermott Sets the Bar
Not many athletes use the psychological tactic of a ‘rating system’ as a means of performance enhancement, in fact according to coach Matt Horsnell, most competitive athletes would find the system has the other effect on them. Australian high-jumper Nicola McDermott, however, calmly dissects her performance into different categories and then assesses and scores them…
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Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Judge Cowboys
If you are of a certain age and enjoy country music at all, you immediately recognize the lyrics to Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys. Ed and Patsy Bruce wrote this song in 1975, but Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson made it famous in 1978. It remains a favorite of mine,…
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It Only Becomes Equal-ish When It Gets Too Loud
March Madness brings out the best and worst. The best being athletes and teams coming together and excelling on the court, with some extremely low-ranking teams going deep into the tournament. You never know what the NCAA basketball tournaments will bring every year. And yes, I said tournaments. There is a women’s tournament. It is…
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Lee Westwood and His “Secret Weapon”
One of the most talked-about names in golf recently has been somebody that most have not heard of, his name is Lee Westwood. Westwood is a 47-year-old Professional Golfer who has been in contention to win two of the last PGA events; the Arnold Palmer Classic and the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Although Westwood’s stellar…
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‘Perfection’ Belongs in the Dictionary and Not in Training Sets
Far too often I witness, in training sets for swimmers, instructions along the lines of ‘ … swim the whole of this section with ‘perfect’ turns or ‘perfect’ form’ and as I make my daily scroll through my social media feeds it is generally awash with various organisations boasting that you too can have ‘perfect’…
