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Creators: Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Reforming the NCAA: How the governing body of intercollegiate athletics should handle student-athletes into the future

Description

My thesis project, "Reforming the NCAA: How the governing body of intercollegiate athletics should handle student-athletes into the future," sets out to create a working blueprint for how the NCAA should handle the relationship between student-athletes, universities, and the NCAA from this point forward. The NCAA has come under fire in the past 10 years for its failure to meet modern social constructs and provide student-athletes with the resources necessary to achieving a successful educational and athletic experience, and through my thesis, I formulated reforms the NCAA can adopt and enact to respond to the growing issues within intercollegiate athletics. I began the process last spring with my thesis director as we selected a topic together, and I researched a variety of topics relating to current NCAA issues throughout the summer and fall. In the fall, I outlined sources I hoped to interview, and I conducted interviews over winter break. I spent the first two months of 2015 writing and refining my thesis, and through March, I created a PowerPoint presentation I used to defend my thesis project. During the process, I met with my thesis director at critical junctures to discuss the direction of the project and to determine how to find a delicate balance between creating attainable goals for reform and overstepping my boundaries. After a successful thesis defense, I made small revisions to the thesis and had my project re-approved by my director and second reader. In the coming weeks after submitting my thesis, I plan on exploring the possibility of having my thesis published and received critiques from those in the industry who follow collegiate athletics closely.

ContributorsCrowley, Kerry O Shea (Author) / McGuire, Tim (Thesis director) / Kurland, Brett (Committee member) / College of Letters and Sciences (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2015-05

ASU Hockey: How the Sun Devils became a Division I team

Description

On Nov. 18, 2014, the Arizona State University announced its club hockey team would be elevated from club to varsity status begin in 2015-16. ASU's process lasted merely four months, spring-boarding off a July article that quoted athletic director Ray Anderson as saying all the program needed was money in order to make happen. This thesis explains what happened between that July story and the November announcement. Almost immediately the school received calls from interested donors who said they were willing to completely fund the creation of a men's hockey program. In the end, a group led by Milwaukee businessman Don Mullett donated $32 million to ASU. The thesis also explains the challenges that are still to come for ASU. Those include the arena in which ASU will play, the conference it will join, the women's sport ASU will add in order to stay compliant with Title IX and whether the program will be profitable for the University, among other things. ASU will begin play as a Division I program, the southernmost and westernmost school in the continental United States. It truly is, as Anderson wanted, an example of ASU being "entrepreneurial."

ContributorsEmerson, Justin Charles (Author) / McGuire, Tim (Thesis director) / Anderson, Doug (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)

Created2015-05

A Guide to Being a Student-Athlete: The Things Current Athletes Wish They Had Known

Description

This project investigates the adjustment to college life that first-year athletes must face. Through personal essay, a comprehensive survey of current college athletes at Arizona State University, and one-on-one interviews with self-selected, current athletes, the project presents the collection of challenges confronted and best practices adopted (and also missteps to be learned from) along the way in a college athlete’s first year and transition from high school to college. By looking systematically, this project brings awareness to the common stressors that athletes face and shares coping mechanisms in which these stressors can be overcome. This project also brings the survey statistics to life with individual stories, including both the author’s personal essay and interviews with individual athletes. While the first purpose of this thesis is to make clear to athletes struggling with this transition from high school to college sports that their experience is commonplace and expected, the second purpose is to set these athletes up for success: providing them with a one-stop shop of resources to assist athletes and any of their needs. The project analyzes athletes’ current use of resources and brings together the available resources for athletes into a single catalogue. This “guidebook” blends previous research on the adjustment to college for collegiate athletes, a new study analyzing the specific resource usage of the current Sun Devil athletes, and personal testimony. What this project revealed was that not only are first-year athletes experiencing common stressors and underutilizing resources available to them, so too are athletes in the second, third, and fourth years. All athletes would benefit from increasing awareness of the challenges and stressors often experienced by athletes and increased accessing of resources available to athletes that continue to be underutilized.

ContributorsPayne, Sydney (Author) / Jackson, Victoria (Thesis director) / Jones, Alonzo (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor)

Created2022-05