Sun
Devils have a good reputation as Arizona State University because of the hard-work
they dedicate to their student-athlete life through, practice, performance,
support and academics. This is a criterion a majority of people will
base their judgements on when evaluating a collegiate student-athlete not only
on ASU’s campus, but everywhere.
Although it is difficult to perform all four actions in one facility or location,
here are some places where student-athletes go to develop that all-round
character coaches want on their team:
One of the most important points emphasized is that Sun
Devils are a family. Someone may ask “what this means and how do you treat
someone you’ve never met like a family member?”
Being supportive of other student-athletes and ASU teams is key to the Sun Devil Tradition, teamwork is
placed on a pedestal for whether they be on a softball team or basketball team,
they are a part of the larger Sun Devil team. As shown as a result of
structural equation modeling, team support significantly influences team
commitment and trust. Sun Devil’s must be committed to their position as a
student-athlete in order to be successful. Practice/training, performance,
support of other sun devils, and finding that balance between academics and
sport, are what coaches, peers, other student-athletes or anyone involved,
judge student-athletes on.
Practice is included under a topic of preparedness
and along with practice comes training: mental, tactile, emotional and
technical. How to rate a student-athletes level of preparedness is to put them
to the test of applying it. One way is during game time, which is the way that
makes most sense, since that is what they are preparing for. However, if their
season is a long ways away and their level of training needs to be accounted
for tests like physical training, tests may take place. During this test, the
way to determine a level of preparedness is to measure it based on whatever
they may be doing. For a general athletic example, if the goal of an individual
during training is to become faster, they can test themselves over time by
giving themselves a time limit to achieve the goal they have, whether it be 2
months to shave 10 seconds off the 400m or 6 months to increase weight 20 pounds
on front squats.
How to evaluate a student athlete using the performance aspect
of the criteria is to determine again how well they have completed it over
time. So how this happens is by rating their performance by wins versus losses,
the more wins an athlete has, whether it is on a team or in an individual
sport, the more successful they are at a collegiate level of competition. Because
the performance aspect is the main part of sports, everything else goes on
behind the scenes, and they become factors of performing. These things, such as
practice become evident during games or events, which make them more important
to invest in. Investing becomes another way to rate performance, because the
amount of practice you’ve had is shown in a game, race, event or competition,
athletes need to be physically and mentally engaged and invested in their
performance. Typically the outcome will reflect success or failure of the
competition.
As previously mentioned, support is one of the more important
parts of being a student-athlete especially at ASU. Sun Devils treat each other
as family members and in families, support is what can make or break one.
Imagine going to an ASU football game or imagine being a football player and
performing in a completely empty stadium. The lack of support from peers can be
discouraging and can have a grave effect on the other aspects of life as a
student-athlete. So as a Sun Devil family, it is encouraged and important to go
to basketball games or track and field meets to encourage and support their fellow
athletes. How this can be evaluated or measured is by the effort sun devils put
in to attend a game or competition. It becomes evident by those who plan their
days accordingly to not only their own athletic events and practices but to the
rest of the Sun Devil family.
Lastly, keeping the student in “student-athlete”,
the biggest aspect of their lives becomes this balance of academics and sport.
How this is evaluated is simply by how successful an athlete is in school as
well as their sport. One can be a national champion and MVP of the nation, but
that only proves that they are an amazing athlete. If you’re failing school,
you aren’t even allowed to compete in sport so it becomes the basis of success in
a university career. A successful student athlete doesn’t necessarily have to
uphold a 4.0 GPA, but since that is the goal or wish for most students in
general, a student-athlete has countless amounts of resources and services in
order to help them. So do non -student athletes but the entire responsibility
falls on them to go out and get the help they need. The academic coaches
assigned to sports teams ensure every athlete is succeeding in school and if
they aren’t tutors are assigned and study hall hours increase. So with that in
mind, a student-athlete can be evaluated based on what they do about their
schooling when they’re failing and when they are succeeding.
Since this evaluation is of student athletes at a collegiate
level, they have a season they compete in; everything they are judged on is
based over time. Whereas if it were for an individual training to run a
marathon, or for just one single event, the only way you could really evaluate
them overtime is on how they train and it would be for a short time. Being a
student athlete is a lifestyle in university in which case one can evaluate
them in multiple aspects on a multi-part criterion. The amount of effort
applied to all aspects reveals a great amount of character within a
student-athlete. This character is measured in multiple facilities around
Arizona State’s campus where each aspect of the criteria has its strengths
depending on where the student-athlete happens to be at a moment in their week.
At Arizona State are athletes, but since it is University, academics must be
considered just as important as competing and because of the passion Sun Devils
compete with, they are exceptional student-athletes.
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