Assignment Instructions: You are a sport psychology consultant and you have been hired by American Youth Football (AYF) to implement a program that will increase the benefits and diminish the negative consequences of participating in youth football (e.g., enhance sport and moral development, decrease aggression and violence, child obesity, coaching certification). You have been given funding by the AYF to hire a team of expert consultants to help you implement this program. You have enough funding to hire six external consultants; be sure to choose your experts wisely.
Describe the program and discuss any potential barriers you may encounter during implementation and make suggestions regarding how you might overcome those barriers. Provide an explanation of how your program design has been influenced by the knowledge you have gained from the material researched. In addition, describe the individuals positions who you would hire on your team and explain their roles in the design and implementation of the program. Ensure paper is in Help write my thesis – APA format including abstract.
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Putting the Pieces Together
Introduction
The perception of football in America has been negative thus resulting into low attitude towards football in the entire country. This has impacted negatively on the performance of clubs and the entire country in both local and international events. Various factors have contributed to this perception. These include lack of understanding of the role of football in contributing to physical fitness and ability to overcome illnesses such as overweight, increased disagreements among stakeholders in football management such as between players and coaches, lack of coaching skills that result into provision of wrong tactics (Regan, 2011). The nutrition given to footballers has also been not efficient for a professional footballer while sponsors have not responded well to the needs of football clubs. In addition, parents have been too protective of their children and unwilling to allow them play football. This has resulted into disorganization in football management that has contributed to poor results. Consequently, there is the need to come up with a program that ensures football is improved in terms of attitude and performance of players. This paper presents a report in which these issues are addressed.
Program Description
The program will involve approaches aimed at increasing benefits to existing footballers and those who aspire to play football in America by increasing their capacity to join football. In order to achieve this, the main areas of this program will include coaching, recruitment of new players in academies and sports clubs, improving nutrition of players, moral development, improvement of health, coaching certification, remuneration resolutions.
In this program, policies will be formulated so that football academies will be required to hire a number of coaches who will provide training to these clubs. The coaches will be required to undergo intensive training before offered the job of coaching players in clubs or in academies. The coaching style to be implemented will be an all round training where the coach is supposed to know how to manage players both emotionally and psychologically. Coaches will be trained on integrity issues that they need to overcome and better football fundamentals that they need to impart to players such as tackling, defending and goal keeping. This is because; the performances of most football teams are dependent on the coaching integrity. This will be aimed at the coach is able to deal with the players effectively. Younger people who have the interest of becoming coaches in the future will also be provided with training at a subsidized costs and sometimes offered scholarships so that they can develop their talents.
This program will also involved recruitment if new players in sports clubs and academies. This will involve ensuring clubs management officials comply with recruitment regulations of the United States Football during recruitment. Those in their current clubs will be provided with new training tactics which contribute to the improvement of their current form. It will also involve finding new players who demonstrate talents in football within the society or those in schools, colleges and academies. The aim will be to improve creativity, confidence; commitment and coalition of players. These youth will be taken to academies or recruited directly to major clubs where they undergo training to improve their talents.
In addition, this program will involve coming up with strategies of improving nutrition for younger players in academies. This is because most Americans do not eat the right types of food that provides them with energy to play football. As a result, their physical strength is not to the expectation of a professional footballer. The program aims at equipping them with this quality. This is where a team of professionally trained nutritionists will be employed to provide players in the academies and football clubs with the right diet that enables them grow their muscles to the level where the possibilities of getting injuries in football is minimized. Through proper nutrition, it will be possible for players to have better physical qualities such as speed, rhythm and balance.
Another area of the program implementation will be moral development program. This will be an all-inclusive program where all stakeholders such as club management, coaches and players will provided with programs aiming at improving their morals. For instance, players will be trained so that they do not become aggressive to one another, consider each other as people who are focused towards achieving the same goals and become obedient to the instructions from the coach. The coaches will be trained to use professionals language when talking to players, focus on making players think as well as use their physique to play football while the clubs management will be trained to avoid bureaucracy in coming up with policies regarding clubs management with the focus on ensuring the clubs are performing well in football. In addition, the program will involve certification of players and coaches in various clubs and academies so that they can be recognized as professionals just like any other profession. The team of consultants will seek the approval of American Football Association to enable it provide all players in academies and football clubs with certificates.
Finally, the program will negotiate for remuneration of footballers so that their lifestyles can change as a result of participating in football. It will be aimed at considering them as people in a career just like any other career that contributes to benefits to the person involved. The consultants will come up with policies that ensure footballers are provided with the right remuneration packages without the interference of clubs councils or other groups of individuals who would complicate the matters.
Barriers that may be Experienced during Implementation and their Solutions
There are a number of barriers that are likely to be faced during the implementation stage of the program. For instance, some parents will be very protective towards their children and would not like a different person to coach them this is based on the speculation that their children may be misled on how to live as a football player. This will be based on the argument that their children are too young to become professional footballers or live away from them. As a result, they may not be willing to let their children go to the academies of football clubs. In order to overcome this barrier, parents whose children show talents in football will be assured the security of their children and maintenance of high levels of discipline while the child is in the academy. In addition, children will be provided with incentives such as allowances and packages which they can use to sustain their lives.
Another barrier that is likely to be faced is unwillingness of coaches to abandon their conventional tactics of coaching players and inability to master the latest tactics of coaching. This will prevent the attainment of the need to have a competent coach who is able to lead the teams both mentally and during training. In order to get a solution to this barrier, coaches will be required to abandon the traditional methods of training. Those who will not be able to cope with the new methods will be provided with further training until they are able to implement new tactics of ball handling, kicking, passing the ball or communicate with players.
In addition, the strategy of providing players with the recommend nutrition during their time as footballers in clubs and academies may be difficult to achieve due to lack of qualified nutritionists to provide quality food for the players. There may also be players who are accustomed to certain types of food since childhood and they will be unwilling to abandon them for the introduced diet. In order to overcome this barrier, players will be advised about the need to have a better physical strength through consumption of properly cooked foods of particular types. They will be assured that their health will not be affected while their ability to play football will be improved. The problems of lack of qualified nutritionists for footballers will be achieved by outsourcing the services of professional cooks from major restaurants so that players can be provided with the right diet. Additional training will also be arranged so that new cooks can be trained to cook for the footballers.
Another barrier that is likely to be faced is the adamancy of coaches, players and member of technical bench to comply with the new policies of moral conduct. For instance, some players will continue to be abusive in their language while talking to other players or the coach, coaches will be unwilling to understand the players and impose is individual principles while the technical bench will be involved in misuse of funds allocated for improvement of football in the clubs. In order to overcome these barriers, coaches, players and members of the technical bench will be trained on how to conduct themselves on regular basis such as twice a week. This will ensure they are able to remember the previous warnings and avoid the tendency to take part in an immoral conduct.
During the process of ensuring each player gets the desired remuneration, there may be dissatisfaction with the consultants such as the amount of remuneration a coach should be given or a player should get. This will result into dissatisfaction in performance of duties. However, it will be possible to overcome this barrier by coming into agreement regarding the right amount of remuneration for the technical bench, the coach and the players. Any lack of consensus will be filed so that further negotiations will be done to reach a consensus.
Impact of Knowledge from Research on the Design of the Program
The experience as sports psychology consultants published materials gives me the opportunity to address the major areas of concern during the design of the program. For instance, it has been found that most players in American football are actually not physically fit thus, unable to play well during both training and during games (Dubois, 2010). This program will be designed with the focus on addressing these issues through an effective nutrition program that ensures players are provided with the right diet that contribute to their physical capabilities. In addition, published materials show that parents have been of the idea that young people should not be taken away from them because they are not mature enough to stay away from their parents. This misconception has resulted into the inability to capture talents from some young people in America. In this program, an intensive discussion strategy will be outlined so that parents whose children are ten to the academies are assured of safety of their children among other benefits to the child. These include better physical health through play thus avoiding the possibilities of becoming obsess, the act of interacting with people from various cultural background thus exposing the child while the parents will be assured that their children are safe and the clubs are responsible for their safety.
Reports published by sports psychologists have resulted into the need to put more emphasis on remuneration of players to the satisfactory of the player. This is because, historically, the players’ outputs for teams have been based on the amount of remuneration they receive from teams (Regan, 2011). It has also had impacts on the relationships they have with club owners and coaches. In addition, the process of meddling on the remuneration of a player by the technical bench has been a great concern. During the design of this program, these issues will be addressed by ensuring policies are made so that negotiations with a player is done before the player is recruited to a particular team. In addition, the technical bench will be barred from interfering with the earnings of players in clubs. As a result, the program will accomplish a major milestone towards improving efficiency of football in America.
Individuals who would be Hired and their Roles in the Implementation of the Program
In order to implement the program, a number of individuals will be involved apart from the consultants. The participation of these stakeholders will ensure the goals of the entire program are based on achieving diverse goals rather than the goal of an individual. Some of the individuals who will be hired include the following.
A representative from the government body in charge of sports: This will be a government representative who will oversee the launch of the program so that the recommendations of the program can be recognized by the government of the United States of America. He will also be aware of any previous government policies that have been revised to enable achievement of high performance of football in America. In addition, he will explain government regulations that need to be complied with so that football activities of upcoming clubs and existing clubs can be legalized. He will also explain ways in which government can be reached if there is the need to seek government services with respect to sports.
A representative from the coaches association: this will be a professional coach who will explain the coaching tactics that should be implemented during training of coaches and when they are performing their tasks as coaches. He will specify the manner in which coaches need to communicate with players to avoid disagreements and hatred between a player and a coach. The recommendations from the coaches’ representatives will be recorded and implemented in coaching tasks.
A representative from sponsoring organizations: the role of this participant will be explanation of the extent to which they will provide financial assistance to the sports clubs in the areas of training, acquisition of sports equipment and coaching coats or signing players. He will explain the guidelines that need to be followed by football in order to benefit from financial benefits.
Counseling Consultant: the counseling will explain the methods in which it will provide counseling to coaches and players so that they cooperate and avoid cases of disagreements or hatred. They will also explain how they will handle cases of disagreements among players so that they are reconciled to stay in the clubs as people of the same team.
Financial consultants: the financial consultant will come up with a method of remuneration allocation to each player, coaches, managers and members of the technical bench. The recommendations made by the financial consultant will be communicated to clubs and recommended for implementation.
A representative from community: a representative from the community will also contribute towards explaining how the community will promote football in the region through sending of their children who have football talents to the academies or the role they would play in contribution towards improving sport in the community. These include the extent to which they will take part in activities such as street football and allocation of their lands for construction of more stadia so that popularity of football can be improved.
A nutritionist will also form part of the program team. The role of the nutritionist will be to explain the competencies they will use to ensure all footballers are provided with quality food that ensures that are fit to participate in football. They will explain the competencies they have in preparation of footballer’s food so that players can be assured of fitness when they eat food prepared by the nutritionists.
Physical Education consultant: the role of this consultant will be to explain the function he will play towards ensuring those who participate in football get the right level of nutrition so that they can be fit enough to overcome physical injuries or avoid diseases such as obesity. Lastly, Clubs governing council representative, will be presents in the team of consultants. The role of this consultant will be to explain strategies they have put in place so that relationship between them and the technical staff is improved. He will explain disciplinary measures that have been proposed to ensure officials of clubs demonstrate maximum discipline and cooperation with coaches and players.
References
Dubois, L. (2010). Soccer empire: The World Cup and the future of France. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Regan, T. (2011). Joint ventures: Inside America’s almost legal marijuana industry. Hoboken,
N.J: Wiley.
Wilson, B. A. (2005). Neuropsychological rehabilitation. Cambridge University Press.
