Style—or the aesthetic dimensions of public presentation—is a dominant mode of symbolic expression. However, no one has explored how style functions as a coherent and generalizable symbol system influencing public conversations about athletic recruitment. The purpose of this essay is to fill this gap by developing a critical framework for theorizing the rhetoric of style in athletic recruitment discourse and significantly, how this is done through social media. We analyze sports journalism, recruiting websites, and the public messaging of athletic departments and athletes on social media according to five structural components: stylistic homologies , a esthetic rationales , primacy of text , imaginary communities , and market contexts . Our analysis offers practical lessons for athletes, journalists, and college athletic departments, but we also highlight several conceptual, methodological, and theoretical implications for scholars of communication and sport and social media interested in better understanding social influence in a dynamic and hyper-competitive context.

Leader-member exchange theory (LMX) has proliferated as a framework for understanding coach-athlete interactions, as the exchanges of communicative resources greatly influence athletes’ sporting experiences. The current study uses coaches’ perceptions of task and social determinants of LMX to reveal comparative insights about forming low- and high-quality exchanges. Data collected from 380 coaches, spanning 14 different sports, at 160 high schools indicated that high-quality exchanges are solely determined by athletes’ abilities. In contrast, low-quality exchanges are determined by coaches’ negative affect towards athletes, and to a lesser extent, athletes’ poor performances and lack of competitiveness. Findings contribute to sports communication literature by examining LMX from coaches’ perspectives and identifying the unique determinants of various groupings within LMX. Both coaches and athletes may find utility in the current findings as they look to create meaningful relationships and positive sporting experiences.

Collegiate student-athletes are experiencing an ongoing mental health epidemic, especially concerning anxiety and depression. This study builds upon the meta-theory of the human need to belong and the transactional theory of stress and coping by framing stress as a mediator for the benefits of cohesion between teammates on mental health. Data from 121 Division-I student-athletes demonstrated a fully mediated model whereby task cohesion indirectly benefited anxiety and depression through lower stress levels. Social cohesion, however, was not significantly associated with either stress or anxiety and depression. These findings underscore teammate relationships are appraised as social stimuli and that the lack of shared task approaches and understandings among teammates can be distressing and detract from general well-being. Coaches, athletic departments, and other academic stakeholders may use this information to guide their efforts to lower student-athlete stress through their social relationships with others. This aim can become an emphasis on pre-season training, team meetings, and athlete check-ins.

The yips are a complex phenomenon that leaves athletes unable to perform previously mastered athletic skills. Here, we coin the term athletic skills mental blocks (ASMBs) to collectively define the phenomenon, which has garnered several terms across scholarship and media outlets. Previous ASMBs literature is often post-positivist in nature, offers minimal insight into complex firsthand experiences, includes small sample sizes, and/or analyzes one or two sports. Through a pilot study of 12 tumbling athletes, and a primary study including 16 collegiate and professional athletes and coaches from baseball, golf, and tumbling, this study offers an in-depth understanding of ASMBs that highlights shared ASMB rationalizations across multiple sports. Guided by sensemaking theory, we use a rigorous thematic analysis to draw out themes within four aspects of the experience: phenomenon, perceived causes, strategies to overcome, and consequences. We highlight the role communication plays in ASMBs sensemaking through revealing the importance of internal dialogue and communication with coach, family, and teammates. We offer theoretical implications by illuminating how naming/labeling processes and identity are vital components to ASMB sensemaking and generating an ASMB sensemaking model that can be used in future research. Practically, this research serves sports organizations by expanding the vocabulary surrounding ASMBs and helps destigmatize the mental health complexities inherent in ASMBs across sports.

This research examined coach perceptions and interaction with student-athletes centered on the video game Fortnite. Semi-structured interviews with 22 student-athletes and 5 coaches at the Division I level in the Southwestern United States were conducted. Utilizing sensemaking theory, coaches reported perceptions about Fortnite as follows: (a) Fortnite as Social Bonding; (b) Fortnite and Health & Academic Performance Effects; (c) Fortnite and Time Management Concerns; (d) Fortnite Reflecting the Contemporary Generation of Student-Athletes; and, (e) Fortnite as a Risk Management Tool. Coach-athlete messaging around Fortnite was explored using memorable messages as a theoretical framework. Results indicated that student-athletes recalled messages about Fortnite in the following ways: (a) Fortnite as Surveillance; and (b) Fortnite and Performance Attributions. The results suggest that coaches need to strategically manage message construction around entertainment media such as video games to avoid negatively impacting their relationship with student-athletes while also needing to manage risks associated with these technologies.

Sporting environments are informal contexts of learning that are dependent upon coaches’ use of effective instructional communication strategies. Coaches’ use of power while communicating instruction to athletes is especially germane, as coaches must appropriately use relational influence to inspire optimal athletic performance. Using French and Raven’s power bases (i.e., expert, referent, reward, legitimate, and coercive power), this study considers Division I student-athletes’ reports of affective learning for their sport and coaches, cognitive learning, state motivation, and team winning percentages as a function of their coaches’ use of power. Data collected from 170 student-athletes participating in team sports at Power 5 institutions revealed two significant canonical correlation roots. The first demonstrated that the increased use of prosocial power and avoidance of antisocial power were associated with greater amounts of affective learning for coaches, cognitive learning, and state motivation. The second revealed that expert power was associated with increases in cognitive learning and winning. This research has heuristic implications for expanding the assessment of athlete experience, as well as practical implications regarding the identification of effective modes of relational influence in coaching.

College athletes are active on a variety of social-media platforms. As a result, most athletic departments require them to participate in social-media education. Although this practice is becoming more prominent, little research has explored how college athletes perceive such training. This case study explored college athletes’ social-media use and their perceptions about social-media education. Semi structured interviews of 20 college athletes at a Division I university were conducted. Using social-cognitive theory as a framework, analysis revealed that while participants expressed a desire for social-media education, they indicated that most of the messages they receive about social media tend to be forgettable. Consequently, athletic departments need to take a more refexive approach to social-media education that incorporates college athletes’ feedback to optimize this instruction.

With such overall variety in leadership study, it is surprising that interim leadership has gone largely unnoticed in the literature. The present study addresses this gap in the organizational and leadership literatures by examining the implications of interim leadership on both individual and organizational identity. Using data from semi-structured, in-depth interviews of 24 interim leaders from an organization (“Interim U”), we found that the questions of “Who am I?” and “Who are we?” were heavily entangled in the individual-collective identity management discussion. This study examines the ways in which the identity of interim leaders are managed and enacted at Interim U, and how the individual and organizational identities reflexively interrelate.

Twitter has created a number of issues for collegiate athletic programs. Via their tweets, student-athletes have sparked public relations issues for athletic departments and educational institutions. This research examined the messages student-athletes receive from athletic department officials and coaches about Twitter. Semi-structured interviews with 20 student-athletes at a Division I school were conducted. Results revealed that these messages occurred in 1 of 3 areas: (a) (non)training, (b) surveillance/monitoring, and (c) reactive training. The results indicate that student-athletes are left to their interpretations of what constitutes inappropriate Twitter content while also being subjected to monitoring. Education about Twitter typically occurs after a violation of an unclear or unknown policy. This reactionary and ambiguous approach to Twitter appears to be doing little to mitigate controversial tweets. Athletic administrators are encouraged to devote resources to front-end, rather than back-end, training and to define clear boundaries for Twitter usage.

Twitter has become a popular topic in sport communication research. Little research to date, however, has examined Twitter from the perspective of student-athletes. This research explored how student-athletes at an NCAA Division I university used Twitter and reacted to critical tweets from fans. Semistructured interviews with 20 student-athletes were conducted. Analysis revealed that student-athletes used Twitter in 3 primary ways: keeping in contact, communicating with followers, and accessing information. With respect to critical tweets, student-athletes reported various perceptions about them and diverse strategies for responding to them. The results suggest that Twitter is a beneficial communicative tool for student-athletes but also presents challenges, given the ease with which fans attack them via this social-media platform. Accordingly, athletic departments must be proactive in helping student-athletes use Twitter strategically, particularly in responding to detractors.

Course: Undergraduate Interviewing and/or Business Communication Objectives: Students will engage in a mock selection interview where they will experience one of the most common selection interviewing techniques: the behavioral-based interview

Though temporary work arrangements have garnered increased attention among scholars and practitioners, there has been little research into internal interim leaders (i.e. interims hired from within the organization) as a distinct case of temporary worker and leader. Internal interims are a fixture in organizational leadership and often serve during critical periods of change. As such, it is important to examine these leaders' actions and the social, organizational, and individual dynamics that inform them. Toward this end, the present study examines the sensemaking processes of 24 internal interims using a qualitative approach. We describe five distinct sensemaking processes (dutiful, traditional, aspiring, reluctant, and self-conscious) shared by the 24 participants and discuss how several social dynamics (message valence and consistency) and individual factors (prior leadership and future aspirations) influenced these divergent processes. Further, we contend that internal interims adopt more passive (caretaking) or proactive (trailblazing) styles of leadership based on these socially and individually informed sensemaking processes. Finally, we highlight directions for future research (motivating factors for serving as an internal interim, experiences with stigma and alienation, and processes of identity formation and identification) that may concomitantly enhance our understandings of internal interims as well as temporary workers and leaders at large.

Interim coaches have become commonplace in college athletics. With much at stake, they must act as leaders despite the constraints that accompany interim status. This case study provides an initial examination of interim leadership in the domain of college athletics by focusing on a specific high-profile interim coach’s initial press conference. The authors specifically consider the content of The Ohio State University football coach Luke Fickell’s first press conference after being named interim head coach. Their analysis reveals that Fickell strategically managed the interim label and the temporal nature of the interim role, balanced service goals and career-aspirant ones, and performed collective identity through a variety of means. The implications of these practices for interim coaches in college athletics are discussed.

Objectives: Students will apply group communication concepts, terms, and theories to their reading of The Tipping Point through short quizzes, presentations, and papers.Courses: Undergraduate Group Communication courses (could also be adapted for Organizational, Leadership, or Interpersonal classes)

The problem and the solution. Ernest Shackleton led a crew on the Endurance that would attempt to be the first group of individuals to cross the Antarctic continent overland. Only one day's sail away from the land, the Endurance became "iced in" and eventually sank, leaving the men with limited supplies. Shackleton's new goal quickly became getting every man home alive. Alfred Lansing's account of this amazing story, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, shows actual photographs and utilizes vivid accounts from different crew members' journals. Shackleton's leadership is viewed as nothing short of spectacular during this journey, and this article highlights three leadership approaches/theories he displayed in this remarkable story: the skills and the style approaches and the contingency theory. Finally, this article offers various exercises and teaching tools that may aid instructors as they use this story in the classroom.