Final Blog

The end is near of yet another semester of Grad School. It was just a few months ago that I looked at both of the class syllabus's and contemplated dropping one of the classes for something else so that I would not have to do 2 twenty five page papers for my final projects. I am so happy that I stuck with it. The knowledge that I gained over the past semester will not only help me in the next stage of my schooling, but I also gained a new advisor whom I am confident will see me through the finish line.

Going forward I have about 15 more pages to type before I can fully put this semester behind me. I am happy that I did not completely procrastinate so that I will be able to finish the final paper with a few days to spare. Will be one more monkey off my back. Stay tuned for the finding of  the Cognitive Development of Male Student Athletes.


Happy Thanksgiving
Chris

Let the Coding Begin

With all of the transcribing done, which by the way was one of the most tedious tasks that I have ever had t complete it is now time to code. Each of my Interviews took about 25-35 minutes. As I was interviewing I was torn because one part of me wanted them to keep talking so that I could get some good information, and the other part of me wanted them to hurry it up so that I was not transcribing for 5 or 6 hours for each interview. I was thankful because my participants allowed me to use Imovie while i was recording, so not only did I get to hear their answers, I got to see there body language as they answered the questions. To my surprise I could see that some of the questions that I  asked them made some of them a little uncomfortable. Being able to go back and watch the interviews will give me more to talk about as I begin methodology section of my paper. Now I will begin to code each of the interviews so that I can find similarities between each of my participants. Dr. Collins showed us a number of different ways to code, but I have decided to go with the old fashion way and use different color high liters. Maybe when its time to do my PLAN B I will go and alternate direction.. 

Chris

Holiday Slacking

In the beginning of the semester I set a goal to be done with my paper paper by the first of the month. Here we are on the 22nd and I have written a whole 5 pages. Not to worry I have set a new goal to be done by the 29th which will give me a week to make the necessary revisions. Thus far the paper is coming along quite well, my introduction is a lot longer than I expected it to be. I started and for whatever reason thoughts just kept coming to me on wheat to write. I would rather have the problem of having too much to say rather than not having enough to say.

With the intro now done I am going to break up my paper into different parts and complete 1 part per day.  Doing so will keep me from having to write a bulk of my paper the day before its due. We have all done that before but I wish to keep the quality of this paper high as I am going to be using it as the foundation of my thesis.  Unbelievable how fast time goes.  Only 2 more weeks until the semester is over. Cant wait!!

Chris

Interview # 3

   I was looking forward to this interview the most. My participant was the oldest of my other participants and I was sure that he wold answer my questions in a way that would let me be able to clearly see the development that an athlete goes through from the time they step on campus up until the time they are seniors and about to graduate and embark on a new journey in life.  Participant 3 admitted to being a womanizer as a freshman in college. His only goal was to party and try and see how many women he could take home. Hearing him speak made me laugh inside, I to remember having those same goals as a young 18 year old kid. It amazes me how much young student athlete worry about women and partying. If they all worried about getting better on and off the court more of them would be able to make basketball a career. But when your a kid, the focus is different, the advice you are given goes in one ear and out the other. You Still think that you know everything. Then it happens. College ends and your now faced with the real world. Hearing some of the things that participant 3 said worried, but there were time when his word made me proud and I could see that deep down in him was something special that was going to break out.. I cant wait to start writing the final paper.

Chris

Interview 2

As I suspected Interview 2 went much better than my first interview. The nervousness was gone and I was more focused on pulling as much information out of my subject as possible.  I found myself looking for buzz words or comments that I could use to ask follow up questions.  It is amazing to me how much people are willing to share about their lives in different settings. I learned more about participant 2 in the past 40 minutes that I have in the past 6 months. As a coach you know that your players have deeper layers to them, but you very rarely get to see them because most of out time together is spent on the basketball.  

After each of the last 2 interviews I have thought of questions that I will go back and ask my participants. As I was going thru the interviews I racked my brain to see if there was anything that I was missing.  It wasn’t until I began to listen to the interviews that the questions came to me. I will follow up with each of my participants to ask them questions that  I think will add greatly to my paper.

Chris

Interview #1

Leading up to conducting my first interview, I was not really sure what to expect. I found myself questioning myself  about the questions I was going to ask.  I am not ready to admit that  I was nervous, but I definitely second guessed myself leading up to the interview. During the interview I was very calm, I knew my participant very well so there was no need to feel rushed or nervous once the actual interview got started. I wanted my participant to speak from his hearty, but I also know he is not a person that is very talkative, so I encourgaed to speak openly and say whatever was on his mind.

One of my worries was that he would give me 5 or 6 word answers to all of my questions and the interview would only go a few minutes. I was pleasantly surprised and actually quite impressed with my participants answers and it gave me confidence as the interview went on. I felt that I left some information on the table. Going forward in my next interviews I want to make sure that I dig deeper into my participants answers so that I can extract the information that I am looking for.

To my surprise I felt like my participant had gotten closer during the interview, I learned things about his thought process that I would have never known otherwise, I look forward to the rest of my interviews.

Chris

Reflecting on Research Relationships

Now that I have decided on a topic, its time to figure out who I would like to have participate in my study. Its easy to just pick 4 random athletes, but I would rather pick one student athlete from each class. My participants will include 1 freshman, 1 sophomore, 1 junior, and 1 senior athlete.  Due to the fact that I am a coach, my freshman and senior participant will be mens basketball players.  I have known the freshman athlete for the past 6 months and have a developed a trust and a bond with him in short amount of time. Since being here I have been with my senior participant pretty much everyday.  Both participants come from very different backgrounds. Participant 1 comes from the streets of New york. If not for basketball he would definitely not be in college. His only goal in life is to make it to the NBA to be able to provide for his struggling family back east. At this point its sad to say, but I do not know what else he would be capable of doing with out basketball. The next 4 years of his college career are crucial in his development for life after basketball. Participant 2 has a much different story, born and raised in AZ he loves the game of Basketball, but even if he does not go on to have a pro career and make millions of dollars, I am confident that he has it in him to go out in the world and be successful in other ways.  I believe that because of the relationship and trust that I have with these two athletes that both of my interviews with them will be filled with an abundance of honest and heart felt information. My other 2 participants will be female student athletes, I have yet to decide on who they will be.

Participant one and two both have a great deal of respect for me, it is my belief  that during the interview that they will see me as their coach and confidant just like they do every single day. As long as I do not use anything that they tell me against them as a personal attack, I am certain that my relationship with both participants will remain exactly the same.  Before the interview I will explain to all participants exactly what it is that I am doing. The will know that they are expected to answer each question as best as they can. I want them to look at me for that 45 min interviewer as a "researcher" and not as their coach. Setting up the guidelines early will help with that expectation.

In order to get the most out of my participants, its important for me to tell them exactly what I ma doing for the study and well as why I am doing it. The more that my participants know about me and why i have chosen this topic the better. I will give all of my participants the option of being anonymous, if any of them should so choose to not have their name used then they will be given an alias. Because I know both participants really well, I know they will not have an issue with their names being used in the course of the research.

I believe that this project is very cut and dry. At the moment I do not see any problem and ethical issues arising at any point in time. In the event either of these issues does come up, I will be forced to stop my interview and proceed once both the participant and I are comfortable with the new direction things are headed.

I have set a goal to be done with this project by November 1st... 

Chris McMillian

An object that best describes me..

In the first week of class I was asked to bring in an object that best describes me as an individual. I tried my best to think of something other than a basketball, but in the end that small round ball has provided so much for me in my life that I couldn't even begin to bring anything other than a basketball to class to share.  As a kid you are to young to appreciate the experience and blessing that come you way, let alone the things that make those experiences and things become possible. I have always given thanks to my parents as well as God for the things that I have been blessed with, but the game of basketball has been my main driving force. Because of basketball, I have been to all but 7 of the 50 states and every single trip was paid for  by a team that I was either playing for or working for. I had the the chance to go to Asia for 17 days this past summer with our team, an experience that I will never forget. I was able to go to college for absolutely free both as an undergrad and now as a graduate student. Its not until I hear other students stories about having large student loans that I realize how fortunate and blesses that I am to have had the chance to have the game of basketball in my life.

On deeper level I chose the basketball because of its round shape and its ability to bounce back no matter how hard you throw it against the ground or against the wall. In fact the harder its thrown the harder it bounces back. Being resilient is a characteristic that I take pride in more than any other that I embody, no matter how hard life gets ant not matter how hard Im thrown down, just like the basketball does I will always bounce back..

Identity Memo

Chris McMillian

Researcher Identity Memo for a Study of College Athletes Mental

State on Education as they go Through School

Being a former athlete myself who once had dreams of playing professional basketball after college I thought it would be great idea to examine the thought process of student athletes as the dreams they once had of playing a professional becomes a distant thought. As a freshman I would have told anybody that I was going to play in the NBA or at minimum have a very long pro career over in Europe. To be perfectly hones I had that same feeling up until I broke my fibula in 5 places playing softball the summer before my senior year. I can remember sitting in the emergency and the thought of, “your careers over “ running through my head over and over again. I was at a point when I realized that there is a strong possibility that my dream of paying pro ball could have just been shattered right along with my leg.  I knew I was going to have to work really hard in order to make a comeback in the same year, I did all in my power but the injury I sustained was just too great. I wound up taking a redshirt year and a freshman point guard stepped in to fill my role. The following year out head coach had a tough decision to make, between his now sophomore point guard or his senior veteran.  In the end my coach opted to go with the sophomore for fear that if he didn’t that he would ultimately transfer. Because playing us both wasn’t an option I spent my senior year sitting the bench wondering what I was going to do after I graduated. “Shell shock” is the only term I can use to explain what it was I went through once it was all over. I had spent my entire life working so hard at accomplishing one thing, and now that basketball was no longer a career choice I was forced to adapt and take the real world on the only way that I knew how.  I was always a decent student and despite my love for basketball and my drive to play on a professional level I always knew deep down that education was important and I would need one just in case basketball didn’t workout.  After my disappointing year I vowed I would never pick up a basketball ever again. I moved to Scottsdale Arizona where I lived and worked in the fitness industry. After 6 years of working 60hr workweeks and constantly being pushed to hit a sales quota I decided to go back to my first love. I write this memo today almost 2 years to the day of moving from AZ as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Hawaii for the Men’s Basketball team. There is no doubt in my mind that there are other out there like myself who could find a way to survive if for some reason they were not able to play as a professional sports, but what about the guys that don’t take education serious? What happens to the athletes that aren’t ready to face the harsh reality that their time playing sports is over? 

Over the next 2 months I want to interview 20 student athletes from both the Men’s Basketball team and the Football team. I will interview 5 freshman and sophomore and 5 juniors and seniors, I will ask them a series of questions to find out what intentions they had when the walked on this campus as freshman and how their mindset has changed as the years continue to go by. I can count dozens of student athletes that I feared for in the event they weren’t able to play professional ball. For many of them I didn’t know how they would hold down a real job because education and social skills was not a priority to them. Over the years athletes have been looked at as dumb jocks, at what point will student athletes all begin to take education and life outside of sports more serious.

I believe that with my background that I have many advantages with this topic. I have not only seen first had how student athletes go thru the different stages of college, but I myself have lived it. I am going to be able to put myself in each of my subject’s shoes as I am interviewing them therefore creating a common ground, which will hopefully allow them to open up to me more so then if a non athlete with no experience on the subject was interviewing them.  My ultimate goal is to find out the thought processes of each of my athletes as they go through their college careers as well as have the seniors that I interview who are not going on to play professional sports look back on their freshman and sophomores of college and tell me how much their mindsets have changed towards life and education over the years. This project hits very close to my heart and I hope that I can change the mindset of one of these young men as they begin to approach their college career.

30 Minutes of Fun

Last week we were given and assignment to go and sit somewhere for 30 min and observe exactly what we see.  Im not usually excited about school assignments but for some reason this assignment got me a little excited. I have always enjoyed people watching for a good laugh, but this would be the first time that I was actually documenting what I was seeing. I made a conscious effort to go to a high foot traffic area so that I see as many people as possible. The student center at noon seemed like the perfect place for this particular assignment. As you can see below I have added my observations of the things that I was seeing. I found myself trying to think about what people were thinking about at that particular moment.

I listed these observations in the order in which I observed them:

3 tables directly in front of me…

Table 1 directly to my left is occupied by 2 girls, both of whom are working diligently on their MAC computers.  One of the girls at the table has purple hi lights.. ( I wonder if she will change her hair back to a normal color when she goes on job interviews)

Table in front of me is occupied by two people. One male and one female. The male looks incredible young, possibly a freshman. Im pretty sure hes working on a math assignment because he has a stoic look while looking at the calculator.  I Stand corrected, hes texting..  The female is slumped over in her chair with her feet on the chair next to her, you would think she was at home in living room as comfortable as she looks, but at least shes actually reading a chapter for what looks to be a biology class.

Table to my left, occupied my one female who has managed to sit Indian stlye in her chair.  She too is on her MAC but unlike the first table she is on facebook…  in looking at her body language she’s mad at whom ever it is she’s talking to.  Another student just came and sat down at the table she was at, but since nether one didn’t say hello I’m guessing they don’t know each other, unless he’s the one she’s mad at from Facebook.

It is amazing how many people have MAC lap tops in here, I count 19 so far..

The table furthest from me,  by the stair case has 3 people sitting at, but I swear by looking at them I would never think they would hang out with each other. 2 females and 1 male. The males is a lot older, and hes def trying to play the cool role… The girls both seem much younger but they are both engaging in conversation.  I’m not even over there and he creeps me out a little bit. One of the females talks with her hands a lot. Shes quite animated.

An older gentleman just walked by, he has a slow stroll to him, and he looked down when he walked, I think I read some where that people with insecurities tend to do that.

The girl to my far right is also on her mac.. she keeps playing with the ends of her hair.  Legs crossed business like and whatever she is looking at on her computer she is really into it. Im guessing its facebook…

The guy who sat down with the girl earlier, is def checking her out. I hope he makes a move while im still here. Id love to hear his pick up line.

Thats all that I had the time for. Stay tuned for the upcoming blogs..

Chris