Why Division 1 Athletes Are Burnt Out

The soft grass lay untarnished. Slightly unwilling, we put on our cleats. Our coach kicked the 15 balls onto the field. They skimmed across the fresh grass and kicked up the morning dew. I finished tying my cleats. I want to make this team. I will make this team.

I was trying out for the D1 team at Saint Louis University. At tryouts, I realized that myself and the other walk on were the best in shape. I thought it was because we had something to prove; little did I know this lack of effort from my teammates would define my D1 experience. Without a blink, the coach informed both of us we had made the team.

I showed up to the first practice beaming. I had waited to walk onto the soccer field as a D1 player my entire life. The moment was here. I need to seize it.

After 5 practices, I stopped weight-lifting with the team. My teammates complained they were worried about having too much muscle on their arms and legs. They faked their maxes. They didn’t train hard. The coach didn’t care.

The lack of effort was never in my field of vision. I was confused. Baffled. And worst of all, I became unmotivated. My teammates did not care whether we won or lost. They cared about their scholarship and showing face in front of sponsors. I did not understand. Showing face was more important than showing up on the field.

I felt my experience couldn’t be singular. Were there others out there? Was my coach’s apathy and my teammate’s indifference the exception or the rule?

I started what every good designer does after they find a problem — user interviews. From my research with other high-level coaches as well as D1, D2, and D3 players, I found it was not mainly the coach. It was the D1 players and coaches had seen it time and again. One coach of 5 premiere teams in Kentucky said, “I was afraid that would happen. It happened to me while I was in college and many of my old players have transferred from D1 to D2 and D3 to get out of that mess.” For D1 athletes, play had turned into work. They hated work, so they skimmed by doing the bare minimum.

But this trend was only prevalent in D1 players. Why?

D2 and D3 players continued to believe soccer was fun, not a chore. They had more time for other activities and upheld a work-life balance (if soccer is considered work).

Additionally, D2 and D3 players could not receive a full scholarship for soccer. Their soccer was not dependent on a reward they could lose if they did not show face. They were forced to play soccer to get through college. D2 and D3 players, on the other hand, experienced the inverse: They played soccer while they were in college. Thus, they had fun and did not view soccer as work.

As Daniel Pink would say there are no “if-then” rewards present. “In research, offering rewards for success in creative tasks has been proven to damage performance, over and over again. As Pink says in his talk, this is one of the most robust findings in social science. And to judge from the way most businesses are run, one of the most widely ignored.”

Players’ intrinsic motivation are blundered. They only see the end goal and have lost sight of the joy of soccer. Ultimately, the school I played at could not offer additional rewards; they could only take them away. Fear kept the players playing, but this system has failed to create high level athletes. It will continue to fail if something does not change.

http://lateralaction.com/articles/dan-pink-rewards/

After reading Daniel Pink’s book Drive, I believe that D1 athletes should not receive full scholarships for athletics. Like D2 and D3 athletes, scholarships should be awarded partly in academic and partly in scholarship. This will eliminate the “if-then” reward scheme. It will also help the athlete remember that her focus is not primarily on the sport she is playing. It lies in academia. Furthermore, academia does not stop when the athlete gets injured. An academic career will last significantly longer than a sports. Let’s discuss the monetary difference later.