When the European federation of sport psychology announced its conference with the working title, ‘Development of expertise and excellence in applied sport psychology’ I had the feeling this 2-day conference would be enriching for a young sport psychology student like myself, and I was not disappointed! Allow me to share some insights.

The many experienced applied sport psychologists (APSs) and researchers didn’t give the recipe for a successful career on a silver platter. But why would there be a clear-cut trajectory in a discipline where the answer is so often “It depends…”? Therefore, self-reflection and peer discussions are necessary. During the weekend I met many (future) colleagues in the field who were more than willing to share their stories with me. And I guess there are worse places for networking and becoming acquainted than a nice boat dinner on the Seine River next to the Eiffel Tower, wouldn’t you agree?

But let’s get to the points I want to share for reflection. According to David Tod, one of the necessary competencies to develop as a young ASP is an ability to deal with our own anxiety and uncertainties. When you would think ‘easier said than done’ we have to keep in mind that we’re actually teaching the same skills to our athletes all the time. The phrase “practice what you preach” comes to mind. Secondly, we need to work on our knowledge of different sports and their athletes. According to Tod however, it’s not enough to read about it or watch it on television. His advice was to get in there with the athletes and acquire hands-on experience. If not for yourself, then it is important in order for the athletes to fully accept you and see your commitment. So for the lazy ASPs out there: get of your chairs and from behind your desks sometimes! Thirdly, another area to get experienced in is marketing. This skill is not included in most educations at the moment so we’ll have to work on this ourselves. Several speakers also stressed that the standard toolbox of psychological skills is not enough. Creativity and interpersonal skills are just as necessary. Even if you’re not trained as a psychologist in a specific counseling orientation there are enough references out there to learn about interpersonal skills without needing a B.Sc in psychology. 

Finally, if you were to be experienced in all these aspects, then there is the need for what David Tod called ‘calibration’. Just as machines need readjustments, so do we need to engage in self-reflections and peer discussion to stay sharp. We need to follow up with the current technologies and trends. Dave Collins advocated we should all work as reflective scientist-practitioners. We need a philosophy for our practice. And this goes for the theories we follow (cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic…), our ethical standpoints concerning ambiguous situations in the field, and our perspectives on working with athletes. Would you, for example, follow a holistic lifespan perspective (going beyond the standard psychological skill training)? What balance do you make between the performance and well-being of your athletes? Do you follow a medical model where you fix the problem when it presents itself or do you want to work proactive? Only if you know these answers you can start thinking on how you would realize your philosophy. Under the motto “know thyself” we must question what our beliefs as an ASP are? What do we like? What don’t we like? We need to surf in and outside our comfort zone. 

Another import part of the conference for beginning ASPs was the presentation of work settings where they might end up, each with its own advantages and challenges. Do you see yourself working with the elite or on a lower level? Do you associate yourself with a federation or a big sport institute or do you see yourself in your own private office? And what if you’re interested in sticking around in research or academic settings? Some ASPs really like to juggle and try to combine all of these. An overview of all of these pathways would be too extensive now, but it might be interesting to get to know and learn from people in these different areas. Did I already mention that networking is important?

Many other interesting topics were discussed, but I hope I summed up some of the issues that are most interesting for beginning sport psychologists. I invite them to join me for these necessary reflective moments. After this weekend I’m definitely looking forward even more to the challenge of a future career in sport psychology. A big thank you to all the people I’ve met in Paris for the amazing times! I will see most of you again in Gothenburg (Sweden) in October for the ENYSSP Workshop or in Bern (Switzerland) in 2015 for the FEPSAC congress.

Here are some interesting references of some of the speakers (or mentioned by them) that might give you more insight in some of the mentioned aspects:

Henriksen, K., Stambulova, N., & Roessler, K. K. (2011). Riding the wave of an expert: A successful talent development environment in kayaking. The Sport Psychologist, 25, 341-362.

Herzog, T. & Hays, K. F. (2012). Therapist or mental skills coach? How to decide. The Sport Psychologist, 26, 486-499.

Jones, J. L., & Mehr, S. L. (2007). Foundations and assumptions of the scientist-practitioner model. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 766-771.

Stambulova, N. & Johnson, U. (2010). Novice consultants’ experiences: Lessons learned by applied sport psychology students. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 11, 295-303.

Tod, D. (2007). The long and winding road: Professional development in sport psychology. The Sport Psychologist, 21, 94-108.

Tod, D., Andersen, M. B., & Marchant, D. B. (2011). Six years up: Applied sport psychologists surviving (and thriving) after graduation. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 23, 93-109.

Wylleman, P., Harwood, C. G., Elbe, A-M., Reints, A., & de Caluwé, D. (2009). A perspective on education and professional development in applied sport psychology. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10, 435-446.

Cedric Arijs (left) is currently a first year student in the European Masters in Sport and Exercise Psychology Program at the University of Thessaly (Greece). He completed his Master degree in Clinical Psychology with great honor at the Ghent University (Belgium). His main topic of interest at the moment is the psychology of extreme sports. E-mail: cedric.arijs@gmail.com

Think of your idea of a gamer. Imagine their appearance, their attitude, their level of motivation. I’m sure most of you have picked a stereotypical view of an overweight middle-aged man with acne, slouching in an oversized chair surrounded by fast food and as for motivation, that’s non-existent. Well the field of exercise psychology has also fell into the trap of believing these people are amotivated or at least that their gaming behaviour is a sign of amotivation to exercise. This may not be the case.

First we must make a few things clear. Television, internet and video-games (non-active games) can be classified as sedentary behaviours. These behaviours are done while sitting or lying down and because of this expend very little energy,  less than 1.5 METS (Pate, O’Neill, & Lobelo, 2008). Spending increased time in these behaviours can increase your risk of non-communicable diseases such as type II diabetes and all cause-mortality (Proper, Singh, van Mechelen, & Chinapaw, 2011).  Now, typically these behaviours have been intervened upon with exercise promotion but here’s the catch, the risk factors of sedentary behaviour are independent to time spent in exercise (Tremblay et al., 2011). This means that to be at the lowest risk possible (in terms of activity) would require a person to both exercise and have a low amount of time spent being sedentary.

So the question remains, are these behaviours an amotivation to being active or are they in their own right motivated? Studies using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1985)found they could predict sedentary behaviour through proposed pathways e.g. attitudes, intentions (Rhodes & Dean, 2009)). This project aimed to see if motives could be found that reflected Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000). If so, interventions may need to focus on reducing motivation for screen behaviours alongside traditional approaches.

This project involved three phases. The first was exploring the possible motives from users and previous literature using a SDT perspective. The second phase was transforming the findings into questionnaire items as well as gaining content validity and the final phase was to test the initial construct validity of the scale and to test the hypothesis that motivation levels can predict screen time.

Phase 1: To find suitable experts a local internet café was contacted. The internet café was Bits and Bytes in Trikala, Greece and many thanks go to George Loules for allowing access. Nine customers hand-picked by George, based on having high levels of time spent in the café and also high levels of English. These nine experts were divided into three groups of three and completed a combined focus group/open-ended questionnaire. The questions were guided by SDT regulations and also Basic Needs Theories. Every participant produced motives relevant to each regulation of SDT e.g. “because it is fun”, “because it is a good way to spend time” etc.

The second part of phase one involved a search of the literature for items and motives relevant to SDT and the target behaviours. As expected there is a big gap with regard screen motivation but some studies exist that try to increase motivation in games (Raybourn, 1997). Items were also taken from other SDT questionnaires and relevant research.

Phase 2: Now it was time to make the actual items. Previously validated items were taken where possible. From this 91 items were created. The item pool inevitably included items that were less good than others; to ensure the most important items could be focused on “weaker” items were weeded out. This was done by asking 10 users to rate how relevant each item was. From this two experts in SDT were also asked to rank items based on relevance to theory and considering the user given scores. From a combined ranking of items from both professors the pool of items was cut down to 64 (still long, but I swear we will get it down to 32) with eight items kept for each regulation.

Phase 3: The final phase involved giving the 64 item version of the questionnaire to a large sample. They also completed a single item measure for time spent in screen behaviour. For this a secondary level school in Ireland was recruited. 248 students completed the questionnaire but only 129 questionnaires remained after eliminating missing answers, pattern results etc. 

Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out on these responses and the most useful goodness-of-fit indices taken using guidelines by Kenny (2011). All of these values were above acceptable ranges when the 64 items were reduced to 32. However only two regulations were able to predict time spent in screen behaviour, Intrinsic Motivation-to Know and Introjection.

The findings as a whole shows support that leisure screen behaviours can be motivated and the people in these behaviours are not automatically amotivated to exercise. However predicting time spent in behaviour using self-determined regulations has its own complications. The target behaviours are so ubiquitous and easy to do, that time spent in behaviour is hard to recall and measure. Although content and construct validity have been found, further validation is needed for this measure but once completed a vast amount of studies can be undertaken.

Shane O’Leary is currently enrolled into Doctorate program in Psychology and Sport Sciences at Northumbria University in UK. He received his Bachelor in Sport and Exercise Sciences from the University ofLimerick, (Ireland) in 2010, a joint M.Sc. from the European Master’s in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Thessaly, (Greece) and the University of Leipzig (Germany) in 2012.Currently Shane is working on perceived and objective factors in everyday environments that affect exercise, physical activity and sedentary behaviours. 

How athletes evaluate a physical task substantially affects their expectations, emotions and future participation (Gotwals & Wayment, 2002). Sport studies implicitly suggest that when athletes are asked to evaluate their affective, cognitive and behavioral responses to a physical task, they reveal idiosyncratic characteristics that illustrate how athletes feel about the particular activity (e.g., Jackson, Kimiecik, Ford, & Marsh, 1998). On the other hand, contemporary research (e.g., Van de Pol & Kavussanu, 2011) advocates the influence of a context on performance, raising an important question: Do individuals really evaluate a physical task solely based on the task characteristics and their bodily feedback? Or maybe athletes use some other factors to evaluate the task and the judgment is based on the reference point they use for such evaluation?

Relativistic forms of evaluation appear to be an integral part of sport performance because athletic achievements typically take place in competition with others. For example, Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich (1995) found that in the 1992 Summer Olympic, athletes who received a silver medal were less happy than those who received a bronze medal, despite their better performance. These authors hypothesized that the Olympians used category-based counterfactual comparisons where silver medalists compared their performance to the gold medalists, whereas the bronze medalists compared their performance to those without any medal. Similar relative evaluations were found by McGraw, Mellers, and Tetlock (2004), who proposed that athletes were happier with their performance when it surpassed personal expectations than when it fell below personal expectations. This was despite the fact that happier athletes performed worse than the less happy athletes. 

The importance of such relative evaluations on performance was emphasized by Festinger (1954) and Mussweiler (2003), who concluded that inter-individual comparisons are the priority source of information when judging the self. Drawn on these findings, a number of studies attempted to explore what information sources athletes and exercisers use to form their perception of their ability and competence - revealing relative evaluations with social comparisons appearing as one of the most prominent source (e.g., Ebbeck, 1990, Gotwals & Wayment, 2002). Despite these important findings, impact of social comparisons and relative evaluation have been rather neglected in favor of competence or ability variables. These could be attributed to a traditional thinking that when a task involves a bodily feedback (interoceptive cues) the evaluation of responses are subjectively grounded in the feeling of the task at hand.

My study attempted to take a closer look at that traditional assumption and investigate whether athletes evaluate affective, cognitive and behavioral responses to sport performance in absolute or relative terms. For that purpose, I applied research findings and ideas from judgment and decision-making literature, in particular the evaluability hypothesis, which provides a theoretical framework that explains why individuals evaluate relatively and how they do so (Hsee, 1996). Hsee proposed that all judgments and decisions are made in one (or some combination) of two basic evaluation modes - single and joint. Single mode refers to an absolute evaluation where attributes are evaluated separately whereas the joint evaluation mode prompts a relative evaluation because simultaneous presentation of two events urges evaluators to compare one event against the other during the evaluation process (Hsee & Rottenstreich, 2004). Furthermore, Hsee suggested that individuals search for a comparison standard because they want to gain better understanding of a value of an evaluative attribute.

The purpose of my study was to examine whether experienced basketball players evaluate predicted and real experiences associated with two physical tasks (running and shooting) in absolute or relative terms. The general hypothesis was that athletes would evaluate predicted experiences and real experiences of running and shooting in relative terms. The study was a conservative test of whether individuals evaluate real experiences in relative terms.  This was because it involved experienced basketball players who were knowledgeable of the demands associated with physical tasks such as running and shooting, and the information on the desirability of a task was unveiled implicitly.

The participants in the study were 141 men and 40 women basketball players involved in a basketball training for at least 2 consecutive seasons.  The study took place in the practice halls of attended teams. I manipulated the type of experience (predictors and experiencers vs. experiencers only) under two evaluative conditions, single or joint mode. My dependent variables were happiness, satisfaction, motivation and perceived effort. 

Results showed that athletes evaluated performance in relative terms during both predicted and real experience evaluations with particular strong evidence during the real experience. More importantly, it was shown that the comparisons hindered individuals’ evaluation of affective, cognitive and behavioral responses to a physical task. My study carries important implication for sports practitioners in that athletes are prone to evaluate physical tasks in relative terms when an alternative activity is present, even if that alternative activity may seem irrelevant for the evaluation. Coaches who strive to enhance athletes’ responses to the physical task should pay careful attention to the occurrence of possible alternatives and consider designing the practice in a way that the differences in perceived experiences are minimized. 

Gosia Slawinska is currently enrolled into Doctorate program in Psychology and Sport Sciences at Northumbria University in UK. She received her Bachelor in Sport and Exercise Science (Sport Psychology path) at Edinburgh Napier University in 2009, a M.Sc. from the European Master’s in Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Thessaly, Greece and a M.Sc from the University of Leipzig in Diagnostics and Intervention (2012). Her area of interest is perception, judgment and motivational processes in sport and exercise settings. 

Probably all of us who have been in academic environments heard the idea that “what is not published does not exist”. This overwhelming quote states the idea that in modern sciences what is not published in a scientific journal is just a myth or an idea that someone has. It simply won’t be taken into consideration due to its lack of “scientific stringency”. In plain English, it means that if you have a great idea, the solution to a given problem, the best protocol to address an issue or the latest world-changing theory, before it can be accepted as valid in the scientific community it must first be reviewed, criticized and “approved” by evaluating peers. This is usually achieved through publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Nevertheless, embarking on the journey of having a publication is a long and tedious work with lots of setbacks. The acceptance rate of most of the top-rated journals is usually very low. Additionally, as a researcher you would have to re-submit the manuscripts (at least) twice with changes made by the reviewers. Moreover, the chances that you would have to publish it in a different journal than the one you originally thought are very high. Besides all those well-known issues – known as the art of publishing – there are two new ones that are stated by Papaioannou et al., (2013), which must be taken into consideration.

According to this paper the author’s proficiency of English and the presence or absence of non-English speaking members on the editorial boards makes a huge difference in the chances of getting published. Papaioannou and colleagues looked at all the articles published in the six main Sport and Exercise psychology journals (Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, The Sport Psychologist, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, Psychology of Sport and Exercise, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, and Journal of Sport Behavior) in the past 15 years. In their selection of 2034 papers, they discovered that publishing a research paper might not only be an easy task, but it is an even more daunting task for non-English speakers. According to their numbers, more than 80% of the published papers of these six well-known journals are originated in just four countries: USA, UK, Canada and Australia, in that order. Those four English-speaking countries have an over-representation of the total world publication.

These numbers can be understood as the renowned fact that those countries have some of the best academic centers in Sports and Exercise Psychology. Consequently, their development is superior to that in other regions of the world. However, one may think that there are other parts in the world, namely Europe and Asia, which should have a bigger representation in the publishing statistics. Just think for instance of salient theories like the IZOF model that comes from research centers in Finland, just to name one great contribution from a non-English speaking country. Furthermore, the authors looked more in detail at those journals and found more tendencies that are quite disturbing.

Besides looking at the country of precedence of the first author, the researchers also classified the continental representation of the members of the editorial board of each journal. They found that the percentage of a continent’s representation in the editorial board of a journal was strongly related to the publication rate of authors from this continent in that particular journal. The obtained numbers that showed an almost perfect correlation (r = 0.93, p < 0.001), signify that the higher the continents’ representation in the board, the more articles were published in those journals from that particular continent. Those findings show that authors from non-English-speaking countries might find a gateway and may have higher chances of publishing through international journals in which most of the editorial board members are from non-English-speaking countries as well.

Of course, we cannot imply causality but the numbers show that authors from non-English-speaking countries feel more comfortable and make more attempts in journals where the editorial board is made up of members from different parts of the world. Papaioannou and colleagues venture to state that: “reviewers from English-speaking countries can easily negatively judge manuscripts that do not confirm their own culture-specific beliefs, stereotypes, and theoretical perspectives, while both editors and reviewers are less likely to accept manuscripts submitted by less-known institutions in non-English-speaking countries”. Although this biased evaluation is not necessarily unfair since the editorial board members want to protect the field from unnecessary confusion or specific population issues. Nevertheless, with this biased view they are not contributing to the progress of the social sciences.

By no means is this blog post intended to discourage you in the process of publishing. On the contrary, my intention is to make people aware of the publishing world and what can be done to overcome these issues. It is through the development and attempts made by people like you or me – the new generation of sport and exercise psychologists – that positive changes could be made. As a matter of fact, out of the eight regular writers of our blog (http://allaboutperformance.wordpress.com/), just one of us comes from an English-speaking-country (South Africa). And even more interesting, we have visits in our blog from almost 100 different countries, needless to say that in most of them, the official language is not English.

In a relatively new branch of psychology there is a need for more professionals and they will probably come not only from well-established sport psychology countries, but also from other cultures interested in the advances of sport psychology. It is the duty of researchers within these contexts to keep investigating and publishing. Why not trying to publish on the “non-foreign-friendly” journals, just to start ‘shaking things up’ in this young a developing field of Sport and Exercise Psychology?

Camilo Sáenz M. is a master’s degree student of the European Masters in Sport and Exercise Psychology Program at Lunds Universitet, Sweden. He completed his bachelor degree in Psychology (2008) and a master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology (2010) from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He has worked in clinical psychology practice within the Cognitive-Behavioral model and he has a special interest in the application of the ACT-Mindfulness model in sports psychology. He is also an author and editor in the All About PerformanceBlog (allaboutperformance.wordpress.com).

E-mail: camilosaenzm@gmail.com

                                            Introduction

This article features the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA that has been competing under Gregg Popovich (1998 to 2013). They are one of the longest reigning dynasties to dominate the league over a decade with an astounding level of success including 4 championships, 7 conference finals appearances, 3 regular season best records, all while missing the play-offs only once (ESPN, 2012). The most noteworthy trait of this team was its persistence at the top – many franchises like Miami, Detroit or Philadelphia rose and fell but Popovich’s Spurs stood still. Even the Lakers had to go through a lengthy rebuilding phase after Shaquille O’neal’s departure, but the Spurs have been the only team that remained in the championship contention for the most part of the last fifteen years. This article takes an in-depth look at the team dynamics of the Spurs and the leadership style of the coach. 

Making of the Spurs: Popovich leadership and team development

There is no question that coach Popovich did a successful job of creating the right kind of team culture when he started his job as the head coach in 1997 that set the foundation for team building for years to follow (Stewart & Zeysing, 2006). A very critical antecedent for successful leadership is knowing the people that comprise the team which strengthens trust and mutual interdependence (Weinberg & Gould, 2011), and Popovich has always been keen about building trustworthy relationships with his players as well as coaching personnel (MacRae S. , 2010). 

A major debate within the leadership literature today is about Authoritative vs. Democratic leadership applications. NBA players are generally paid very highly and an unadulterated despotism would probably lead to a revolt demanding the leader’s removal, hence, it is no surprise that a successful coach like Popovich has never been accused of being an outright autocrat (Porter, 2005). Popovich apparently perfected the leadership style most suitable for this team that has influence of authoritarian, participative, as well as transformational leadership. While he does have the reputation of listening to ideas by players, and he is also famous for being a direct individual and a very intense speaker with no insecure feelings about the decisions he makes and not afraid to communicate the intended message, for example, since joining the Spurs, he has sacked and replaced many of his staff members despite much critics (Adande, 2012). His experience in the US Air force certainly gave him an edge when it comes to controlling his players because in his 15 years as a coach no famous dispute between team members were reported (Roselius, 2012).

In professional sports where financial stakes are so high, many coaches tend to be reluctant in relying on younger players. Popovich has successfully developed many young talents into all-stars through proper nurturing and motivation which remain among the focal points to the Spurs’ success. A homely atmosphere along with adequate control that he envisioned and successfully established evidently served a great deal to the development of a team that accomplished its work superbly, improved as a functioning unit over time, and whose members came away from the group experience wiser and more skilled than they were before, all of which are ideal characteristics of a cohesive group (Messick & Kramer, 2005).

Member attributes

As influential as Coach Popovich has been, to give all credit to him without acknowledging the impact made by the players would be a grave leader attribution error (Forsyth, 2010). There could be a two dimensional arguments to the kind of players he has worked with over the years. Some argue that his accomplishment is no less praiseworthy than that of Pat Riley or even Phill Jackson, both of whom have won more championships as a head coach, because Popovich never had the same level of talent in the team. The counter argument to this notion is Popovich never had to deal with the ego of Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, or the relentless media interest drawn by Michael Jordan’s start power.

In any case, what served to the benefit of the team is how the behavioural attributes of the players fit right into Popovich’s leadership style. He was successful in creating an atmosphere where everybody had to stick to task and give 100% and whoever joined the team had to adapt to the system. High task orientation, collective sense of identity, distinctive roles, and low outcome emphasis were central to his coaching style (Roselius, 2012; Porter, 2005). Key players like Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker were drafted by the Spurs and were practically raised by Popovich (Stewart & Zeysing, 2006) and it is no surprise they grew up with the same philosophy as the coach. At the same time, Popovich has always been careful about recruiting players and mostly resorted to players whose talents were complemented by high work ethic and drive for collective success. For example, noteworthy acquisitions like Hobert Horry, Michael Finley, and Antonio McDyess all shared the reputation of being unselfish team-men with a good grasp of the concept of ‘team before individual’ (MacRae S. , 2010).

Throughout his tenure he has always tried to avoid signing talented players whose personalities were not in line with his team’s philosophies or anyone who could create role ambiguity within the team. In his fourteen years as a coach, he has never displayed any trace of impatience in signing big names. When big free agencies unveiled throughout the years, teams like Bulls, Heat, and Cavaliers were on one another’s throat in signing a superstar, Popovich stood silently and continued to keep faith on his own roster members and stick to the old formula of task orientation (LeBoutillier, 2007). Some teams like the Knicks went as far as releasing several key players to enhance signing of a big superstar. But the Spurs were never in the news for desperate persuasion of Lebron James or Carmelo Anthony (Stewart & Zeysing, 2006). 

A classic example of role ambiguity was Alan Iverson’s tenure after 2008 in several teams. Even passed his prime Iverson was still capable of finding a spot in top teams that could allow him to win his first NBA championship. But the problem was he did not just want to win a championship, he wanted the leading role of a team that could win a championship and continued to refuse to accept a less significant role (Gerstner, 2012). There is no surprise that the Spurs never got in touch with Iverson’s agent. 

Outcomes and conclusion

Not only that the Spurs have been very successful during the last fourteen years, they have achieved their success at high efficiency rate. The Spurs have clearly been overachievers with respect to the talent on their roster. For a team that was built around one future hall of famer, two guards of mediocre fame and lots of role players, four championships and 8 Conference finals appearances has to be considered very efficient. Not only were they efficient in terms of talent to success ratio, they were also literally cost effective. In their championship years 2003, 2005, and 2007, the Spurs stood 15^th, 18^th, and 6^th in terms of player salary expenditure (Roselius, 2012).

Among the most remarkable characteristics about the Spurs’ basketball is how they catch people completely off guard. In 2011, everyone had considered them as a team too old to be relevant during play-offs. But Tim Duncan at age 36, along with Ginobili (34) and Parker (30) led the Spurs to NBA’s season best record and reaching the conference finals with a record 20 consecutive wins (Adande, 2012). They have shaken the whole NBA community with their perseverance and resilience especially those that considered them ‘too old’ to make a post-season impact. They eventually lost to a younger and faster Oklahoma City Thunders in the conference finals, but they have certainly left their trace and proven that with proper building structure and cohesion, a real team is capable of defying all odds – even nature.

References

Adande, J. (2012). Gregg Popovich’s portable program. Retrieved July 15, 2012, from ESPN.com: http://espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2012/story/_/page/Adande-120504/nba-______playoffs-gregg-popovich-spurs-effect

Carron, A. V., & Eys, M. A. (2012). Group dynamics in sport. Morgantown, WV : : Fitness Information Technology.

ESPN. (2012). Gregg Popovich is NBA’s top coach. Retrieved July 15, 2012, from ESPN.com news services: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7878380/san-antonio-______spurs-gregg-popovich-nba-coach-year

Forsyth, D. R. (2010). Group dynamics. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Gerstner, J. (2012). Inside the NBA: Detroit Pistons. Edina, MN.: ABDO Pub. Co.

Kimmerle, M., & Côté-Laurence, P. (2003). Teaching dance skills: a motor learning and development approach. Andover, N.J.: J. Michael Ryan Pub.

LeBoutillier, N. (2007). The story of the San Antonio Spurs. Mankato, Minn.: Creative Education.

MacRae, S. (2009). Meet Tony Parker : basketball’s famous point guard. New York: PowerKids Press.

MacRae, S. (2010). The San Antonio Spurs. New York: PowerKids Press.

Messick, D. M., & Kramer, R. M. (2005). The Psychology of Leadership New Perspectives and Research. Mahwah, N.J: Erlbaum Associates.

Porter, D. L. (2005). Basketball : a biographical dictionary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Roselius, J. C. (2012). San Antonio Spurs. Edina, Minn.: ABDO Pub. Co.

Smith, M. (2009). Baseballs, basketballs and Matzah balls : what sports can teach us about he Jewish holidays and vice ver. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse.

Stewart, M., & Zeysing, M. (2006). Team Spirit: The San Antonio Spurs. Norwood House Press: Chicago, Ill.

Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2011). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology. Leeds: Human Kinetics.

Ybarra, A. (2012). Phoenix Suns. Edina, MN: ABDO Publishing Company.

Adlul Kamal is a second year student in the European Masters in Sport and Exercise Psychology Program at the Lund University (Sweden). He has completed a Master degree in Sport Management from Sheffield Hallam University (UK) and a Bachelor degree in Business Administration from North South University (Bangladesh). Some of his areas of interests include imagery use in sport performance enhancement, and positive youth development.  Email- ridoy2k@yahoo.com

Music is a part of peoples’ daily routines for different reasons. These may be mood regulation, motivation, leisure, and as a form of cultural manifestation. What we call music is the organization of five primary elements: melody, harmony, tempo, rhythm, and dynamics (Karageorghis & Terry, 2011). Athletes are often seen listening to their favorite tracks before performing as part of their pre-performance routine. The rationale behind athletes’ use of this routine is the common association between listening to music and changes in mood. Research has shown that listening to music can enhance physical performance by acting as a stimulant or sedative and thus altering athletes’ arousal levels (Bishop, 2010). That would suggest music as an appropriate component of pre-performance routines as one of its aims is to help athletes achieve an optimal level of arousal (Lidor, 2007).  

According to Bishop, Karageorghis and Loizou (2007) music can be used as a strategy to emotional regulation, and can also improve visual and auditory imagery. Moreover, the choice of music and the impact of music listening are influenced by a number of factors, including extra-musical associations, inspirational lyrics, music properties, and desired emotional state (Bishop et al., 2007). Pates, Karageorghis, Fryer, and Maynard (2003) suggested that music can trigger emotions that are important antecedents of the flow experience. The participants in Pates et al. study reported that as a consequence of listening to music movements became more automatic and there was an increase in relaxation, concentration and confidence. Moreover, Karageorghis et al. (1999) proposed that asynchronous motivational music (when there is no conscious attempt to synchronise movement with beat; Karageorghis & Terry, 2009) can be used to control arousal and improve mood. 

Understanding the performance emotion relationship is particularly important in applied sport psychology (Hanin, 2004).  More specifically it is essential to investigate the influence of pleasant and unpleasant emotional states over sport performance. In order to evaluate this relationship Hanin suggests that instead of a generalized approach a focus on performance experiences of each individual athlete would be more appropriate. For this purpose, Hanin developed the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning (IZOF). This model has an idiographic approach that focuses on idiosyncratic emotional experiences of individual athletes. Moreover the zone aspect of the model suggests a specific relationship between the perceived intensity of the emotional state and the quality of performance. According to Hanin (2004) optimal emotions are defined as most relevant and appropriate for a particular athlete performing a specific task. The optimal performance state results in a total task involvement and the best recruitment and use of available resources. 

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of self-selected asynchronous pre-task music on performance in a soccer skill test and in the achievement of participants’ individual zone of optimal functioning (IZOF; Hanin, 2000). An idiographic A-B-A-B single subject design was used. Hrycaiko and Martin (1996) suggested the single subject designs as the most appropriate methodology for applied research. Nine male collegiate soccer athletes from a university in London participated in this study. Participants were asked to describe their most and least successful performances, and the emotions related to these experiences. Based on the information provided, participants’ IZOF was established (Hanin, 2000; 2004). Participants then selected three or four music tracks from their own playlist that they considered would help them in achieving their IZOF. The motivational qualities of the selected tracks were assessed using the BRMI-3 (Karageorghis & Terry, 2011). Participants in each trial were asked to complete two circuits of a soccer skill test (Abouzekri& Karageorghis, 2010) developed to emulate the skills used in a soccer match. Performance was assessed through time to complete the soccer skill test and kick accuracy. The study was composed of four experimental trials; two with pre-task music, and two without. Before the no-music trials, athletes completed the concentration grid as filler. After each trial, participants completed their IZOF and at the end of the study participants completed the intervention evaluation questionnaire. 

According to the study results the hypothesis suggesting that pre-task music would improve performance has not been supported.  The graphically displayed data did not show a consistent improvement in time or kick accuracy. Moreover results on the IZOF did not present stable improvements in the pre-task music trials. Nevertheless, when asked about the effects of listening to their pre-task music, participants’ comments were positive. The participants reported improvement in concentration, confidence, motivation and arousal. In summary, according to participants’ experiences, music has a positive effect on emotions as a component of their pre-performance routine. However, due to this study’s limitations, it was not possible to establish a direct relationship between a pre-task music choice and improvement in performance or achievement of participants’ zones of optimal functioning. According to the findings of the present study and previous investigations (Bishop et al., 2007), athletes’ music choices are highly idiosyncratic and influenced by cultural background, thus future studies should maintain an individualistic approach. 

Fernanda Serra de Queiroz has worked as a sport psychologist with professional soccer, surf and body boarding in Brazil. She completed a Master degree at the University of Queensland, where she investigated the effects of performance routines over performance on open skilled sports. Fernanda graduated from the European Masters of Sport Psychology Program, and her home university was Thessaly, Greece. During her program she was a visiting researcher at Brunel University, London, studying the relationship of music and performance with the supervision of Prof Costas Karageorhis (Brunel University), and Prof Nikos Digelidis (University of Thessaly).