During a recent pair of
Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings for student-athletes at Southern
Illinois University, we watched one video per week and then discussed what we
had just seen and heard. The videos were interviews of Dr. Ben Houltberg,
Assistant Professor of Counseling at Indiana University–Purdue University
Fort Wayne (IPFW). The discussions concerned emotional wellbeing in
athletics. They had been referred to me by our colleague and friend, Dr.
Ashley Null.
I was immediately thankful
for the reaction that I saw in the athletes present, mostly swimmers and divers
those weeks, but was absolutely amazed at the impact the videos had upon them
during the Missouri Valley Swimming and Diving Championships this past weekend.
Two swimmers in particular
told me about their approach to the championships, one a senior who would swim
the last races of her career during the weekend and the other, a junior
freestyle swimmer. While most of their teammates were very tense, these
two were loose and giggling during the warm up period and right up to race
time. Their head coach was a little concerned that they were not taking
things seriously enough, but those concerns were quickly dispatched as the senior
swam the best 100 meter breaststroke of her career and the junior was a member
of the conference champion 200 meter freestyle relay team. They had some
of their best performances of the season and even of their careers.
The freedom that they are
experiencing due to their growing faith in Christ and its implication upon
their sense of personal worth, their identities being solidly, securely in
their relationship with Christ and their approach to swimming now being an act
of worship, was greatly enhanced by the videos. The contrast between the
senior, relaxed and assured after the meet, was remarkable when seen beside one
of her highly achieving senior teammates who was totally undone, in the throes
of a serious loss of identity and life purpose as her career as a competitive
swimmer was suddenly over.
I would highly recommend
sharing these videos with your competitors, regardless of sport, gender or
culture. Further, I would recommend that you watch it with them and then
discuss some of the major points so they can process all they have seen and
heard. I believe you will experience similarly beneficial results.
Links to the videos on YouTube are below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JzFZDQPUw&list=UUqtO2am-OJxDikH0XFuEsXQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJr14F8KCoQ&list=UUqtO2am-OJxDikH0XFuEsXQ&index=1
Here
are some of the questions we discussed after watching the videos. I hope
they are of value to you and those you serve.
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