Aggression and Violence in Sports Coaching

For anyone living in today’s society, it does not take a sociologist or a political scientist to call attention to which extend sports coaching has permeated the way of life. Newspapers devote an entire section of their daily editions to the coverage of sports such as golf, football, soccer, and more. Newsprint about sport surpasses even that given to economy, politics, or any other single topic of interest. Television brings into contemporary households over 1,200 hours of live and taped sporting events every year, sometimes disrupting the usual family life and other times it provides a collective focus to a family's attention. Violence may occur as a result of aggressive intent. This leads to another question; is violence always a result of aggressive intent? If violence is to be defined as the use of greater physical force or intent, is it possible to cite instances where such physical force is used to injure others without aggression being involved? If aggression is seen as the intentional infliction of injury to others, then any violence act must, if intended, be regarded as aggressive. This hypothesis, directly relates the issue to the theory of motivation. Sports coaching are based on motivation theories since the core of athletic competition is linked to the human compulsion towards excellence and superiority. Thus, it seems logical to accept that sports are based on human motives (e.g. compulsion to win), which if not adequately fulfilled, can elicit extreme behavioral patterns (e.g. violent acts), which in turn are the byproducts of repressed aggression. Do sports coaching create aggressive behavior, or simply attract people who are already aggressive? Aggression and sports coaching have gone together as long as sports have been around, be it the players themselves, to the parents, coaches, or spectators, they just seem to be an inseparable part of each other. The term violence is defined as physical assault based on total disregard for the well being of self and others, or the intent to injure another person. Intimidation usually does not cause physical harm, but often is designed to produce psychological consequences, enabling one person to physically over power or dominate another. These statements is what people today have made a must part on sport. Pleasure and participation sports absolutely cannot be grouped with power and performance sports coaching when in relation to aggression. Pleasure sports are simply played for pleasure. Score is usually not kept. The athletes participating are usually on occasion doing it for fun and exercise. A majority of athletes who have been playing sports since they were little, have probably been pounded into their heads that to be successful in sport.