Theorised Field Notes – Reflection 3
On Thursday 16th September I travelled to Alexandra with Geoff Rodden
(Assistant Regional Sports Director) for an Elite Sportsperson Seminar with Barbara
Kendall hosted by Dunstan High School on behalf of OSSSA. Barbara Kendall is a
New Zealand SPARC Ambassador. There is a selection of sportspeople in New
Zealand employed by SPARC as part of the Sports Ambassador Programme. The
programme involves these people travelling the country taking seminars/workshops
with students with the intention of inspiring young athletes and equipping them with
skills to support their involvement in sport (SPARC, n.d.). A school can request a
visit from a sports ambassador or they can be used within a regional capacity like the
seminar I attended. Regional Sports Directors submit a request to SPARC who
manage the availability of the ambassadors (SPARC, n.d.).
Barbara flew into Queenstown and drove to Alexandra where we meet her
and helped her to set up for her seminar. Other than that we did not have too much
to do other than be present as the event was organised by OSSSA. This allowed me
to be able to sit and listen to her presentation as well as take photos. (Which you can
see a small selection of in my evidence section). On the way to Alexandra Geoff
commented to me that Barbara is in his opinion the best of the Sports Ambassadors
so I had been looking forward to seeing what she had to say. I found her to be a
fantastic speaker and what I think was the most important thing was that she really
engaged the students. She did not get up the front and spend the whole day talking
about herself. She did speak of things that have happened in her life however she
was always relating her experiences to things the students could do also in order to
better themselves. Her seminar was largely based on sports psychology principles
and I found I learned quite a bit from these. Something I found was that while I am
not an elite athlete a lot of what she said I was able to relate to my own life as it is
today.
At the end of the seminar someone asked if there was one thing we would
take away from today what would it be? Barbara said the most important thing she
felt we could have learnt from her seminar was the importance of passion. In her
mind passion is the most important thing someone can have. She believed that
everyone needs to have passion. With passion everything else in life follows. If you
have passion then you have energy and if you have energy you have motivation to
succeed. These words came from her opinions and experiences but you could relate
it to sport motivational theories as “Motivation is defined as the direction and intensity
of one’s effort” (Weinberg and Gould, 2007, p. 52). If a person has passion they are
going to be working at a high intensity which would mean they can maintain
motivation.
Barbara Kendall also spoke a lot about goal setting as a way of keeping
motivation. “Motivation depends on goal setting” (Weinberg & Gould, 2007, p.348).
She was a big believer in not keeping the children sitting in a room all day therefore
to demonstrate the importance of goal setting she played a game with them. In the
gym they first played a game of girls versus boys’ netball but everyone could go
everywhere and you had to score in the basketball hoops. They then played again
but they did not have to score. This game became pointless due to the lack of goals.
Barbara reinforced this by discussing the importance of goal setting and how to set
smart goals when back in the classroom. I think this was very important as “most
people do not need to be convinced goals are important; they need instruction on
setting effective goals” (Weinberg & Gould, 2007, p.346). Students learnt to set goals
that were specific, measureable, achievable, and realistic and have a time frame
(SMART). Barbara stressed that it was important to set your goals high no matter
what!
As I sat in this class I was able to relate passion to my own life. It is important
to have passion within my studies so I am motivated to succeed. Therefore I set
myself some goals to motivate myself in order to attempt do well in my study for the
rest of the year. I felt I was lacking a bit of passion so hopefully I can create some
more.
Barbara Kendall was an influential speaker who taught a seminar filled with
theoretical psychological principles to attempt to help the students succeed in their
sports. I think if everyone took away at least some of what she said then she is
helping them achieve in life not just sport. Some of the things she said really had an
impact on me and I am now going to attempt to set some SMART goals in my life as
“goal setting has a consistent and powerful effect on behaviour” (Weinberg & Gould,
2007, p.349).
References
SPARC. (n.d.). Sports ambassadors programme. Retrieved October 3, 2010, from
http://www.sparc.org.nz/en-nz/young-people/Ages_13-18_Years/SportAmbassador-Programme/
Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2007). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology
(4th ed.). United States Of America: Human Kinetics.
.