The Intersection: Where Sports and Social Work Meet

I've been engaged in some very interesting conversations over the past... 15 months... although not really interesting enough to excuse such a long hiatus from writing!  But, what can I say.  Life's tough when you've got toddlers.   So, these conversations.  I've heard from coaches at various levels of NCAA in a few different women's sports that "these athletes are just different", and not in a super positive way.  Many coaches I've talked to are at a loss for how to motivate their student-athletes because they don't exactly know what motivates them.  It seems like their student-athletes enjoy the connection being on a team brings, but they don't necessarily want to engage in the hard work it takes to be successful.  This can be a problem for several reasons — namely if the coaching staff is employed at a school that gauges success by win/loss records,  and coaches fear being dismissed if their teams aren't performing to the level they are