Month: November 2020

By: Dr. Jasmine Townsend, CTRS, CARSS-I, Associate Professor, Clemson University

My introduction to adaptive sports occurred at the National Ability Center in Park City, Utah (www.discovernac.org). They are a community recreation organization that provides adaptive sports and recreation activities like mountain biking, sled hockey, river rafting, handcycling, and waterskiing, among others, to individuals with a variety of physical and cognitive disabilities. People come from all over the United States, at all times of the year, to participate in their programs. I spent my time helping kids and adults learn new skills, push the boundaries of their abilities, and generally just have a great time in the mountains, lakes, and deserts of the Mountain West. It was the best job ever. We had tons of fun, and I developed lasting friendships with many of my coworkers.

My work in adaptive sports over the last decade has continued through both direct service provision and research activities. In all my interactions with participants across these various experiences, I have heard statements like “Adaptive sports have changed my life” ;or “My son/daughter has changed so much since they started playing wheelchair basketball”; or “I’m more confident in my abilities, and I have a sense of purpose now.” It was quite fulfilling as a health and recreation professional to know that what we were doing had such impact. I absolutely believe it changed lives, because I saw it happen. However, the researcher in me wanted to know more.

The Clemson Adaptive Sports and Recreation lab aims to provide evidence that informs decisions about adaptive sport programming and enhance outcomes associated with involvement in those programs. This mission is perfectly geared to examine the transformative nature of adaptive sports for individuals with disabilities. Recent research (Duerden, et al., 2018) has provided definitions of a continuum of general experience types ranging from ordinary, to memorable, meaningful, and finally transformative. Other research has also identified adaptive sport participation as transformational to participants’ self-identity (Lundberg, Taniguchi, McCormick, & Tibbs, 2011).

No research, however, has used a reliable measure to gauge the impact of adaptive sport experiences. Furthermore, no research has connected program characteristics to the experience types, leaving program administrators with little systematic and reliable information with which to intentionally design programs to facilitate growth and development among individuals with disabilities participating in adaptive sport.

In January 2021, and in collaboration with colleagues at Brigham Young University, my students and I will embark on a study to determine the impact of adaptive sport experiences using the Experience Impact Measure (EIM). This will be the first study to use this measure in an adaptive sport context and will contribute to validation of the instrument. We will also explore a variety of program characteristics that may prove important for each type of experience (ordinary to transformative). Such information will be useful to various stakeholders in their efforts to understand the impact of adaptive sport programs but will also help in efforts to refine the design and implementation of these programs.

While anecdotal evidence from participants is meaningful in the moment and powerful as a testimonial, a systematic and data-driven understanding of the impact of adaptive sport participation is needed. This project will provide that understanding, and we feel it perfectly complements the aims of the Robert H. Brooks Sport Science Institute.

References:

Duerden, M. D., Lundberg, N. R., Ward, P., Taniguchi, S. T, Hill, B., Widmer, M. A., & Zabriskie, R. (2018). From ordinary to extraordinary: A framework of experience types. Journal of Leisure Research, 49(3-5) 196-216.

Lundberg, N. R., Taniguchi, S., McCormick, B., & Tibbs, C. (2011). Identity negotiating: Redefining stigmatized identities through adaptive sports and recreation participation among individuals with a disability. Journal of Leisure Research, 43(2), 205-225.

By: Dr. Virginia S. Harrison, Assistant Professor, Clemson University

Christen Buckley, Ph.D. Candidate, Pennsylvania State University

On October 18, 2019, the New York Times released a list of 42 minor league baseball teams across the United States that were slated for elimination by Major League Baseball (MLB) after the 2020 season. The news shocked minor league team officials (Sanchez, 2020), who launched communications campaigns aimed at showing the importance of the teams to their local communities. One such campaign included the Save Our Spikes campaign in State College, PA, pictured here. Through tactics like holding local rallies with media or displaying signage, teams encouraged fan advocacy as critical parts of their campaigns. The outlook turned particularly bleak when COVID-19 shut down the minor league baseball season for all of 2020, leaving the 42 teams in limbo.

Our study seeks to understand the dynamics of the fan advocacy and team communication efforts behind the Save Our Spikes campaign and those like it across the minor leagues. Given the unprecedented nature of this announcement coupled with COVID-19, we want to know how fans engage in and view advocacy as part of their fandom. Additionally, how are teams’ strategic communications departments motivating fan advocacy? Advocacy literature typically focuses on nonprofit actions and work toward a specific cause (e.g., Corning & Myers, 2002), and our study takes a new direction with scholarship by applying these nonprofit principles to sport.

We also want to understand how fans feel about their local minor league teams. Unlike relationships with major professional teams, minor league fan affiliations are unique and often tied to community identity (Wear & Heere, 2019; Wegner, Delia & Baker, 2018). While research exists on the impacts of professional sports teams moving to new towns (Mitrano, 1999), little research focuses on this connection for minor league professional teams. The current situation is a unique opportunity to look at the ways that fans show support for their teams when their existence is threatened.

We are conducting a three-pronged methodology to tackle this issue: interviews with fans and team officials, fan survey, and social media content analysis. We are still looking for interview participants and would love to hear from you if you are a fan of a minor league baseball team or employee of a minor league baseball team. Please reach out to Dr. Virginia Harrison, vsharri@clemson.edu, or Christen Buckley, clb5344@psu.edu, to see if you are eligible for the study. We look forward to sharing the results of our work with you in a future post!

References

Corning, A. F. & Myers, D. J. (2002). Individual orientation toward engagement in social action. Political Psychology, 23(4), 703-729. DOI: www.jstor.org/stable/3792364.

Mitrano, J. R. (1999). The “sudden death” of hockey in Hartford: Sports fans and franchise relocation. Sociology of Sport Journal, 16, 134-154.

Sanchez, R. (2020, May 19). “Minor league baseball in crisis.” Sports Illustrated. Accessed https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/05/19/minor-league-baseball-is-in-crisis.

Wear, H. & Heere, B. (2019). Brand New: A Longitudinal Investigation of Brand Associations as Drivers of Team Identity Among Fans of a New Sport Team. Journal of Sport Management. Advanced publication doi: 10.1123/jsm.2018-0204.

Wegner, C. E., Delia, E. B., & Baker, B. J. (2018). Fan response to the identity threat of potential team relocation. Sport Management Review. Advanced publication doi: 10.1016/j.smr.2019.01.001