Sportswriter Hugh S. Fullerton is involved in the next development in the history of sports psychology. Fullerton brought New York Yankees player Babe Ruth to a psychology laboratory at Columbia University. Fullerton brought Ruth there to participate in a study run by Albert Johanson and Joseph Holmes. He wanted Ruth to participate in the study because he wanted to find a reason for why Ruth hit so many home runs. He also wanted to prove to other baseball scouts whether or not other players like Ruth existed. The study that Ruth participated in was used to study sensory-motor performance. Sensory-motor performance is how things that we perceive with our senses influence our movements. The study involved measuring the power of Ruth’s swing, his reaction time, his attention, his memory, and his motor skills. The results of this study offered a reason for why Ruth hit so many home runs. His skill for hitting home runs could be because on the tests his motor skills and reflexes scored above average. The next development that came regarded football. At Stanford University, B.C. Graves, a psychology graduate student, Walter Miles, a professor, and Glenn “Pop” Warner, a college football coach started an experiment. Their experiment studied reaction time. They ran their ran experiment so they could find the fastest way to get the offense to move together when the center hiked the ball. This led to the use of psychology as a way to gain an advantage over your opponent in a competition.
Even though there were many developments to this field prior to this point, the most important did not come until the time of Coleman Griffith. Griffith was a professor at the University of Illinois. He is considered to be the father of sports psychology in North America. Griffith's first contribution was that he started a section in his introductory to psychology class that only athletes could take. Then in 1921, he gave the first public talk about psychology and athletics. In 1923, he started a special course focusing on psychology and sports. It was called Psychology and Athletics. The textbook that was used for this class was Griffith’s third book, called Psychology of Coaching. Later in 1924, Griffith began meeting with Knute Rockne, who was a football coach at Notre Dame. He met with Rockne to explore how coaching was affected by psychology.
The next major contribution that Griffith made was in 1925, when he opened the first sports psychology lab in North America. This lab was only able to stay open for six years. After the closure of the laboratory, Griffith was contacted in 1937 by Philip Wrigley. Wrigley was the owner of the Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs. He contacted Griffith to offer him a job. Griffith accepted the job. He called the project Experimental Laboratories of the Chicago National League Ball Club. While with the Cubs, Griffith studied how psychological factors influenced performance. Based on the results of his research Griffith made recommendations to Wrigley. These recommendations included psychological clinics for the players, holding fielding practice, and having achievement tests to measure the athletes’ basic skills. However, Wrigley did not follow these recommendations but was still impressed by Griffith’s work. Wrigley offered Griffith a full-time position as a sports psychologist in 1939. Griffith refused the job to stay with his family. After this Griffith did not conduct anymore major research in the area of sports psychology. Griffith was an important part of sport psychology's history. He was an important part because not only was he the first sports psychologist but he also opened the first laboratory in America that studied the relationship between sports and psychology.
In the 1920s and 1930s, psychology was beginning to be taught at coaching schools. Some coaches used what they were learning about sports psychology while coaching their teams. Paul Brown was head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. He began using psychological testing with his players. His tests eventually became known as the beginning of the National Football League’s tests that are still used today. During the 1940s, psychology was starting to be used as a way for athletes to improve their performance. Psychology professor Dorothy Hazeltine Yates helped a boxer try to improve his skills through psychology; the boxer then went on to have the best fights of his career. Also during the 1940s, hypnosis was starting to be used to help athletes to relax. During the 1950s, David F. Tracy began using psychological methods to help players on the St. Louis Browns, a major league baseball team, now known as the Baltimore Orioles.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, sports were becoming more important to people. So, psychology of sports was more accepted because it helped athletes. Four things were important to expand the field of sports psychology. These were textbooks, graduate programs, associations, and journals. One of the main areas that was being studied during this time period was the affect stress had on athletes and their performance. In 1960, Warren R. Johnson continued the research he started in 1949. This research was about the effect stress had on an athlete. He continued this research by creating the first textbook on the topic. In 1961, Maxwell Howell started the first graduate school program in physical education. He did this at the University of Alberta in Canada. The creation of associations and journals was the next development of this time period. In 1967, the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity or (NASPSPA)was created. It was created by a group of sport psychologists led by Warren Johnson. One of the first things that this organization did was to start publishing the "Sport Psychology Bulletin". The "Sport Psychology Bulletin" included research reports and the writings of the members of the NASPSPA. Then in 1970, the "International Journal of Sport Psychology" was started. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were many associations and journals that were started. These were the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology, the American Psychological Association's Division 47 of Exercise and Sport Psychology, the Sport Psychology Academy of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, the "Journal of Sports Psychology", the "Journal of Sport Science", the "Sport Psychologist", and the "Journal of Applied Sport Psychology". The next major developments involved the United States Olympic Committee. In 1978, they started a Sports Medicine Council that included sports psychologists. In 1985, they created the first registry or list of sports psychologists.
Now there are two types of sports psychology, academic and applied. Academic sports psychology does the research. Applied sports psychology uses that research to teach coaches and trainers. There are three main areas of need in applied sports psychology. They are what kinds of certification, education, or licenses are necessary to practice applied sports psychology, the need to provide proper training for people who are studying applied sports psychology, and developing new ways to help athletes.
Today the number of sports psychologists that are being used by athletes is increasing. In fact, so many athletes are being helped by sports psychologists, that some organizations are starting to limit how many coaches can be on the field during a game. Many athletes are now using sports psychology as part of their everyday lives and training for games.
Alexa PenaVega
Alexa Ellesse PenaVega (born August 27, 1988) is an American singer, musician and actress. She starred in lots of movies and TV series, among which are "Ghost Whisperer", "Evening Shade", "Twister", "The Glimmer Man", "Nine Months" and the "Spy Kids" movie series. Vega was born in Miami.
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