 “I’ve missed more than 900 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” This quote by Michael Jordan is one that inspires many each and every day. Hundreds of people live by this quote. If you were to ask any athlete of any sport, or any non-athlete, whose quote that is by, they would probably answer correctly. In middle school, this quote was everywhere in school gyms. During P.E., gym teachers would teach the meaning of this quote. Some teachers would use this quote to teach us the meaning of perseverance and how we can apply it to everyday life. For example, it is okay to make a mistake, but it is recognizing and then learning from that mistake so that it doesn’t happen again that will help you be successful. This is just one of the many ways sports can have a positive effect on day-to-day life for some people. The question that I will be answering and arguing is how sports have a positive effect on day-to-day life for college athletes. I will be discussing a wide variety of how sports can influence different parts of athletes life such as; the atmosphere of a sporting event, how different sports create different atmospheres, social media and how all people use it, an athletes view on life, different levels of athletics and what the differences are between the levels of athletics, and how sports can prepare you for life. To contradict myself, I will discuss the opposite opinion that sports have a negative effect on day-to-day life. The negative impact I will be discussing is about how athlete’s behavior can negatively influence children. All of the topics that I will be discussing have some connection between sports and everyday life. 

“According to the literature on sports marketing, the special atmosphere in sport stadiums is one of the most important reasons why people attend events” (Uhrich 1). All five senses and the atmosphere of a sporting event go hand-in-hand. Sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound are all ways that we can experience events to the fullest. Our senses subconsciously tell us if we are enjoying an event or not. Imagine you are at a South Carolina football game, you will see 80,250 people all in garnet or black. You will hear those same 80,250 people either cheering on the Gamecocks or yelling a few choice words to the opposing team or to the referees who made a noticeably bad call. At the game you will smell a variety of smells. If it is a game in August, you will smell the humid air along with a little body odor, or maybe a hint of alcohol if you were to sit in the student section. You might also smell pizza, which would make you want to go buy that food item, bringing me to taste. So many different foods are sold at sporting events. Some food items are more popular at certain events than others. For example, if you were to go to a baseball game you would see people in the stands eating hot dogs and sunflower seeds, whereas if you were to go to a basketball game you might see people eating popcorn. Something as small as the kinds of foods sold at games has an impact on your experience at the game. Your sense of touch is probably the least noticed sense when thinking about sports, if you are a spectator, but it is not to say that you do not use it. When a player makes an incredible play, the first thing most people do is high five those standing or sitting near them. If a touchdown is scored to win the game, others will hug one another to express their excitement. If you were to step into the shoes of a South Carolina football player, they would say that the atmosphere has everything to do with the game. Depending on if you are the home team or the away team depends on how the fans act toward you. 

Changing the location of where you watch a game changes your five senses significantly. For example, if you were to stay at home and watch the Gamecocks play the Georgia Bulldogs in football your experience would be completely different than if you were to attend the game at Williams-Brice Stadium. All of your five senses would be affected differently even though you are watching the same game as someone who is at the event. Watching a sporting event from your own home versus at the live event changes everything. You would see that you are in your own home, watching your TV screen, instead of watching it live. What you would not see are the 80,250 people in garnet and black, but in sight would be your friends and family. You would smell all the food in your own kitchen that you or a family member has prepared, and then you would taste that food, which is probably better than from a concession stand. The sounds you will hear are ones that may be similar to a live event, depending on the sport, but will be much different because when watching from home you hear the constant voice of the announcer. Finally, your touch would be completely different because you would be sitting on a nice comfy couch rather than a hard stadium seat. All of these things have a major impact on your experience; the biggest thing that changes the senses is what sporting event you choose to go to. For the athlete, if they play at an opposing teams field, the environment is harsher on the mental game. 80,000 fans rooting against you and hoping you fail is a difficult atmosphere to be mentally stable in. 

Different sports create different atmospheres for spectators. Think about how different a collegiate swim meet is compared to a collegiate basketball game. Yes, both have fans that are cheering their team on, but the overall atmospheres are completely different. At a swim meet there are a couple bleachers holding hundreds of fans, whereas at a basketball game there is an arena full of seats holding thousands of fans. The amount of people that show up to a game has an influence on the experience for fans. If there are not as many fans at a game, the game tends to feel more personal, and makes you feel as if you are in the game yourself. Not saying that a basketball game does not make you feel the same way, but the amount of people can make it seem not as personal. This means that different sports create different atmospheres. This has a positive influence on daily life because depending on the sport you decide to go to determines the kind of experience you get. Most people go to events for the experience as well as the game itself.

Social media plays a huge role in sports, because it can have an effect on anyone and everyone. “Social media can be a friend or an enemy of a college athlete, and their program” (Osterman). For example, I am on the South Carolina volleyball team and we have social media accounts for our team. We have a team Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. The main reason we have these accounts is for our fans to stay engaged in and feel a part of our team. These accounts allow fans to keep up with scores as well as get to know the players on a more personal level. When we are doing team events, or traveling the coaches let us take over the social media pages. This is a great way for the fans to get to know the players a little bit better. It is critical for fans to feel as if they know the players, because that is what makes them come back to games, buy season tickets, and support us even when we are not winning. From the athlete’s view of social media, there are many ways it can be beneficial, and there are also many ways that it can harm our image and harm the team’s reputation. When I arrived on campus for our first preseason meeting, one of the main talking points was about social media. We were told that anything we post on our social media accounts has a direct reflection on our program, on our coaches, and on the university. This can affect athletes day to day lives because now we are having to always think twice about what we post, almost as if our accounts are not our own anymore. This is because the larger media sources are always looking for ways to expose athletes who mess up or get into trouble. Social media does not only affect athletes.

Coaches of any level program can use social media to their benefit. They can promote their team with it, they can post things to hype up their fans, and they also can use their accounts to show their fans what kind of person they are. Social media is now also involved in the recruiting process. At first college coaches were not able to: share, like, repost, or retweet anything from potential recruits posts, now they are. This changes recruiting because now, for some kids, if a certain coach from a school reposts their post, the recruit may show more interest in that school simply because the coach showed interest in them. Social media can also create a sort of bond between coach and fan. This is because, like the athletes, the fans get to know the coach on a more personal level causing them to associate themselves with that coach and that team. In a way you could see this as a kind of brand loyalty. Coaches and athletes are not the only ones who use social media to improve their image. 

Companies and sponsors of teams use social media almost every day to promote their products. For example, a couple of years ago, I posted on my social media about Auburn going to the national championship in Pasadena, California. Somehow, Coke Zero saw my post and direct messaged me saying that they would send me a game day package to watch the game. A couple days later, a package came in the mail, inside was a flat head of “Aubie” the mascot along with coozies, coasters, and two shakers. A note attached to the “flat Aubie” was a promotion telling us that as we made our way out to California, to take flat Aubie with us and post it on social media so everyone could see flat Aubie make his way to California. This was a great marketing idea, because now they are letting the consumers do the marketing for them through social media. Social media has “become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behavior including awareness, information, acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behavior, and post-purchase communication and evaluation” (Faulds). This shows that companies and sponsors can use social media for any occasion and everyday to get their name in front of your face. A negative impact social media can have on companies and sponsors are that the negative impacts are always unexpected. For example, if a player who is sponsored by Under Armour, and their “off the field” actions show up in a negative way in the media, Under Armour is also negatively impacted by the player’s wrong decisions. This hypothetical example would affect the daily life of the people who work for Under Armour.

“On game day Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social networks…” used by fans (Facebook). This statement is not hard to believe. Fans use social media all the time with sports. We use social media for sports sometimes without thinking about it. For example, if I want to know the score of the South Carolina baseball game, I first go to twitter. I do this because I know that it is someone’s job to keep updating the account with what is happening for fans that cannot make it. It is said “the content that fans find most engaging is centered on pre- and post-game excitement …” (Facebook). This quote is also very credible because if you think about when people post things on their social media, it is usually around game time or right after the game. We like to post things such as: pictures of us in our favorite players jersey, pictures at a tailgate and pictures inside the event, we also share our location on our pictures so people know where we are. Out of season, fans are always keeping up with their teams via social media. They can see who their favorite team signs, who they trade, what kinds of things they are working on for next season and many more. Fans also like to use social media in a negative way. One way they abuse social media and sports is by being unsportsmanlike. They trash talk opponents to the extent of tagging them in the post. The other way fans abuse the use of social media and sport is by posting negative comments about their own team. For example, a head coach of a football team calls a play at the end of a game, and this play determines a win or loss, and the call results in a loss. You are guaranteed to see multiple posts about how awful the play calling was by the coaches. You may also see posts about how a certain player should have blocked better, or should have caught the ball. These are just a few ways we can abuse social media in sports. Overall, social media is a very beneficial tool for all people involved in sports. It can help you promote your company, can help you boost a teams reputation, can help athletes build their image, but it can also hurt their image. Social media in sports is now a craze that is rapidly growing and can be used in a multitude of ways. 

The lifestyle of an athlete is quite different than of a non-athlete. There are many ways that sports affect athletes’ day-to-day life. As a member of the South Carolina volleyball team, I will lay out what a normal day looks like in season: 8:30 AM-class, 10:05 AM- class, 11:40AM- class, 2:00 PM- weight lifting, 3:00-6:00 PM- practice, 7:00-9:00 PM- study hall. That is what a Tuesday would look like for me during volleyball season. I am a firm believer that school always comes before sports, but I am reminded each day that sports are what got me to college. Our lives are affected each and every day by sports. Everything athletes do, think about doing, or eat, all has to be thought of with sports in mind. Athletes have been taught this from a young age, because you don’t want to do anything to potentially risk your opportunity to play. One of my favorite athletes is Kerri Walsh Jennings, a three-time Olympic gold medalist. I researched how her day-to-day life was affected by being an Olympian. She trains “on the beach six days a week for practice, and that’s generally about two and a half hours. And then [she’s] doing Pilates three times a week, [she does] a program called FastTwitch twice a week, basically my lifting and strength training, [and she’s] working with a spine specialist” (Kerri Walsh Jennings). On top of all of that, she has a husband and three kids to take care of. The interviewer asked how her family fit into her crazy lifestyle. She explained to him that she was raised with a mother who worked, and she wanted to be the same. She states that her children “hold [her] more accountable for who [she] is and who [she] aspires to be…” (Kerri Walsh Jennings). From a college athlete’s view of a typical day to an overview of an Olympian’s week, athletes’ lives are extremely busy. They experience the sport life first hand, and no day is the same. 

Injuries can also have a major affect on everyday life. Say you enjoy biking. As you get older and your joints start to stiffen up, you are not able to participate in the one thing you love to do. It can be very hard to pick up something new and love it just as much. The same applies for athletes. Except, depending on the sport, the injury could put a hold on your career. For example, concussions are major injuries that affect many athletes. “Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto found that the brains of those with a history of concussion showed changes in size, blood flow, and connections in the brain months later” (Concussions Show). This is a serious issue because multiple hits to the head can cause damage to your brain and affect you for the rest of your life. It may also affect certain parts of your brain to not function, as they should. If the athletes are young, it could deprive them from certain parts of their brains, which could have serious implications for them later in life.

Youth sports can be beneficial in many ways. The skills taught in youth sports teach young athletes things such as: “leadership and teamwork, healthy lifestyles, high self esteem, discipline, as well as respect and trust” (Do Team Sports Help…). I am a strong believer that these are true. Being involved in sports when you are young can help you later in life when you are looking to find a job. Having those kinds of qualities will help you later in life because you will be set apart from others. Also, you will have qualities that a potential boss is looking for in an employee, resulting in job security. The further you go in sports, meaning as you advance in sports, the more valuable you become to employers. This is because at higher levels of competition it shows that you have to pay even more attention to detail and manage your time better. Though not everyone believes sports can have a healthy impact on our youth.

I can go on and on talking about how sports positively affect your daily life, but there are individuals who believe that sports can be a negative influence on our youth. Some believe that sports can lead to violence. I can see where people can think this about sports, but I believe that sports are not always violent as there are many non-contact sports. Sports can be a way to release emotions, but it is not always violent.  I also think some people confuse the meaning of “violent” and “competitive”. Professional athletes can have a major influence on youth but if they abuse the influence they have, issues can occur. It is a known fact that kids copy what their favorite athletes do. For example; “74 percent of kids say that it is common for a professional athlete to yell at a referee; 62 percent say that trash talking opponents is the norm; and 46 percent say it’s not uncommon for athletes to take cheap shots at opponents” (Dadigan). I do agree that this is not something our youth today should mimic, but I do believe that it is the parents job to stress what is right and wrong. 

There are many different ways sport can affect daily life. Whether it is the atmosphere, social media, life of an athlete, potential career-ending injuries, or life skills you aquire through sports. Everyone, even those who think sports have a negative influence on us, is connected with sports in some way. At the end of the day, sports bring different groups together to work together as one to accomplish a common goal. 
