Why Athletes Choke in the Big Games? :: essays research papers

All sports fans have heard athletes comment that they choked or just couldnt win the salient game. The topic that will be addressed in this paper deals with the outcome of sporting events and why athletes continue to choke during and at the end of extremely historic competitions. Baumeister (1992) found that the choking reflex can be attributed to psychoneuromuscular influences(p.3). My interest in the subject comes from being a big sports fan and a former athlete. And alike from hearing people make comments such as, Scott Norwood and the entire Buffalo Bills football team are chokers. They cant even win one topnotch Bowl in four tries. Barry Bonds cant get one hit in the playoffs and thinks hes the best baseball player ever. At the end of this paper you will be able to see why coaches and players go through these rough situations and what they can do to prevent them from happening again. In golf, choking is known as the yips and is defined as a psychoneuromuscular impediment o f the execution of the simplest of tasks (Smith, 2000, p. 1). Adler (2003) defined the yips as a motor phenomenon of instinctive movements affecting golfers (p. 1). Yips is believed to be acquired through the deterioration of motor pathways via the basal ganglia. In some players it results from severe performance anxiety. This means that when a high direct of stress and physiological arousal is present the yips start to show up. Basic patterns of the yips include sweaty palms, uncontrollable jerks, and anxiety. These symptoms continue to repeat themselves until the person that is touch on learns to deal with these situations. These problems can influence quality of performance and even result in decreased playing time. Yips can also lead to the character of both alcohol and drugs as a coping adjacent. (Adler, Crews, Wharen, & Laskowski 2003). Many of the best golfers in the world have had to experience this including Ben Hogan. Hogan said, The difference between competitive golf and pleasure golf is like the difference between ice hockey and tennis (Wertz, 86, p.