Nearing the last few weeks of our Women’s group that has seeded from the Prep Step concept we wanted to figure out what are the possibilities from here and ultimately if the group was a success. We need to know how the girls find their experience and how we could improve it if we were to have a second group. We took a lot of factors into account when deciding how to promote this group, but we also had variables we did not anticipate.
The idea of meeting once a week to discuss bettering yourself seems great, but we need to take into account other views. One of those views could be the student athlete’s feeling of it as “another obligation”. We planned to eliminate this feeling by making the group participation on a volunteer basis, include food and other enticements. We also thought this would encourage high interest and participation during group meetings since they volunteered to be present. Despite our plan, we were sad to be informed we still had some people who were inconsistent with their effort, participation and interest in the group during the meetings. This could be for a multitude of reasons including person issues that student athlete was experiencing.
Lack of personal contrinbution and other issues can easily cause a lack of trust within the group. These and more could be factors that significantly impacted that individual’s experience and the group as a whole’s ability to move forward through sharing. The amount of time (10 weeks) that the group met could not have been enough to develop a trusting environment for group sharing. We realized this dynamic balance exhibited our Musketeer values “All for one and one for all”. The group is there to help the individual, but the individual contributes to the group. And on the negative component the one individual can hold back the group’s ability to build trusting foundations that encourage opening up to deeper matters. A significant factor to success of our group is their ability to create a confident trust circle. We will focus on that if we repeat the group with new individuals.
At the conclusion of the sessions we will meet with the counselor, those involved in the planning process and get input from the student athletes. This will give us a better idea of whether we reached our goals and what kind of experience the student athletes received. After we deem the project a success, or handle necessary changes the question is… what’s next? We could have another small group of sophomores for the second semester and repeat the entire process in hopes of improved group dynamics.
There is the option of applying for the class to become academic credit. While this is not per say hard or impossible, it involves a long process with a lot of red tape. It would take 1-2 years minimum to achieve. Applying to be a course in the university requires providing syllabus and class concepts. This is slightly against our original intent to cater to the individual, as well as promote dependent group thought and leadership. We have concepts to discuss, but no concrete syllabus in which there are chapters and tests correlating to a schedule. Being a University course brings us back to our original concern of the obligation of the student athlete to be there. The last thing we want is a begrudged athlete sitting in a “class” feeling forced to talk about their feelings. We want them to be in control of their actions and make decisions and what they choose to participate in. We need to empower our young women to make their own decision and take actions they believe in.
A quote from our original stated goals: “develop the skills and confidence to overcome challenges and become successful women in the community”. This implies that the individual develops the skill, not that we teach them how to be successful, or tell them how they should handle their lives. These are experiences they will face. Hopefully, no matter where this concept goes from here (class, second pilot group, or otherwise), we will continue to be a confident resource for these young women as THEY discover their path through life.
Now the ball is in your court…
Do your athletes see you as a resource if they face adversity?
What type of impression are you making as a role model representing women in athletics?
What can you do in your institution, with your teams, to promote development of young women?
-Cori Dayton
Xavier University
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