Date of Award

2014-01-01

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Communication

Advisor(s)

Stacey K. Sowards

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover what communication practices coaches used on walk-on athletes and to determine whether the coach was successful or unsuccessful from the athletes' perspective. 15 present and former walk-on athletes who played for The University of Texas at El Paso football team served as the participants for the present study. In order to obtain data, the researcher interviewed the walk-on athletes using the phenomenological approach (Sparks, 1993) which utilizes open-ended questions to find out what kind of experience(s) the walk-on athletes shared in relationship to their coach. Results suggested that six major themes surfaced from the interviews of walk-on athletes: Presence, Connection, Building/Destructing, Imperfection, Crippling their Desires, and Management Strategies. These themes indicated the relationships corresponding to the communication the athletes shared with their coaches.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

85 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Cortland Blake Dubose

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