This study investigated racial attitudes about American Indians that are electronically expressed in newspaper online forums by examining the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname and logo used for their athletic teams. Using a modified Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) methodology to analyze over 1,000 online forum comments, the research team generated themes, domains, and core ideas from the data. The core ideas included (a) surprise, (b) power and privilege, (c) trivialization, and (d) denigration. The findings indicated that a critical mass of online forum comments represented ignorance about American Indian culture and even disdain toward American Indians by providing misinformation, perpetuating stereotypes, and expressing overtly racist attitudes toward American Indians. Results of this study were explained through the lens of White power and privilege, as well as through the framework of two-faced racism (Picca & Feagin, 2007). Results provide support to previous findings that indicate the presence of Native-themed mascots, nicknames, or logos can negatively impact the psychological well-being of American Indians.

Female student athletes often desire a muscular body to be successful in sport, but this body type does not conform to traditional cultural norms of femininity. In this study, the authors qualitatively examined the experiences of female intercollegiate volleyball players to better understand their beliefs about their bodies—both as athletes and as women outside of sport—in addition to whether perceptions about their revealing sports uniforms were related to body image. Results indicated that body image among female student athletes is a multidimensional construct. Participants reported conflicting messages about their bodies in regard to how they look on the court and how they are supposed to look off the court. In addition, results suggested that revealing uniforms contributed to decreased body esteem, and these uniforms also distracted players and impacted on-court performance. Results are interpreted within the framework of objectification theory, and implications for psychologists working with female student athletes are provided.

Twitter, the popular social-media platform, is a staple in intercollegiate athletics. Although it is often regarded merely as a pastime, Twitter boasts advantages and disadvantages to college student athletes and their programs. This is primarily due to the nature of interactions and exchanges that take place between student athletes and the general public, be they fans, critics, or somewhere in between. Using a semistructured protocol, the researchers conducted a 75-min focus-group interview with 7 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I student athletes to examine the psychological impacts of Twitter use. A modified version of consensual qualitative research was used for data analysis. Results indicated that student athletes were heavily influenced and affected by Twitter use across various domains in their lives. Participants reflected on both advantages (e.g., avenue for advocacy and moral support and promoting team cohesion) and disadvantages (e.g., receipt of critical tweets and detrimental performance implications) of using the microblogging platform, thereby corroborating extant literature and providing a more balanced perspective of Twitter’s resulting impact. The researchers explicated practical implications including improved social-media training and the development of best practices to support student athletes in their responsible use of Twitter. Further research is necessary to better understand the differences in experiences of student athletes competing in revenue-generating sports compared with those competing in non-revenue-generating sports.

USA Football established five levels-of-contact to guide the intensity of high school football practices. The objective of this study was to examine head impact frequency and magnitude by levels-of-contact to determine which drills had the greatest head impact exposure. Our primary hypothesis was that there would be an incremental increase in season-long head impact exposure between levels-of-contact: air<bags<control<thud<live. This observational study included 24 high-school football players during all 46 practices, 1 scrimmage, 9 junior varsity and 10 varsity games in the 2019 season. Players wore a sensor-installed mouthguard that monitored head impact frequency, peak linear acceleration (PLA), and rotational acceleration (PRA). Practice/game drills were filmed and categorized into five levels-of-contact (air, bags, control, thud, live), and head impact data were assigned into one of five levels-of-contact. Player position was categorized into lineman, hybrid, and skill. A total of 6016 head impacts were recorded during 5 levels-of-contact throughout the season. In the overall sample, total number of impacts, sum of PLA, and PRA per player increased in a near incremental manner (air<bags<control = thud<live), where live drills had significantly higher cumulative frequency (113.7±17.8 hits/player) and magnitude [2,657.6±432.0 g (PLA), and 233.9 ± 40.1 krad/s² (PRA)] than any other levels-of-contact, whereas air drills showed the lowest cumulative frequency (7.7±1.9 hits/player) and magnitude [176.9±42.5 g (PLA), PRA 16.7±4.2 krad/s² (PRA)]. There was no significant position group difference in cumulative head impact frequency and magnitude in a season. Although there was no difference in average head impact magnitude across five levels-of-contact and by position group PLA (18.2–23.2g) and PRA (1.6–2.3krad/s²) per impact], high magnitude (60-100g and >100g) head impacts were more frequently observed during live and thud drills. Level-of-contact influences cumulative head impact frequency and magnitude in high-school football, with players incurring frequent, high magnitude head impacts during live, thud, and control. It is important to consider level-of-contact to refine clinical exposure guidelines to minimize head impact burden in high-school football.