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Chryssa Monteiro

Professor Gardiakos

ENC1102

16 February 2023

Research Proposal Final Draft

Purpose

Track and field hasn’t always been something that I was passionate about. My love for

this sport grew during my highschool years and I actually didn’t know much at all about it until I

started. My sophomore year I practiced most of the sprinting and mid distance running events but

I didn’t fully emerge myself into the sport until my junior year. That year I actually got injured

which was what led me to explore the other events in track and field that didn’t involve just

running. That was when I started to fall in love with the sport. As I was recovering from my

injury I gave the throwing events a try and who knew how much I’d end up enjoying it. I

couldn’t give it my all because of my injury but I still went to the practices and observed every

little thing that the coaches would say and teach. Once I was back on my feet, I practiced not

only after school, but even on the weekends. I gave it my all until the very end of my highschool

years, even though I did get injured again in the last few weeks of my senior track season. I was

so close to making it to states, but due to my injury I couldn't, which definitely discouraged me

but I believe all that hard work paid off because I still ended up breaking the school record for

girls javelin.
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For this paper, what I want to focus on is the track and field community, specifically

talking about athletes making irrational and impulsive decisions due to external pressures. My

main motivation for researching this is because track and field isn’t acknowledged enough and

people don’t really see what goes on within this community. Many people obsess over other

sports, such as football and soccer, and they learn everything from the drills done in practice to

the stats of every game. But I think that it’s interesting to think about other sports that aren’t as

popular and what goes on within them.

In many sports over the years, there have been multiple instances where athletes have

done things and made certain choices to take their athletic skills to another level. Sometimes it is

broadcasted for the whole country, maybe even the world to see, but what isn’t shown to the

world is what actually leads these athletes to make these decisions. Everyone knows that

coaches, and anyone around an athlete, influence how they act towards the sport. They create

these high expectations and if the athlete doesn’t reach that, they are called names such as a

failure or weak. With all that pressure on an athlete, their mental health is affected, which then

targets their decision making. They will end up making irrational decisions because they must do

anything and everything they can to satisfy their coaches and others. There are a few outcomes

when it comes to what these athletes choose to do and one of these decisions would be taking

performance enhancers/drugs. It’s a quick and effective way to reach a certain athletic ability

level but it’s most definitely not the right thing to do. It goes against very strict rules within the

track and field community. Another outcome of these pressures would be athletes trying to train

through this pressure leading to stress which can actually physically affect their body. This

means that stress has an effect on the muscles in the body and it causes them to stiffen up thus
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increasing risk for injury, and yet athletes will still push themselves far past their limit without

realizing the damage.

I am very passionate about the topic of track and field, so when I get the chance to speak

about it, I will always take it. There is so much more that goes on behind closed doors and yet

not many take that step to understand what athletes really go through. Throughout my two

injuries, I felt this pressure from those around me. Not the pressure that my coaches would say

directly to me, but in a way that I felt like I had to do good for them, for my supporters, for my

team/school. There were times where I thought to myself if there was anything I could take to

make the pain from the injury go away and allow me to still compete. But the more I thought

about it, the more I knew that it would be wrong to take something to numb the pain knowing

that it could only hurt me more rather than help me. Even though I was just in highschool, that

goes to show how early on an athlete can be affected by the pressures around them. Also, not

only did I have these thoughts, but the way that I got injured in the first place was from training

too much. I wanted to do better, be better, to impress my coaches but I didn’t listen to my body

telling me to slow down, thus leading to the injury. Going off of that, the purpose of this paper is

to shed light on the real reason why athletes do what they have to do to reach the expectations of

those around them; the real reason why athletes do whatever they can for a taste of perfection.

Methods

The question that I have come up with for this research is very specific. I am talking

about track and field athletes and the irrational decisions that they make due to external

pressures. That is as specific as it could possibly get, thus narrowing down my research methods
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to one specific type. I know quite a few track athletes personally but I don’t know any who have

gone through a situation where they have used performance enhancers, mostly because they are

people in highschool and not many actually do track in college nor professionally. But, I do

know of multiple track and field athletes who have had documentaries made about their track

career thus far in life. I will use these documentaries and make observations on how each one has

reacted to the external pressures leading them to take performance enhancers. Not only will I

look for this, but I will also look for other decisions that were caused by these pressures and

stress. I will look for articles about these athletes that may go along with what is said in the

documentaries. The articles will give even more information about the unspoken trend within

this community. I’m not sure if I’ll use any surveys but I could possibly ask a few questions to

those athletes that I do know personally in regards to external pressures and those from coaches.

This will give me more of an insight on how these athletes are mentally affected which leads to

the choices they make within their athletic career. I do know a few athletes who have gotten

injured during our track seasons together, so I may ask them a few questions about what

decisions they made during those times of stress from all that pressure put on them.

Discussion and Implications

I believe that this research study will be informational to everyone, not just other athletes,

and inform them about the true effects of pressure on an athlete. Not only will this be

information for track athletes but also the community as a whole because what many don’t

understand is that within this group one mistake affects everyone. Obviously this is the case for

many sports, but for track and field, when it comes to the meets and competitions, one little

mistake can cost the whole team. There may be a few things that I believe might complicate the
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research process; one of those being the observations. I have found various different

documentaries about certain track athletes and I’ve watched a few in the past but I’m sure I

would have to spend quite a bit of time on the ones I haven’t seen yet. This may make the

research process a bit longer than if I were to just do an interview or a survey. Other than this, I

would also have to pay close attention to the details within each documentary to catch the

important information that I would need for my research. Overall, once this research is done, the

information in the end will be a good source for a more in depth look at this topic. It will be

informational to any athlete, even those outside of the track and field community, to shed light on

the true effects of external pressures.