KnApp Paper

Geronimo Narizzano

21 DE ABRIL DE 2023
As soon as I heard about the topic of the paper and read the instructions, I ran into what I

think everyone in the class ran into. Choosing the right relationship to talk about. I thought

of pretty much every person I knew, and I wasn’t sure what would be the right choice. I

thought about all my family members but that wouldn’t make a lot of sense since it was

hard for me to remember and tell the difference between the different stages. However, I

was inclining towards a platonic relationship because outside of my family they are the

ones most important to me and I couldn’t think of romantic or professional relationship

deep enough to write 7 pages about. That same day, I got a text from my first golf coach in

the United States. And as soon as I read it, I knew I would be talking about my relationship

with him. What started as a strictly professional relationship ended up developing into a

friendship that I would probably have forever. This relationship makes sense because I can

remember specific moments where we navigated through the stages Knapp talks about,

both because of the of the events themselves and because it was a moment of a lot of

personal changes in my life and this specific relationship was one of the few that guided me

trough them. I will start going trough some of the Knapp’s stages and then I will dive in

some of the other theories that we talked about during the semester.

The initiating part of the relationship was through email and probably the part that was the

most professional. He replied to an email I sent to their school saying that I would love to

play golf for them, and it had a curriculum type of document attached with my golf

tournaments results. After that we kept our conversations alive through mail and texts until

I committed to school. while one could argue that this differs from the initiation stage that

Knapp talks about, because appearance and judgement didn’t play a role. I could say that

it very much did. It was the first time that I was holding any kind of communication with
someone in English, and I was being extremely careful in what I wrote and how I wrote it.

Also, I would send him videos of my golf swing and I would choose which one I sent to

him based on how good it looked. I also think that there was something similar on his part.

Trying to make the school look as good as it could look. The following stages happened, of

course, once I got to the school. In this case, I can also tell a specific series of events that

remarks each stage. In terms of experimenting, now looking back, it was clear that we all

were getting to know each other (the whole team) but from the coaching/professional side

of relationship. He would come out and watch us play and ask as many questions as

possible. Trying to find that common ground we had inside the sport but also outside of it,

in and out the course. We had only two weeks between our very first day at school and our

first tournament and it still amazes me how much we got to know about each other in this

short period of time. In Addition, during the course of the season he kept trying different

ways to approach me before, while I was playing, and after the round to see what got the

best out of my game. And by him doing that I also learned a lot about what he liked to hear

and the way he liked the game.

After our first semester together and a very golf based/ professional relationship.

Something happened that changed the way our relationship moved towards the next stages

of Knapp's theory. As happened in all the world School was shut down in 2020 because of

the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the Airports closing back home I had to stay at the

school for 4 months practically by myself. From that moment on, I was more dependent on

my coach than before, and probably more than any other college golf player ever. This is

when the intensifying stage happened. In Beatrice, Nebraska, the little town where the

school was located, the only thing that stayed open was the golf course. So, for 4 months

straight we played and practiced golf every morning and afternoon. It was my coach, a
teammate and myself. At the end of the day, we were spending around 7 or 8 hours a day

together, so the chronemics and proxemics augmented plus the fact that we already had

undergone the first stages of the relationship intensifying was happening whether we

wanted or not. During the first weeks or so there was an effort to keep the relationship

professional but after the first couple days we realized that it was not going to be an easy

task. We had a lot of the same ideas and conversation came easy between all three of us.

Also, there was a lot of reciprocity, I was still somewhat new to the culture of a different

country, and they used that time to learn about the culture where I came from and why did I

think the way I did on the golf course. There were times at the golf course where we would

talk around 10 minutes before one of us played a shot to see what was going through each

of our heads and learning what thought process gave the best result. We also had fun

together and that played a very important role in the relationship switching from

professional to platonic. Also, what made me fell this feeling of reciprocity was the

competence. Me and five of my teammates were his first ever recruiting he had as a head

coach. Before that. As a college player he played two years in that exact community college

and he excelled being two times first time and having one of the best scoring averages in

school history. After his success he transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to

complete his eligibility and play for the golf team. One of the better golf teams in the

Midwest. In this school he also played great and was their best scoring average over both

the years he was there. Once he graduated the turned in to a professional golfer and the

volunteer assistant coach of the community college that we both attended. He literally went

through the path I was trying to go through just a couple years before. He knew exactly

what I had to do to achieve my goals as a golf player. He was an excellent golf player that

placed the bar pretty high and would get the best out of game. Reflecting about it, knowing
this made it easier for me to trust what he said and follow his lead. Something that in terms

of the game of golf it is hard for me to do.

Finally, after those four month I got the opportunity to flight back home and spend the rest

of the pandemic in Argentina. During this time, the relationship was already consolidated,

and we moved towards the maintenance stages. During my time back home, we would

text occasionally, trying to keep each other updated on our lives and golf games. But we

really got to the integrating stage once I got back to the school for a new year. While

reading chapter nine of the book I kept thinking how on point the concepts appear. In this

case, Commitment. I always felt passionate about the game of golf, and I committed a lot

of time and effort to it. But this time around I Was also committed to my coach and my

teammates. Growing up in Argentina I did not played golf as a part of a team. And ss

Maslow show in his hierarchy of needs belonging is an important need for a human.

There is also a study published in the International Journal of Sport and Exercise

Psychology that mentions "Team identification was significantly and positively related to

self-esteem and social identity." being part of a team and something bigger than myself

helped me to be, again, more committed to the relationship and the golf program. Since my

relationship with the coach was more advanced than the rest of my teammates I kind of

took and active role as an intermediator between both parts, some kind of captaincy role.

Because of this and his way of coaching we would meet about once a day during the week

to plan out the practice days and competition. During the following semesters the

relationship was pretty consistent. I wouldn’t say that the relationship is in one of the

“coming apart” stages but for obvious reasons our communication have diminished

significantly and it doesn’t have that professional side to it since he is not my coach
anymore. I would say that we are in a constant stage of circumscribing but far away from

stagnating.

As I said earlier, the years I was at the school I went trough a lot of change. In a way, I can

say that from a day to another I was in a completely different country, trying to speak a

different language, and having to make relationships with people that I have little, or none

contact up until those days. In their article "Self-Concept and Communication" published in

the International Encyclopedia of Communication, authors Joanne Cantor and Mary Anne

Fitzpatrick explain how self-concept influences communication behaviors, such as self-

disclosure and assertiveness. They also discuss how communication experiences can shape

self-concept, including the development of self-esteem and self-efficacy. And to be honest

for the first couple of months my communication experiences were not the best. I had to

make a conscious effort to not let that influence my self-concept. It was a very frustrating

period of time. Luckily enough my coach understood this, and he also made and effort to

being more patient with me. Later in the relationship we talked about these times, and he

explained to my how he could see how I acted differently in different situations based on

whether the situation implied my talking or not. I would look more confident in a golf

course where I had no requirement to talk with my playing partners and if so, I knew the

couple of things I could say, it was Predictable and Impersonal. Then when I have to

meet with a teacher or somebody from the administration in the school where I had to say

something more elaborated, I would look more nervous and run for help, trying to have him

or one of my teammates with me for reassurance. I think that this can be put in the Blind

Quadrant in the Johari’s window. When he mentioned to me, I completely agree with

him that it happened, however at the time I had no idea. Finally, one of the things that
changed me during this period of time, was my listening process. I considered talking

about this in hour first Homework assignment after we watched Michael Ury’s ted talk

“The Power of Listening”. I recall having the feeling that I took for granted every

conversation I had before my first day in the United States. I had to give my full attention

every time someone talk to me and be as focused as possible so I could quickly translate

what was going on over in my head generating some anxiety because I knew I was missing

out some words. There is a study published in the International Journal of Applied

Linguistics that says “Listeners in a second language have been found to rely more heavily

on top-down processing and their existing knowledge of the world to aid their

comprehension, given the limited processing capacity of the working memory.

Additionally, anxiety related to listening in a second language has been shown to negatively

affect the comprehension process, which may lead to greater processing difficulties and

slower comprehension speeds compared to listening in the native language.” The book also

mentions the importance of the memory when listening. Tying this to my relationship with

my coach. He was probably the person that I listened to the most and learned the more from

it. Of course, I spent more times with roommates and teammates, but what he had to say

made me put more effort in the process of listening.

To Conclude, I feel that this was an easy relationship to put through Knapp’s model not

only because it was an important relationship and it was easy to recall the stages but

because it was one of the relationships that helped me through the changes that make me

become the person I am today

Work Cited:
 Cantor, J., & Fitzpatrick, M. A. (2008). Self-concept and communication.

International Encyclopedia of Communication

 Kwon, H. H., & Trail, G. T. (2017). The effect of social identity on team

identification and team outcome expectations in college football. International

Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology

 Mishan, F. (2013). Listening comprehension in a second language: Theoretical

perspectives and empirical findings. International Journal of Applied Linguistics,

23(3), 227-246.