LCAD – Lincoln Council on Alcoholism and Drugs

 

Frequently asked Questions about the Life of an Athlete Program (LOA)

What can LOA do for our school and community? Have high school athletes changed?

The “just do it” generation has been marketed to and it has indeed worked. Today’s athlete has assumed the adventurer/risk takers stance on how far to push their luck. Athletes have always portrayed the assumption of risk as behavior as usual. The recent onset of increases in pack mentality has certainly increased the problems and behaviors of concern we presently see. Even non-risk takers boldly portray themselves as risk takers to fulfill a “wan-a-be” identity. Social drug use is now normative. It is “Just what they do…” This puts today’s athletes at incredible risk for many negative behaviors of concern.

 

How many athletes use social drugs? What is the big deal? Kids party?

It begins at onset in 7th grade with 14.1% reporting alcohol consumption during the school year. This use progresses to 58.5% by 12th grade. It is understandably of concern that the use is associated with increasing amounts throughout high school, although the number of occasions per month remains relatively constant at five drinking episodes per month, which leads us to believe that it is for most once per week on the weekend. Nonetheless, this activity is against the law and dangerous, as alcohol has been linked to nearly all high risk behaviors and health crises. When we combine this alcohol use with high risk behaviors normally experienced by youth, we greatly magnify the propensity for disaster and watch our young adolescents enter the ten most dangerous years of life, ages 14-24.

 

Who does it target?

High School Administrators, Athletes, Parents/Guardians, Coaches and Community Stakeholders.

 

Why Athletes?

Prevention and intervention efforts focus on target populations. Often they look for populations with something in common. Athletes are the largest target population that exists in any community or any school. 40-90% of students in most U.S. schools are involved in at least one sport. More than any other group of adolescents, we have compelling reasons for athletes not to drink, health and performance. Alcohol, a metabolic poison has only negative effects on all physiological parameters. This can be our initial rationale for non-use.

 

What is the emphasis of the program?

• Phase #1 Pre-Season Meetings for Entry Level Athletes and Parents – Phase one employs a strategy for school districts to establish mandatory seasonal meetings to discuss conditions for involvement, expectations, philosophy and also to address the issues of chemical health and social drug use by athletes. A clear perspective of the privilege and personal and collective responsibility required to be afforded the opportunity to be an athlete. This program allows you to impact the majority of your entire student body and most importantly the parents. Athletics is the largest target population that exists in any school. Drug data and research is shared with all stakeholders
• Phase #2 Athletic Codes of Conduct Conditions for Involvement – The #1 issue reported by high school Athletic Directors is the problem of enforcing Codes of Conduct. This program helps schools to understand what a code is for, what it can impact and how to rewrite them for today’s athlete and the dilemmas they face. This program includes strategies for controlling adult fan/stakeholder behaviors of concern, parental issues, and the seven non-negotiable conditions for involvement to partake in high school sports. It also addresses the problem of modern day codes, which are reactive punishment based documents. Codes are re-written as proactive character based documents, taking us to a valuable paradigm shift, supporting our young athletes by telling them what we want them to do and our rationale for why, rather than telling them what we don’t want and what we will do to them, if they fail to follow the rules.
• Phase #3 Coaching Effectiveness Training for Chemical Health Issues – Phase 3 focuses on training of all coaches at all levels to understand and confront chemical health issues for today’s student athlete. Training includes the use of the document “Greatest Threat” which helps a coach impact his/her team with valuable lessons against drug use and affords any coach a perspective of the present day problem and how they can impact it.
• Phase #4 Developing Leadership to Confront Behaviors of Concern – This workshop is designed to identify, evaluate and develop hand-picked student-athlete leaders. Once chosen, the primary focus is to teach the individual what it means to be a leader and how to handle the responsibility that comes with a position of authority, influence, and importance. We teach the leaders how to confront their peers with behaviors of concern and to take matters that merit immediate action or continual issues to an adult authority. This workshop gives the coach and administrator a conduit to behaviors in the group. Individual and team success depends on good leadership. The first school to use this program had 27 athletes turned in for chemical health violations in the first year, for failure to follow the code of conduct.
• Phase 5 Stakeholder Unity - The fifth and final phase in Life of an Athlete is to ensure that all members of the community take stake in eliminating drug and alcohol use among youth. Only by coordinating our efforts and taking a “many messengers with the same message” approach can we ensure that all individuals receive that message. This workshop allows a school district to take a comprehensive look at all aspects of their existing programs and determine priorities for the future. Year five allows all stakeholders to share their views of the entire athletic program. This process gives any school district a valuable perspective of establishing priorities, strengths and limitations for the future directions of the programs. An evaluative process is utilized to garner valuable information on student athlete chemical health issues within your athletic program. The information gained is incredible. Copyright © 2009 American Athletic Institute. All rights reserved.

What domains, protective factors and risk factors does LOA affect?

Protective Factors

Individual:

• Improved knowledge and understanding of athlete lifestyle, training effect and goal and social cohesion.
• Accurate knowledge of the effect of social drug use and performance.
• Improved perception of personal achievement and self efficacy, through greater normative understanding and personal and collective responsibility.

School:

• Team Vigilance
• Individual responsibility
• Collective responsibility
• Team leadership
• Coaching Vigilance
• Parent Vigilance
• Stakeholder Knowledge Understanding Agreement
• Fan responsibility
• Universal Code enforcement

Community:

• Debunk any perceptions that use is acceptable
• Get community involved in after contest activities
• Create community tone of healthy athletes with character
• Community wide support of Code

Risk Factors:

Individual:

• Personal vulnerability to use drugs

School:

• Drug use norms

Community:

• Availability of drugs to athletes
• Enforcement of all laws pertaining to underage use

 

Besides better athletes and winning teams what else can LOA do for our youth?

The following are some of the additional benefits for student-athletes who choose not to drink alcohol:

• Academic or athletic performance will not be affected;
• The risk of breaking school rules or the law is greatly reduced;
• Serious and life threatening problems related to being alcohol impaired such as drunk driving and sexual decision-making, injury, arrest, death are eliminated or reduced;
• There is reduced risk of becoming addicted to alcohol; and,
•  The ability to develop appropriate life skills such as stress management, problem solving, conflict resolution, interacting with others, and goal setting is enhanced.
•  Young people can learn what it means to join a social order and be held to agreed upon standards for the group.

 

John Underwood, President and Founder
American Athletic Institute

A former NCAA All-American, International-level distance runner and World Masters Champion, John has coached or advised more than two dozen Olympians including World and Olympic Champions. He holds three International Olympic Solidarity
diplomas for coaching and has been a crusader for drug-free sport at all levels. John’s innovative program “PUREPERFORMANCE”, has gained international prominence. He is the Master Trainer for the New York Public High School
Athletic Association drug prevention program which is one of the largest mandated programs in prevention history. John was recently named as a consultant to the prestigious Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation and the Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center. John has presented at the Department of Justices’ OJJDP National Leadership Conference for the past six years and to the U.S. Department of Education. He has conducted the only physiological case study, of the residual effect of alcohol on elite athletic performance. He has appeared as a guest commentator for ABC Wide World of Sports for Olympic Drug Scandals. John has worked with nearly all sport federations including the NCAA, ECAC, NHL, NFL,NBA, the U.S. Olympic Committee, Sport Canada, the International Olympic Committee and the USAF. John Underwood is a Human Performance Consultant for the U.S. Navy SEALS.

The American Athletic Institute has forged a reputation as the experts in the field of athletics and social drug use.