RJ #25
Use this research journal to examine your Research Portfolio as a whole. What’s here? What does it mean? Now is the time to move these extensive fieldnotes into a draft of your Final Ethnographic Project. First pass at this draft is due in a week.
Closed, my Research Portfolio is one-inch, three-ring binder. It is white , covered in a clear plastic to place a cover sheet, etc. Once opened, my Research Portfolio contains eight labeled dividers: (in order) Artifacts, Fieldnotes, Codebook, Surveys, Interviews, RJ’s, WA’s and Scholarship. The binder also contains two built in pockets, where the front houses my current gradesheet and the back holds particular packets given to us in class. As this is a late entry, once opened, my up-to-date portfolio contains my Annotated Bibliography as a type of “Table of Contents.” While the dividers are self explanatory, especially with the help of my Annotated Bibliography, the most interesting section would have to be ‘Surveys.” In this particular section, I have 26 team member opinions regarding their motives and thier opinion of our coach, Neil Piper. (As seen in the Artifacts, there are 27 players on the roster… I have not included myself in the survey.) What I find most interesting about this study is that, unlike my hypothesis, the girls are driven more by obligation (“because that’s what we are supposed to do”) rather then fear from Neil’s anger or his punishments. However, I was correct in the thought that there would be more negative attitudes towards him when answering, “Please describe our coach, Neil Piper, in one word.” So, what does this mean? As stated in my Research Journal 20, I have cited in bold, “an individual of a team may suppress negative attitudes in order to let the team flourish positively.” Although the majority of the girls share negative attitudes towards their coach, completing the daily activities with this type of negativity and fear can take its toll on the team’s functioning as a whole. Like many athletes, I believe that the women soccer players of Texas A&M Commerce understand that the team comes first, thus their personal feelings need to be pushed aside for the success of the team to thrive. Our particular program, like many other organizations, requires specific organization (practice uniform schedule, cubbies), with the postive doses of “excitement,” such as the spit circle. As Taylor expressed in her interview, team traditions “get you fired up,” thus combining both obligation and excitement for success in both practices and games. In regards to the motivation of “fear”, it is possible that a coach inflicts this attitude as means of getting respect. It is also possible that while respect is not there, listening and following directions is. Trying to add as minimal insight as possible, as a player myself I can compare my relationship with Neil and past coaches… having more fear towards him has definately caused me to listen and follow his direction more than I did with “nicer” coaches, although I do not agree with some of his methods of maintining authority (See: fieldnotes regarding Haley Mull and Jordan McCarty) so I do not necessarily respect him.
