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Penn State Student-Athletes Group Research Project: Final Paper

Colin Lloyd, Adam Stover, Mya Little

Recreation, Park, Tourism Management, The Pennsylvania State University

RPTM 433W: Program Evaluation and Research in Recreation Services

Dr. Jen Agans

December 13, 2021

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Literature Review

NIL Laws

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) claims that its primary purpose is

to “create opportunities for college athletes,” yet they continuously create barriers for collegiate

athletes to take advantage of monetary opportunities and hold them back from reaching their

professional potential (Stahler, 2021). However, this is on track to change soon. With the recent

implementations of name, image, and likeness (NIL) laws across multiple states in the US,

student-athletes are now going to be able to profit off of brand deals, sponsorships, and more.

NIL laws allow athletes to build their own brand, away from their school, and start to reap the

financial benefits of the relationships they create on their own time. These new opportunities to

earn money off of their NIL are going to transform the way student-athletes experience their

collegiate career, while also setting them up for a brighter future. This is why the research

question, “How do Penn State student-athletes think the new NIL laws will affect their collegiate

career?,” will be examined in this report.

For far too long, the amount of control that the NCAA has had over its athletes has been

unreasonable and unfair (Sanderson & Siegfried, 2015). One of the strict guidelines that

student-athletes have had to follow in the past was the inability to make any money for

themselves during their time in school, because the NCAA claimed that it would take away from

their amateur status as a collegiate athlete and that eventually larger institutions would find ways

around the rules in order to gain a recruiting advantage over their competition (Berri, 2016). The

NCAA also likes to remind people that they are giving many student-athletes full-ride

scholarships, because they believe this is a suitable enough benefit to justify their strict

guidelines. However, even though some athletes can provide up to millions of dollars in value
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for the NCAA per year, the average athlete only receives roughly $30,000 in various benefits

from the schools they attend (Berri, 2016). If the NCAA is unwilling to pay the athletes any

money, then disabling them from profiting off of their NIL is just about control.

With a NIL law in place, student-athletes are able to build their own brand and capitalize

on the opportunity to profit from a niche market where they attend school. The vast majority of

collegiate athletes will not make it to the professional ranks, so their college years are the time

when they need to take advantage of a market that truly cares about them. While playing

collegiate sports does help a lot of athletes make it to the pros, having a NIL law levels the

playing field for those who will see their playing careers end after college (Stahler, 2021).

With such a large opportunity at the hands of these collegiate athletes, their institutions

should be offering financial literacy programs and contractual guidance classes to ensure that the

students are approaching these new possibilities in the most beneficial ways that are possible.

College is all about setting up students for their future, so if universities consider these athletes

as students first, then they should provide the guidance needed for athletes to benefit from NIL

laws. Student-athletes are already proven to have a lesser degree of financial knowledge than

non-athletes, and many of the few that go pro end up struggling with money management until it

is too late to fix (Rubin, 2021; Stahler, 2021).

Understanding the impact of NIL laws on collegiate athletes and the institutions they

attend will be exceptionally important looking into the future of college sports. NIL laws will

guide the ways athletes create their brand, set themselves up for the future, and live their daily

lives, while institutions will be inclined to help students grow in the professional world in order

to create a more positive image for themselves as well. The billions of dollars that the NCAA

makes per year is nothing without the athletes, so it is only right that they get this opportunity.
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Training

Training is an important aspect of how student athletes improve their skills. Underclassmen

and upperclassmen train at different levels. This could be because underclassmen are new to a

program, a regimen, and are still learning new skills that upperclassmen may be doing for years.

We are going to take a deeper look into these differences in training. The point of this study is to

see how upperclassmen athletes train differently from underclassmen.

Different levels of strength training obviously make a difference in how much players have

to improve on. An underclassmen may need to work on strength much more than an

upperclassmen, upperclassmen might learn that losing muscle to increase flexibility actually aids

them in their sport.. There have been previous studies done on the difference of how an athlete

builds muscle and performs throughout a competitive season (Nimphius et al., 2012). This is

another reason to learn more on the differences in training for under and upperclassmen. Who

gets stronger and who gets weaker as the season goes on? This is important to know for

professionals in the area of sports.

There are also differences in nutrition which some athletes have to learn and some have to

improve on. Underclassmen may be learning more about nutrition, but upperclassmen may be

working on nutrition that they know they need to improve upon. One previous study focused on

eating behaviors and use of supplements, especially protein supplements (Wertheimer, 2013).

This study sampled 255 student athletes to learn more about their nutrition. The study found that

both underclassmen and upperclassmen reported skipping breakfast, with upperclassmen actually

skipping breakfast more. There were no noted differences in supplement use (Wertheimer, 2013).

A further look should be taken to really understand more on the difference between

underclassmen and upperclassmen when it comes to nutrition. Possibly different questions need
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to be asked to determine the utility of this study. For example instead of asking how many meals

are skipped, and who uses supplements maybe we should make deeper comparisons. Possibly

asking questions about how many calories do these athletes eat in a day, and how many grams of

protein do they consume.

There are also differences in confidence and skill level. Underclassmen could be new to the

team and learning. Until they get as comfortable in a new environment they may lack as much

confidence as upperclassmen. One previous study looked at “how coaches' anxiety relationship

with their players competitive anxiety and performance.” (Mottaghi et al., 2013). This study

found that there was a positive relationship with the coach's anxiety and the players’ anxiety. I

found that to be interesting that most players were upperclassmen in this study. It makes me

wonder how the same study would be done for underclassmen. Would there be more or less

anxiety? Since underclassmen have more to prove, they may have more anxiety. A previous

study looked at how athletes from all ages experience injury and the emotions that come with all

forms of injuries from sprains to tears (Smith et al., 1990). It is important to notice the types of

emotion that athletes deal with when it comes to getting injured.

One study that has some relevance is one that was done on the amount of time females and

males spent in the weight room (Boyd et al., 2017). This particular study found that females

worked out longer than males and reported feeling more educated on training and sport

performance from the study (Boyd et al., 2017).

In conclusion, there have been a lot of specific training studies done that focus on one area

of an athlete’s training. But there are not very many studies done on the differences in

underclassmen and upperclassmen. This is important for professionals in the area of sports
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training to learn about. For this study, I would like to look at how underclassmen and

upperclassmen differ in terms of nutrition, training, health, and confidence.

Mental Health

The Global Pandemic has changed the lives of so many across the globe. Everyone had to shift

and discover a new way of living. Covid-19 has affected people far beyond just the physical aspect. It has

affected people also financially, emotionally, and more importantly mentally. Mental Health is defined as

“a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being” (Oxford Languages).

Mental health affects how we think, act, and feel and it also determines how we live our lives. This topic

should be prioritized throughout people’s lives to ensure that they are getting the most out of their time

here on Earth. At the beginning of the Pandemic, everything was shutting down and people didn’t know

what they were going to do. Fortunately, restrictions were implemented and the government found a way

to still make things work. A group of people who were specifically affected by the Pandemic were

Collegiate Athletes. Due to the global pandemic multiple sports seasons were cancelled or postponed and

any hope of post-season championships play was gone. The pandemic caused unforeseen setbacks in their

athletic careers, and luckily they were granted another year of eligibility. A study was done to examine if

the Covid-19 Pandemic had an effect on Penn State collegiate athletes mental health as it relates to their

stress levels, GPA, emotional state, and athletic performance. This is important because collegiate athletes

performing at a Division I level have so much pressure to perform well. This study will show if the

Pandemic added to that pressure from the mental aspect.

For the average college student’s perspective life was flipped upside down at the

beginning of the Pandemic. They went from everything on campus to everything being remote

and being isolated. The best advice the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) can

offer is to follow COVID-19 guidelines and everyday precautions. These precautions resulted in

more isolation and forced athletes to postpone seasons and be isolated from everyone.
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This is taken a step further with collegiate athletes having to perform at such a high level. Due to

the circumstances of COVID-19, the mental health of collegiate-student athletes has been

impacted. Student athletes were put in difficult situations mentally and physically. The

COVID-19 infection has recently been found to seriously suppress the neuroendocrine-immune

system (Cao, 2020), which is closely involved in stress and stress resilience as well as coping

strategies. This is relevant because it shows evidence of how the Pandemic is having an effect on

people’s stress levels and mental health. Recent research on home confinements as a result of the

coronavirus have shown that athletes experience negative psychological effects (Dong and

Bouey, 2020; Toresdahl and Asif, 2020). Isolation contributes to the negative impacts that some

of these athletes are facing.

Methods

For our group’s research project, we studied different thoughts and behaviors of varsity

student-athletes at Penn State. We believed that student-athletes at Penn State were important to

study because of the rigorous schedule that comes with being a Division I athlete, as there is a lot

to learn about what they experience during their time in college. Our research questions dive

into both an athlete’s mental and physical health, as we wanted to learn about the challenges and

rewards that they encounter. Athletics are an integral part of a large institution such as Penn

State, and there is always more to learn when talking to athletes who come from all over the

world to play the many different sports that are offered here. The topics of our individual

questions included: being able to profit off of your name, image, and likeness, the differences in

training between upper and lowerclassmen, and the overall effect that COVID has had on

student-athletes.
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Participants and Procedures

The participants that we studied in our research were varsity athletes at Penn State. We

strictly focused on varsity athletes because they are much more involved than athletes who, for

example, play club sports. While we were hopeful and willing to receive responses from varsity

athletes across all sports at Penn State, some of our specific topics focused on certain sports more

than others. For example, the questions about NIL laws related more to football and basketball

athletes, since those sports drive in the most revenue and those athletes are most likely to receive

sponsorship deals.

Before we started to collect our data, we were hoping to get around 50 responses to our

survey for our quantitative data, since we had a large variety of potential participants and we

wanted to make sure we heard from many different perspectives. However, we were only able to

get 30 survey responses, which we still saw as a success. Since athletes can be hard to reach, we

ended up using our own personal connections to spread the survey and ask people to take it. For

example, Adam was able to ask 30 softball players if they would take the survey because he is

the student manager for the team, and Colin was able to get multiple wrestlers to take the survey

because he has a good friend on the team.

In order to get in touch with some of the more high-profile athletes, such as basketball or

football players, we asked our classmates if they had contacts who would be willing to speak

with us or we simply directly messaged them on social media. Even though most of the athletes

did not view the messages we sent them on social media, it was still somewhat successful as

three of our 30 responses were a result of it. Even though we each felt as though we knew

enough athletes at Penn State to be confident to get enough responses, we still left the door open

to reach out to different coaches to see if they would be able to spread our survey link. Since we
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believed that coaches and administration might be interested in our results, they could have been

inclined to help us out. We did not end up reaching out to any coaches or administration, though,

because we were comfortable with the responses we received.

As for our qualitative data collection, we interviewed three varsity athletes. Each athlete

we interviewed was asked questions relating to each topic, rather than only asking one topic per

athlete. This allowed us to get a different perspective on each topic, since we interviewed

athletes from different sports. To secure these interviews, each of us used our own personal

connections to find someone that was willing to talk. Luckily one of our interviewees was a

basketball player, so we got to hear from the perspective of an athlete on one of the most popular

sports on campus.

Measures

Colin’s question for this project, “How do Penn State student-athletes think the new NIL

laws will affect their collegiate career?,” focused on the new “Name, Image, and Likeness”

(NIL) laws that have been recently passed across the country. For his data, Colin was interested

in hearing from athletes of all varsity sports, as NIL laws will have a much different effect on

certain athletes compared to others. However, it was critical to Colin’s research that he heard

from at least 5-10 athletes that play the highest ‘money-making’ sports on campus. This would

include football, basketball, and hockey players. These sports bring in the most money for the

university, and the NIL laws have the highest chance of making a huge impact on these specific

athletes. For the interview portion of the research, Colin wanted to make sure that at least one of

the interviewees was with a student-athlete whose life would truly be changed because of these

laws, which was successfully completed through the basketball player we spoke to.
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Adam’s question for this project, “Are there differences in training between underclassmen

and upperclassmen Penn State student-athletes?,” was related to the difference in training

between inexperienced and veteran collegiate athletes. Adam was interested in getting data from

players across all sports, but he was especially certain that he could get at least 10 softball

players to answer his questions because he is a student manager on the team. Adam started his

research by trying to get players across all sports to take the survey through his friends and

classmates, but he eventually focused on softball since he had the most familiarity with that

team. Adam also has a good friend on the wrestling team, so he focused a lot of his time trying

to work with his friend to get many members of that team to fill out the survey as well. One of

the main ways that Adam got softball players to take the survey was by directly asking them at

practice, which led to over 10 responses.

Mya’s question, “How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected the mental health of Penn State

student athletes?,” emaximed the effect that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on Penn State

student athletes’ mental health. Mya specifically examined if Covid had a negative or positive

impact as it related to their GPA, stress level, credit load, and athletic performance. Due to the

global pandemic, multiple sport seasons were canceled and any hope of post-season

championship play was gone. Covid caused setbacks in many areas; luckily the athletes were

granted another year of eligibility to try and make it to the next level. This is important because

Covid has been a changing time for everyone. Being a Division 1 athlete comes with a lot of

pressure. Since she has a lot of connections with athletes in multiple different sports, it was not

hard for Mya to contribute to our search for athletes to take the survey. Mya also focused on

taking a look at changes in people’s mental health from pre-Covid to now. She found it
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interesting to see the different perspectives that athletes had to offer and to facilitate

conversations with them.

Results

NIL Results

Through my research, I wanted to find out if athletes were aware of NIL laws, how they

felt about them, and if they would pursue any potential deals on their own. The results yielded

some varied responses, which provided me with good insight as to how a Penn State athlete feels

about this new way of generating money.

The first question that I decided to ask on my portion of the survey was whether or not

the athletes felt like the NCAA does enough to provide them with fair living conditions, since

this has been an important topic in the past when discussing athlete’s rights to make money. The

mean of answers was a 3.13 out of 5 on a Likert scale, which meant they felt undecided about the

topic. I then asked respondents to describe their current living situation, which most responded

with positive answers, such as “comfortable,” “awesome,” and “great”.

When asked how much knowledge the respondents had on NIL laws, 26 out of 30 (87%)

answered with either “a moderate amount” or “a little”. This told me that although most athletes

are aware of NIL laws, they could certainly learn more. Also, not a single respondent said that

they were unhappy about NIL laws being passed in Pennsylvania, with 9 saying they were “very

happy”. When asked how they think NIL laws will affect their collegiate experience, 15 out of

the 30 respondents responded with positive answers (see Figure 1).

When asked about athletic performance, 25 of 30 respondents answered that they do not

believe NIL laws will have any effect on their athletic performance. However, when asked if

they believe that NIL laws could affect the performance of other athletes, 20 out of 30
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respondents answered either “probably yes” or “definitely yes” (see Figure 2). Two respondents

answered that they believe NIL opportunities could become a distraction for athletes, which

could lead to poor performance when competing.

When asked if respondents thought that they would pursue NIL deals, the responses were

fairly evenly distributed between yes and no. There did not seem to be any correlation between

wanting to pursue an NIL deal and being a certain gender or a part of a certain sport. For those

who answered that they would pursue deals, the most common responses as to what they would

pursue included brand deals and partnerships with companies. In regards to what is most

important when pursuing a deal, most responses dealt with either money or brand values.

Finally, when asked if they think NIL deals are good for collegiate sports, 24 out of 30

respondents answered positively.

For my qualitative results, it seemed like there were a few major themes discussed by the

three participants. The first was that the athletes recognized there was something to learn from

NIL laws, as they could understand more about what it takes to build a brand and manage

money. “The business aspect is great to learn if you want to take your sport to the next level,”

said one athlete. Also, they mentioned that with Penn State’s seminars on the laws, they better

understand how important it is to read a contract before signing it. The second major theme that

I noticed was that the interviewees did not say NIL laws would have affected their recruitment in

high school, but they could see how it might affect someone else. One athlete mentioned that D2

schools may suffer the most from this, as an athlete might choose to be a bench player at a D1

school instead of being a starter at a D2 school simply because they have the chance to make

more money off of their NIL at a D1 school. Another athlete mentioned that, although it would

not have affected him, he thinks that high school students would be making the wrong choice by
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choosing a school simply because of the NIL opportunities they might have to offer; “It is

turning their head away from the bigger picture,” he said. The last theme was that these athletes

did not believe that NIL laws would change their daily lives as collegiate athletes. “Maybe for

the big time players… but for the average athlete, it won’t make too much of a difference at all,”

one athlete stated. Overall, the consensus felt like most of these athletes think that NIL laws are

cool to have as a possibility, but they do not feel like it will play a huge role in their own lives.

Training Results

For my part of the research I was looking at the differences in training between

underclassmen and upperclassmen athletes at Penn State. “Training” means perception of

physical exercise, diet (nutrition), vulnerability to injury, and confidence in athletes’ respective

sports.

My findings were that on average upperclassmen believe they train better than

underclassmen. On a Likert scale of 7, 7 being the best or strongly agreeing with the statement,

the average for the upperclassmen was 5.8 and the underclassmen was 5.0. So the upperclassmen

believed they trained just a little better than the underclassmen.

In terms of nutrition, the question on the survey was also asked in the form of a Likert

scale, with 7 meaning the athlete feels like their nutrition is the highest. The upperclassmen

average was a 4.45, while the Underclassmen nutrition average was a 4.83.

When looking at how the athletes in our study feel about how injury prone they have been

since coming to Penn State, the overall mean for upperclassmen was 3.91. For the underclassmen

the average was 2.67. The next question asked about overall confidence in our subjects'

respective sports. The upperclassmen average of confidence was 4.91, while the average for

underclassmen was 4.67..

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In terms of feeling more physically stronger in their respective sports, the average for

upperclassmen was 5.25, while the mean among the underclassmen was 6.33. This is almost an

entire point difference.

The final question for my research study was how much competitive anxiety affects

training. This was done on a 5 point Likert scale. The overall average for upperclassmen was 3.0,

while the average for underclassmen was 2.5.

When asked if strength, cardio, or flexibility is the most important part of a competitive

season, 22 of the 30 respondents responded that a variation of all of them is important.

For my quantitative results I found that for the most part there is not a whole lot of difference in

student athletes’ training when looking at underclassmen versus upperclassmen. The main

categories where there is little difference is in competitive anxiety, confidence, and nutrition. The

categories where there were some noticeable differences were in strength and injury. You can see

Figure 3 below to look at how each category differed.

For my interview I interviewed a Freshman Wrestler at Penn State. For my qualitative results the

first theme I noted was that all the athletes feel that they have gotten better in their respective

supports since coming to Penn State. One respondent stated “I’ve gotten a lot better, I think

umm, the wrestling IQ of the room is super high. The potential of growth for everyone is just

huge.”

Another theme I noticed from my interview , is that the things that keep athletes from

getting better usually have to do with a dependent cause that they cannot always control. For

example, the respondent from my interview said, “I would say sometimes there are certain

people who get more attention than others. I need to seek it out better more, because I don’t want

to seem like someone who doesn’t want to get better. I need to show more that I’m someone who
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wants it”. Although this athlete blames himself, I would say this is not a variable that he has

complete control over. He can’t control who the coaches focus on completely. Even with seeking

out attention that doesn’t mean a coach will always give it out.

In conclusion, the only evidence I truly have some data to support is that underclassmen

feel they get stronger and are more prone to being injured compared to upperclassmen.

Mental Health Results

This study was performed to examine if the Covid 19 Pandemic had an effect on Penn

State collegiate athletes mental health. Through the research I found a few different things.The

results from the interview and from the survey results differed.

The first question asked was “At the beginning of the Pandemic how much interest did

you have in doing things compared to now ? This was asked on a Likert Scale that went from 1

to 7 with 1 representing “none” and 7 representing “a lot”. The survey showed that 56.67% of

athletes had more interest in doing things in the beginning of the Pandemic.

The second question asked was “How motivated are you to compete in your sport

compared to the beginning of the Pandemic?” This question was asked to determine the pressure

that athletes may have faced from the beginning of the Pandemic to now. This was also evaluated

using a Likert Scale from 1 to 7. The results showed that 40% of athletes were very motivated to

compete in their sports this season.

Another survey question was, “How often did you experience feelings of depression

before the Pandemic as opposed to now?” These results told us that 66.66% That tells us the

majority of the athletes surveyed did not have feelings of depression at the beginning of the

Pandemic.
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The last question asked was “ How successful have you been with your academics

throughout the Pandemic?” This was asked in regards to examining GPA. The research also told

us that more than 50% of students have been successful in their academics throughout the

Pandemic.

A Penn State Men’s Basketball Player was interviewed and Covid did affect his mental

health. He was depressed, lonely, and homesick during the beginning of the Pandemic.

Unfortunately, he did have a negative change in GPA. Although the Pandemic did affect him he

did persevere and he is in a way better mental space now. The Pandemic put more pressure on

him to perform better this season because the fans will be expecting a show since they were

restricted from games last season.

Discussion

Our study was completed in order to learn more about the lives of student-athletes at

Penn State, and to form conclusions about these athletes’ thoughts on the topics of NIL laws,

training habits, and mental health. We already knew that student-athletes live hectic and

overwhelming lives, but there was still a lot to learn about considering some athletes do not

usually speak about our topics publicly. Also, we felt as though our topics were especially

important to research considering the circumstances athletes have gone through over the past two

years with the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to form our conclusions, we surveyed 30 athletes

from nine different men’s and women’s varsity sports at Penn State, while also interviewing
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three of these athletes to talk more in-depth about our topics. The survey was collected online

through qualtrics with the interviews being done in person, and we were able to reach these

athletes through social media, team group chats, and our own personal connections.

NIL

Upon examining the survey and interview data, there were three interesting findings that I

noticed in regards to his NIL questions. The first interesting finding was how overwhelmingly

positive the athletes felt about NIL laws in general (see Figure 1). When any research is

conducted, you can always expect there to be some variations in the results, but with this

question the results showed that not a single respondent felt negatively about NIL laws. I can

conclude from this data that this means athletes do not feel held back by the NCAA anymore,

and that now they have more control over their lives outside of sports. Just as Stahler (2021)

mentions in his research, athletes now are more likely to reach their true professional potential

with these laws in place.

The second interesting finding that I noticed was how athletes felt NIL laws would affect

athletic performance. As shown in Figure 2, the majority of student-athletes (83.3%) believe that

the new NIL laws will have no effect on their athletic performance, while the majority (66.7%)

also believes that they could see NIL laws having an effect on the athletic performance of other

student-athletes. So, even though most athletes do not think it will affect them, they could see

how it might affect others. This is interesting to note because it shows that athletes do believe

the laws can have an effect, just not on themselves.

The third and final finding that I found interesting through my research was related to

recruiting and how that process could change with NIL laws in place. With one of our

interviewees mentioning how he could see recruiting being impacted and Berri (2016) noting the
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NCAA’s concerns on the topic, it is definitely something to monitor as NIL laws become more

prevalent in the future. We have already seen one of the wealthier schools in the country, Texas,

take advantage of this recruiting strategy as multiple NIL scholarships from boosters will be

paying offensive lineman on the team up to $150,000 annually just for being a part of the team

(Thompson, 2021). It is certainly a concern, and it is interesting that people are already thinking

about these implications when NIL laws have only been around for about a year.

If there was a practical recommendation to make from these findings, it is that colleges

and universities should look at NIL deals as a way to not only help their students grow, but to

look at them as a way for the school to grow as well. Think about it, if schools start offering

their student-athletes more opportunities to learn about NIL deals and the benefits of them, then

their athletes are likely to make more money than athletes at different schools. This will improve

the morale of the student-athletes, thus resulting in a better image for the athletic program of the

school. This better image will lead to a recruiting advantage over other schools, as high school

athletes will be more inclined to come to a school where they can make a lot of money off of

their NIL. The student-athletes are happier and the school’s athletic department is in a better

position, all because the school took the necessary time and resources to educate their athletes on

the possibilities and benefits of pursuing NIL deals in a smart manner.

Training

After reviewing my data and statistics for my part of the project I found that the fact that

our data included 80% of Upperclassmen really skewed my results. As I said in the presentation

it made it seem like the underclassmen had stronger results all around in each category. This was

most likely from how skewed my data was.

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Something else that I noticed from my data was that my questions could have been

worded better, for example my question about strength the average was a lot higher for

underclassmen then it was for upperclassmen. This was most likely because of the way I worded

the question. The question was worded “ Do you find you are more or less strong from a physical

standpoint THIS season?”. I could have worded it “Do you think you are more or less strong then

under/upperclassmen on your team?”.

Looking back on this research study, something I talked about in my literature review

was the different amount of time spent in the weight room. One study that has some relevance is

one that was done on the amount of time females and males spent in the weight room (Boyd et

al., 2017). I wish that maybe for that strength question I would’ve added a question to my survey

about the amount of time underclassmen and upperclassmen spend in the weight room. It

could’ve been an interesting aspect to learn about and one I think would help aide professionals

in the field.

Mental Health

In conclusion, I do feel like more extensive research would have needed to be done. I feel

as though the survey questions could have been worded differently to get more conclusive

answers. The results did show from survey participants that the Pandemic did not have a huge

effect on their mental health. Furthermore, we can see from the interviewee that it did have some

effects. With that said, we can see that Mental health is a sensitive and relevant topic. Therefore,

Penn State athlete's mental health should still be prioritized and the athletic department should be

doing everything they can to provide these athletes with the support and resources that they need

to ensure that they are good mentally.

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The results of this study helped create awareness for effective mental-health aid pre,

during, and after a crisis situation. This study can be used to facilitate the implementation of new

policies and procedures on mental health at Penn State.

Limitations

Within our research, there were a few limitations and issues that we had to overcome.

Even though we reached 30 survey respondents, which was our goal, we found ourselves

struggling to reach that number at times due to varsity athletes being a somewhat hard population

to reach. Since we couldn’t just walk around campus and find athletes to take the survey, we had

to use our own personal connections to try and reach as many of them as possible. Also, there

were some limitations in regards to our specific research questions as well. For example, most

athletes do not have concrete thoughts and opinions on NIL laws just yet, considering they are so

new and many athletes have not taken advantage of them yet. If this research was to be

conducted again in five years, the results could be completely different. Another example of a

limitation we faced was with Adam’s research on training habits, as the vast majority (80%) of

our respondents were upperclassmen. Since he wanted to compare the differences in training

between upperclassmen and underclassmen, it was not ideal to have such a small sample size of

underclassmen compared to their counterpart. Overall, however, we were not faced with any

challenges that were too overwhelming. We were still able to get the data we intended, and we

were satisfied with our results.

Conclusion

Through our research, we were able to gain valuable knowledge about our topics and

learn more about the experience of being a Penn State student-athlete. The past two years have
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been a wild ride for everyone, especially student-athletes, so it really was a great time to research

more about the changes that they have gone through. At this time in 2019, athletes would have

called you crazy if you told them that the next two years they would have to endure long periods

of isolation, quarantine, playing in empty stadiums, and not being able to see their families.

These were unprecedented conditions, so learning about the effects this had on their mental

health and even their training habits is valuable information. Also, the thought of these athletes

making money off of their NIL two years ago was nothing but a dream. Now, as athletes start to

reap the rewards, it is important to hear their initial reactions.

Our research contributes a fresh perspective from student-athletes right as their lives are

beginning to return to normal. Knowing what our respondents think about our topics allows us

to draw conclusions on how student-athletes have handled mental health issues, NIL laws, and

training, and it authorizes us to look into the future of collegiate sports with a new perspective on

some things that can be changed for the benefits of student-athletes.

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References

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Boyd, J. M., Andrews, A. M., Wojcik, J. R., Bowers, C. J., & Hill, R. (2017). Perceptions of

NCAA Division I Athletes on Strength Training. The Sport Journal. Published online

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Rubin, L. M., Joseph, M., Lutter, S., Roberts, D. K., & Jones, J. J. (2021). Enhancing Financial

Literacy Among College Athletes. Journal of Athlete Development & Experience

(JADE), 3(2), 74–97.

Mehrsafar, A. H., Gazerani, P., Moghadam Zadeh, A., & Jaenes Sánchez, J. C. (2020, July).

Addressing potential impact of covid-19 pandemic on physical and mental health of elite

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Smith, A. M., Scott, S. G., O'FALLON, W. M., & Young, M. L. (1990, January). Emotional

responses of athletes to injury. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 65, No. 1, pp. 38-50).

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​Thompson, C. (2021, December 6). New NIL Program To Give Texas Offensive Lineman $50K

To Play In Austin. FanNation. Retrieved December 11, 2021, from

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Uroh, Clifford C., and Celina M. Adewunmi. “Psychological Impact of the COVID-19

Pandemic on Athletes.” Frontiers, Frontiers, 1 Jan. 1AD,

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Figure 1

This figure shows that half of the participants believe that NIL laws will have a positive effect on

their collegiate experience, with only 3.3% of respondents believing it will have a negative

effect.
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Figure 2

This graph shows how much athletes believe NIL laws will affect the athletic performance of

themselves and their peers. The graph shows that while the majority of athletes do not believe

NIL laws will affect their own performance, the majority also believe that they will have an

effect on the performance of other athletes.

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Figure 3

This graph shows the overall averages for the 5 main categories that my research focused on. It

shows how there was very little difference between underclassmen and upperclassmen in many

of these categories. The only two categories we saw any large difference in was in strength and

injury which underclassmen felt they were less affected by injury. Underclassmen also felt they

were getting stronger since coming to Penn State compared to upperclassmen.

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