Enlighten Me

Rodney Crouther (00:07):
Hi, welcome to Enlighten Me. This is Rodney Crouther.

Eddie Sanchez (00:10):
And this is Eddie Sanchez.

Rodney Crouther (00:11):
Hey Eddie. Did you watch the Super Bowl this year?

Eddie Sanchez (00:13):
I did actually, and I was rooting for the 49ers and I thought they had it. I thought they had it the whole game, but —

Rodney Crouther (00:20):
They were right. They kept not putting it away though.

Eddie Sanchez (00:23):
Yeah, yeah. Mahomes came through and did his thing. Were you rooting for?

Rodney Crouther (00:29):
I was in that — I'm not really a fan of either team. It was a good game, like dramatic to the last snap.

Eddie Sanchez (00:34):
Yeah, it was definitely one of the best Super Bowls in recent years and then we're moving into March, so March Madness is coming up.

Rodney Crouther (00:40):
Yeah, that's my real Super Bowl.

Eddie Sanchez (00:42):
Yeah.

Rodney Crouther (00:42):
College basketball is my jam.

Eddie Sanchez (00:44):
You have a dog in the fight?

Rodney Crouther (00:45):
Not really. I watched March Madness for the upsets, man, and doing the bracket in the office trying to pick the dark horse team that's going to knock off a number one or number two in that first weekend.

Eddie Sanchez (00:55):
Yeah, the Cinderella stories, it's always nice just to watch some games and just to get some basketball in the system.

Rodney Crouther (01:00):
Oh yeah. I might have to take a day off once the tournament starts, depending on how the seatings go.

Eddie Sanchez (01:04):
Yeah. I know that you really love your sports and I'm sure there's a ton of people out there that are super fanatics.

Rodney Crouther (01:10):
Oh yeah, definitely. I know a lot of people don't come in the Monday after the Super Bowl. It's probably good the bowl games are over the holidays because a lot of Texas State people after our first bowl win ever probably wouldn't have been rushing to get back to campus and class right after that weekend.

Eddie Sanchez (01:24):
Maybe not in the mind state to get back to school right away.

Rodney Crouther (01:27):
Yeah. So that got me thinking, man, what is it about sports that gets people so fired up? Why do we love sports? What do we as humans get out of all the attention we give to sports?

Eddie Sanchez (01:37):
So I know that you were super excited to get into this episode, of course, because it dealt with sports. So who did you get a chance to talk to?

Rodney Crouther (01:43):
Yeah, I talked to Coach Daniel Da Prato from our Bobcat football staff.

Daniel Da Prato (01:52):
I'm a football coach here at Texas State. I coordinate all of our special teams and I'm our associate head coach.

Rodney Crouther (01:59):
And we weren't talking X's and O's. We were really talking about what this season did for the students and the fan culture here on campus.

Sports Commentator 1 (02:07):
Paget, he's got a single back in the back field with him, snap is back, looking middle, throwing middle, intercepted. Brian Holloway again far side 45 cuts outside 35.

(02:17):
He's got a convoy all the way to the 15 to the 5—

(02:22):
Touchdown Bobcats!

Sports Commentator 2 (02:23):
Unbelievable!

Rodney Crouther (02:24):
And just to start off here, just tell me what it is about sports that you think brings people together. What gets so many people excited about sports?

Daniel Da Prato (02:33):
I think initially it's the comradery with football, it's definitely comradery sport, it's competition, it's that edge, it's that angle. It's that competitive juices that gets every person flowing when any type of competitive sport, whether that's — I'm a big, I love track and field, right? That's a one-on-one, mano a mano, me versus you. It's that competitive nature as human beings that we possess inside of us to compete and ultimately to win.

Rodney Crouther (03:03):
OK. Well, tell us a little bit about your evolution as a person who loves sports. Were you as a little kid always in to sports or was it something you came to as you got a little older?

Daniel Da Prato (03:13):
Yeah, so my dad was a coach for 40 plus years, so I've been around football and sport my entire life, so that's all I've known. I grew up a long time ago, but I grew up outside always playing. Your knees were always bloody because you were falling down chasing the basketball or playing tackle football on the asphalt. So that was just part of it growing up. So I've been around him my whole life and that's just been instilled in me from my mom and dad of the competitive nature of not only sport but life.

Eddie Sanchez (03:46):
How did Coach Da Prato end up at Texas State?

Rodney Crouther (03:48):
Actually, he came through his personal network with other coaches that found their way to Texas State.

Daniel Da Prato (03:53):
Coaching's a kind of fraternity in itself. I was at Arkansas the week after Coach Kinne was at Arkansas, so there was a little connection there. We didn't really meet. But then in 2021, coach Kinne was the offensive coordinator at the University of Central Florida. I was at the University of South Florida. So we played against each other in the last game of the season. And then the following year, coach Kinne was the head coach at Incarnate Word. And as things started to transpire for him, South Florida made a change at Head Coach. I happened to be the interim head coach and Coach Kinne was watching his alma mater Tulsa play, and we happened to be playing him on a Friday night and played well against them, kind of got connected and had some phone conversations and Coach Kinne gave me the opportunity and I jumped at it. Great place, wouldn't change it for the world.

Rodney Crouther (04:42):
Does it make a difference really to the players, like what the fan vibe is when there's people in the stands versus a half empty stadium?

Daniel Da Prato (04:49):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we look back at Family Weekend, we did the catwalk, when we went through the parking lot, all of a sudden you could just see the player — I mean we get off a quiet bus and you walk and you start walking through our student body and everybody tailgating, and boy, I'll tell you what, we turn the corner and get into the stadium. Everybody's looking around talking to each other like, oh my goodness, this is going to be electric. And then you come running out and you score and just the electricity that is created, right? You talk about execution fuels emotion. Well, the fans add to that and the student body adds to that, and all that does is just build up everything that's going on. And on the flip side of that, you have an opponent that's on the other side that's feeling the exact opposite and they're feeling it a totally different way.

(05:33):
So our fans this year were incredible and we really saw that in the bowl game when everybody traveled up north again up to SMU and we had 26,000 fans that literally ate and drank everything in the stadium. I heard just an incredible atmosphere when our kids came running out for that and saw all of our fans, it was unbelievable. It's electric. I mean, I got chills going down the back of my neck right now because that's what it's about. That's why you put in the time and the effort and all the hard work that these kids put in day in and day out and the sacrifices that they make are for those opportunities.

Rodney Crouther (06:08):
Yeah, I think that's something I hear non-sports people or casual sports fans say sometimes that the fans don't really matter. These kids are — even at pros, they're professionals, they're dedicated, they're going to play whether there's people cheering or not. But does it feed the team when we go up in Baylor and their crowd gets quiet.

Daniel Da Prato (06:26):
Right? Yes, a hundred percent. And the coach in me, I got to sit there and tell the players like, it doesn't matter. Hey, we go on the road, there's not going to be any fans. There's all those good things. You got to be able to coach both sides of it. But from, I mean just from a shoot as a fan, if I was a fan, as a coach, I go out there and you feel the electricity, you feel it, it is there. And yes, when you score in a stadium that is a packed house that is not rooting for you and all you hear is that little "ssssss" up in the corner of our fans — that's where Baylor put us and that's where everybody should — they put you up in a little corner all by yourself. You just find them, you look for 'em, and you can see everybody going, and the rest of the place is quiet. That electricity is what sport is all about.

Eddie Sanchez (07:08):
Did he see a pretty big change in how the students, I guess how much they were excited to be a part of the games?

Daniel Da Prato (07:14):
Absolutely. And not only on game day, but just in the community, everywhere you went, the players, the coaches, everybody affiliated with our program is just proud to wear the Bobcat logo around town. And that hasn't changed. I mean, shoot, the neighborhood I live in has got signs that say Back the Bobcats and all these things. I'm like, we better get some of those, put 'em in the front yard. I mean it kind of electrified not only a football program, an athletic department, a university, a community, a fan base, and an alumni. That man, just an awesome feeling and you get excited about it, right? It just happened, but we're already working towards doing it again and taking it to new heights and new levels. But yeah, you absolutely feel that and that's what these kids work for.

Rodney Crouther (08:02):
Well, you grew up a sports fan and a sports household. What do you think draws other people in who don't have that background?

Daniel Da Prato (08:08):
Yeah, I think entertainment. I mean I think it's one of those, whether you know a lot about it or not, you can get out, you can get your family. So we have people that ask all the time, how can I help? How can I help? And not everybody can help from a financial aspect, but if they're able to get to a game, they're able to get their family out there. Beautiful day here in San Marcos, go through the tailgate, come out, watch the game. We have a very exciting product we put on the field. We absolutely light up the scoreboard on offense defensively. We're incredibly aggressive. We led the country in tackles for loss. We were highly ranked and turnovers and we're going to play an aggressive style of football that is entertaining. So now you come out to the game, there's all kinds of activities, our fans, our game day atmosphere, all the different things we do with the lights and the crowd and the Strutters and the cheer and the dance and the band and all those things.

(08:57):
It's entertaining and it's at a great value and they can come out there and enjoy. So to me, then all of a sudden they leave and they're like, man, we went to that game. They played great. We won. Our kids had fun or we had fun. So to me it's entertainment and we put a great product out there that's very entertaining to watch. Whether you know a lot about the sport or not, you're going to come out there and you're going to walk away and be like, wow, that was exciting. That was a lot of energy and electricity. Everyone will feel it.

Rodney Crouther (09:26):
I know you guys are working hard to build on it on the field. How do you help build the community off this great season and our first bowl win?

Daniel Da Prato (09:35):
Doing this right here. I mean having these conversations and talking about it. And to me it's all day every day, right? Everywhere I go, I wear this Bobcat logo. I'm proud. I didn't get to go to school here. I wasn't born in San Marcos. I didn't get to go to school here. I wish I could have.

Rodney Crouther (09:49):
Yeah. Where did you go to school?

Daniel Da Prato (09:50):
I actually went to Louisiana Monroe in the conference. In the conference. I wish I could have gone to school here. This place is absolutely incredible. So I walk around town wearing my Bobcat logo, proud. Anybody I get a chance to interact with, any person that's a part of our university or program, you can help and you can help by just wearing your colors, proud in communicating with people and letting them know, man, I went to six games, seven games. I went to 12, 13 games last year and it was incredible. Come join me, come out to the games, have fun.

Eddie Sanchez (10:21):
So was it tough for him to be coaching against his alma mater?

Daniel Da Prato (10:24):
Not one bit. I know. Listen, I got a family and little girls at home and they depend on dad doing a good job at work so I can root for them every time, every game throughout the year —

Rodney Crouther (10:36):
When they're not playing us.

Daniel Da Prato (10:37):
Except when they're playing us. So I have no, not one bit whatsoever. And they gave us a heck of a game. We were fortunate to be able to pull it out at the end.

Rodney Crouther (10:45):
It is fair to say this was not a football culture at Texas State for at least the last decade. I think a generation before when they were in D II, when they won a couple of national championships, there was one, but the last decade it just hadn't been evident here. Not that they weren't great athletes on the field doing their best, but something came together differently this year. And you touched on it that Coach Kinne kind of set the tone coming in and President Damphousse, but it really organically still had to catch fire among the people on campus and in the town.

Daniel Da Prato (11:19):
And I think right, you can always learn from the past while we live in the present and we plan for the future. And there's been success here. There's been tons of players and coaches and people that have come through here and won and had great success and you kind of find out what and why. College football, we're in some uncharted territory, right, of college football right now. And we were able to benefit from some of those things and we look forward to continuing to benefit from some of the new rules and regulations of college athletics. But to me, you find a path, you get people on the same page and you go and you go nonstop and we've got some good momentum. It's up to us to capitalize on that, not only on the field but off the field as well with the fan base and the community and everyone involved. But I think everyone enjoys a winner and we were able to show that we can do that and we're going to continue to do that moving forward and everybody gets excited about that.

Eddie Sanchez (12:19):
That was a really candid interview, Rodney, glad that he answered the way he answered and it was really exciting to see how excited he was that we had a lot of students coming in the fan base growing, especially for the student-athletes, I'm sure it's very important for them to have eyes paying attention to all the hard work that they're doing on the field.

Rodney Crouther (12:37):
And I got to say, I've been here for a while. I've been to some games where Bobcat Stadium was mostly empty and even one of the games we lost here, having all the students and staff and people in San Marcos in the stands cheering and rooting even when they were down, made it just a lot more fun to go to games this year. Fans are a big part of sports and the sports experience. So I did start thinking about what is it that draws us? Obviously it's easier when we're winning, winning draws people, but people root for their teams even when they're down. So what is it that gets fans so invested in sports? So I reached out to Dr. Michael Devlin in our journalism and mass comm program. He's got some really interesting insights in the fan behavior. Just introduce us a little bit to exactly what you do as a researcher.

Michael Devlin (13:33):
My area explores the intersection of identity, social functions and sport. It's a great context for explaining why we do the things we do. If you're a social researcher or a personality researcher, sometimes the eyes gloss over when people talk to you about that. But when you start talking about it in the context of sport, people all of a sudden become a little more interested in what you're saying because they all relate to that. So that's what I do.

Rodney Crouther (14:00):
So what drew you to that particular area of research?

Michael Devlin (14:03):
I wish I had some sort of very enlightening answer for you that I was driven by this discovery that I made. If I can be candid, it was about a girl and that girl ended up being my wife and we have three kids today. So it was a good choice, good choice very much. But when I went to the University of Alabama, which is no stranger for sports, I was actually going to Alabama to get my Ph.D. to study media effects, not FX but effects. So the effects of consuming media. And I met in one of our seminars, a girl, I said, well, what do you study? And she said, I study sports. And she goes, well, what do you study? And I said, oh, I study sports too. And she goes, oh really? Like what? And she's like, I do PR crisis. And she's like, what do you do?

(14:46):
And I go "you know, just advertising," because that's what I used to do before I got into my Ph.D. So I went home and I started looking at every sports theory possible that I could have a conversation with this person. And eventually it was one of those things that I was able to tie in my previous experience working in advertising and marketing and my cognitive psychology. And I found a niche where I was like, oh wait, sports is actually relevant because I wish I had a more philosophical answer, but really it was I met someone, I wanted to have conversations with her and it worked out. We ended up getting married and having three kids. So it was definitely an endeavor that worked out well for me both professionally and personally.

Rodney Crouther (15:23):
What is it about sports that gets people so invested and fired up and committed?

Michael Devlin (15:29):
The big question is why do we become sports fans? And if you think about it, why we consume sport, if I were to watch a movie, I know what I'm getting into. If I choose to go to a comedy or I choose to go to a thriller or a mystery, I know what I'm getting into and how I'm expected to feel at the end of that. Consumption. Sports is a unique media environment. You don't know if you're going to be elated at the end or highly disappointed. And so that begs the question, why do I do this? Why do I consume this media? Why would I put myself through this madness? And when we look at the motivations for it, really it becomes about belonging part of a community, about having a shared experience. And so when you think about when you go to a new environment, let's say you're going to a social conference or a restaurant or a bar kind of a networking thing, and you across the halls or the thing, see someone that wears a logo of your team that you like or your rival or a sports star, you, it becomes an easy point of entry to say, "Hey, I'm also a Kansas City Chiefs fan."

(16:28):
Or "Oh my gosh, what do you think about the Super Bowl?" And it becomes this level of easily identifiable identity that is non-threatening like some other identities that we choose because sport is one of those things that's very like we know at the end of the day it's fun right now we can get tribalism and it can get dark later on. I'm sure we can talk about that. But sure, the nice entry is it's a great way for us to belong to something and feel good about who we belong to and then open a door to others.

Eddie Sanchez (16:57):
I imagine that with our winning season, hopefully he saw a change in the Texas State fandom.

Rodney Crouther (17:02):
He actually has some numbers to show how excited Bobcat fans got this year.

Michael Devlin (17:07):
When you look at the social media of Texas State, just our blanket Texas State social media, it was pretty consistent and it's your typical TX State Next and the faculty, but there was no move in the needle. When we get to that bowl game though, we actually see a really substantial, a significant spike and you can measure it up and it was up there. It was comparable with when Colorado was making its big push. And again, those are two different spots on the timeline, but remember when Colorado and Dion Sanders?

Rodney Crouther (17:37):
Oh, sure. At the start of the season.

Michael Devlin (17:37):
They won like three or four games and everyone's really big on that. And Colorado was like, wow, they're legit. So you see a program that's under the radar has a lot of success. It's getting a lot of attention on social media. We will fast forward a few months.

(17:50):
You see a kind of a similar, it's not as significant, it's not as high as a spike, but in terms of the percentage of increase from its baseline to its peak, you see a relatively same relationship of you can definitely see there's a community of Texas State people who all of a sudden — who have been bearing our heads as fans or alumni or whatever — when they make and win their first bowl game are all of a sudden talking. And we didn't get into the context if they were positive or negative, but I'm going to assume it was a lot of positive congratulations. No one's going to go out of their way to bad talk a Texas State team.

Rodney Crouther (18:23):
And especially after a win. As a media researcher, can you see a difference in the way people consume sports media as opposed to other forms of media?

Michael Devlin (18:34):
Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you think about the era of — we stream video, video on demand, DVRs and then Netflix, and sport aside for I would say for "The Bachelor" maybe is one of the most —

Rodney Crouther (18:49):
I do know people who watch "The Bachelor" as a sport.

Michael Devlin (18:52):
But again, it's one of the few things that you have to watch live. You've got to know the results now because by the next day, if you watch it, you're going to know what the results are by the next day. But sport is really one of those unique areas that we have to consume live because we got to be in the conversation now. We know the scores are going to come up. Now if you are on any type of social media, let's say you decide "I'm not going to watch the Super Bowl, I have to work." I don't want to know. I'm going to watch it the next day. Good luck not knowing the score if you have any social media channels because you are going to see that from somewhere. Whereas like, "Hey, what happened last night on True Detective?" That's pretty, you can avoid that if you wanted to, if you're not caught up yet. So it's the last communication. One of the last things aside from "The Bachelor" that we really have to watch live.

Rodney Crouther (19:38):
Talk about the larger economy, how big a chunk of the economy is, sports media or sports in general.

Michael Devlin (19:44):
So right now we're looking at, in the US alone, it's about $520 billion.

Eddie Sanchez (19:49):
Did he say a billion?

Michael Devlin (19:50):
With a B billion. And that includes sponsorships, television rights, merchandising, ticket sales, worldwide. We are about anywhere between 1.3 to 1.5 trillion with a T.

(20:05):
So we make up a bulk of that. And we saw a slight decline in 2020. And subsequently for a few years after that, obviously with Covid, with them shutting down live viewing, that became an issue. Also, seasons kind of got canceled halfway through and I would say 2022, you really started seeing that come back. So there was like everything else, it dipped down. So we are close to what the 2019 levels were. We were about 500 billion. So it's still about 20 billion more, which we say just 20 billion. But yeah, so definitely we've been increasing, but year over year the economy survives on sport, it's a 520 billion in the U.S. What's one of the common things that we hear is people say, well, "I'm going to watch, because I want to see the ads."

Rodney Crouther (20:53):
The commercials have become their own entity almost.

Michael Devlin (20:56):
So an entire industry makes a big giant chunk of change in investment based on one sporting event. And again, it goes back, they know that's the one time that they can calculate eyes on a screen and they know people are going to be able to be exposed and they can track this. And it's a huge opportunity to see all those eyes.

Rodney Crouther (21:14):
What's the most interesting thing to you that you've learned in your research? Just the coolest factoid.

Michael Devlin (21:19):
Oh man. OK. So I do, some of my research is really started digging into personality because the long thing that we accepted was sports — we're drawn to sports because we want to be part of a group, whether it's through our geography, our family, our need to fit in. There was this sociological society need. And I started looking, I'm like, well, that doesn't explain everything because what about the personality side? My mom's part of a book club. Her need to be part of something is completely fulfilled by her book club and I guarantee her book club meetings are less raucous than a Super Bowl party. I would hope. So it was that idea of, well, what draws us to sports? Are there certain personality traits and characteristics that draws the sport? And so I've been the last five years digging into the personality profiles of sports fans. And one of the things that I found with sports fans is sort of they mirror part of this dark triad that we see with people who are sociopaths.

Rodney Crouther (22:19):
I want to hear more about that.

Michael Devlin (22:20):
So I use some personality scales. One of the one I use is called the Hexaco personality inventory, I'll save the listeners the details of it, but it's called the Hexaco. And they talk about things like Machiavellism, which is extreme narcissism. We talk about things like greed avoidance and greediness, modesty, lack of modesty. And so one of the things you see in these levels of sociopaths, they're highly narcissistic, they're deceptive. They are able to make their own truths of believing about like, well, this is my truth. I don't know if that's the truth. That's my truth. And so I was looking at that. Well, I had been doing sports fan research for, collecting data over the last five years, and I started playing around with it and I said, wait a minute, hold on. These ideas of narcissism and Machiavellianism are very correlated among highly identified fans. And so you look at that, and I'm not saying sports fans are sociopaths, but the more you become a highly identified fan, you start kind of getting this personality of, I believe my own lie, my team did not lose.

(23:25):
They were cheated or my team won because they are the greatest. They did not get an unfair advantage. And look at me, I'm going to make sure I buy every piece of merchandise. So all of you know that I'm associated with this winning team, which is a lot different than my mom's book club. She did not go, when she read the last book, she did not go buy a T-shirt said, so-and-so authored, it's the greatest author in the world. It's that idea that we share this allegiance, we want everyone to know who we are, and then when we lose, we are very good about coring or cutting off that failure of that wasn't our fault, that was we were cheated. But there's something interesting about what personality, what drives us to that sport more than just wanting to belong. Some people will have different reasons for wanting to belong to a group.

Rodney Crouther (24:08):
You've written about how our sports fandom behavior can parallel our behavior in other aspects of our lives, like our social relationships and our political affiliations.

Michael Devlin (24:19):
So we belong. We are now in teams and it's really easy for us as human beings to want to associate with the team. Fortunately or unfortunately, sports is a healthy way of doing that, but we see this mirrored in other areas of life. So even if you're not a sports fan, it's really recognizable. And the one that comes to mention right now, especially because it's at the forefront of where we're at right now in society is with politics. You're either the blue team or you're the red team. And so you see the sense of tribalism. I think part of it is driven by the media consumption we choose where you have one channel that says, this person's the enemy. This is our problems. If you don't vote for this way, everything's going to get worse. You have the other one saying, no, the other guy's the problem, or this is why nothing's getting done.

(25:00):
So there's a lot of finger pointing and it really mirrors sports in the sense of, you're on our team, this is what we talk about. And anything the other team does is a foul. Anything we do well, it's not a foul if we do it, what happens is when you pick your team, you justify those decisions. And I'm very convinced that if one day, one political party completely reversed their stance and said, you know what? I agree, you guys are a hundred percent right. We've been wrong this whole time. The other party would completely switch and be like, see, look at them. They're trying to, and I feel like they would just swap overnight because you have to have that conflict to get people engaged in your tribe.

Rodney Crouther (25:39):
Yeah, Yankees fans aren't going to root for Red Sox.

Michael Devlin (25:41):
And if one day the Yankees, the Red Sox are really classy people and I think we should support them, you're going to see a whole flop.

Rodney Crouther (25:49):
So yeah, it's like when the star player or the other team gets signed as a free agent to your team, you spent five years hating him. Now he's your favorite person.

Michael Devlin (25:57):
Well, I still remember Yankees and Red Sox. You saw Johnny Damon. He was the centerfield for the Boston Red Sox. They finally win the World Series. He has long hair. He's this captain, he's gritty and everyone loves him. Everyone in Boston knows he was big part of that. That year they win the World Series. Oh yeah, he gets traded to the Yankees, he cuts his hair short. I remember he shaves off his beard and everyone in Boston was like, you are the worst human being in the world. They completely forget about all the good that they did. It was like, you crossed the other side, you're dead to me. And so again, sports, same thing happens in politics. And you see that in life. We draw these lines, if you're for me, you're great. If you're against me, you're the worst. And I think in sports, it's healthy, it's fun. It creates conflict. I think outside of that, it can question about is this really the best? We shouldn't be setting policies based on tribalism, but I do love in sports, it creates a great story arc and a great storyline of who's the enemy? Who's the good guy? Who are we going to cheer for based on this storyline?

Rodney Crouther (27:05):
We will be right back after this.

Eddie Sanchez (27:17):
That was really cool how he found the correlation between sociopaths and fans. But it honestly made a lot of sense, and especially when he started talking about the political aspects of it and kind of this whole cultural, how it affects culture in a lot of ways. Sports, you don't always make those associations. So that was really interesting just to hear him talk about those things,

Rodney Crouther (27:36):
That it was a really fun, fascinating conversation. But it did end on kind of a dark note. So yeah, for our last interview, I thought we'd try to do something a little more positive.

Eddie Sanchez (27:46):
Awesome. Who did you get a chance to talk to?

Shelby Sharpe (27:47):
So my name is Dr. Shelby Sharpe. I am in the recreational therapy program, a clinical professor, and ...

Rodney Crouther (27:55):
Her research is entirely focused on using sports to make positive impacts in people's lives. Could you tell us exactly what is recreational therapy?

Shelby Sharpe (28:08):
Absolutely. So recreational therapy, we use recreation and leisure based interventions to help promote improved quality of life. So what we're looking at is trying to improve physical skills, social skills, emotional skills, cognitive skills. And sometimes especially with outdoor activities, we touch on the spiritual component as well. And so a lot of us in our profession, we use sports, games, art, music, outdoor aquatics, and there's some folks that do equine therapy as well. And we use those interventions to help work on specific goals that we've assessed while we work with our clients.

Rodney Crouther (28:52):
And what got you involved in this field? I mean, what drew you to that as a subject to specialize in?

Shelby Sharpe (28:57):
Well, I've always wanted to help people. And I actually started my rec therapy journey here at Texas State in the undergrad program. And so as I got more involved, got more exposed to different interventions, different opportunities and settings, I just developed a strong passion for the field and getting that aha moment of, "Hey, we did something that was really interesting, but now let's connect it to your life." And it's kind of like, oh my, what just happened? This was kind of magic how you connected these moments together to what I'm going through and how to help.

Rodney Crouther (29:36):
Yeah. We've talked about sports as a spectator activity and fandom, but it seems like your work really focuses on not so much the competitive aspect, but how you can use sports and physical activity to do something really healthy for people.

Shelby Sharpe (29:50):
Yes. So recreational therapy, we're specifically certified in making decisions on what interventions, how to use them, but just as a whole, exercise, sports, physical activity in general is super beneficial to improving your mental health.

Eddie Sanchez (30:08):
Is recreational therapy to help people with mental health issues or is it more of a physical type of therapy or exactly who does it help?

Rodney Crouther (30:16):
It's actually, I think both.

Shelby Sharpe (30:18):
I think everybody would benefit from rec therapy, but I'm a bit biased. So we work in physical rehab, neuro rehab, we work in behavioral mental health in residential treatment and acute settings. So a little short term, but we also do a lot of community. Austin Parks and Rec has a lot of people that are recreational therapists working in the community for them. City of Kyle just hired somebody as a rec therapist. We also work in nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, so very broad field and very broad populations that we work with.

Rodney Crouther (30:54):
Is it usually group activities or one-on-one or some of both? Just depends on the client?

Shelby Sharpe (31:00):
It depends on the needs of the client. And so our therapeutic process is called the API process. And so we'll implement an assessment and from that assessment we build our goals and then we build our plan for treatment and then we'll implement it, evaluate it, and document any progress that's occurred, any changes to make through their experiences and the interventions that we provided.

Rodney Crouther (31:27):
And specifically with mental health, I think we've all heard, is that's become a topic that's discussed more openly. People talk about it as almost a magic bullet for mental health and improving your mood and your outlook. Is there data research to back up that?

Shelby Sharpe (31:44):
I would say as we talk about it more, there's more conversations about the chemical improvements from being physically more active. Specifically with the folks that I work with, I'm part of the Raises initiative, and it's a group of us within the Health and Human Performance Department doing research about the impact of adaptive sports on people with disabilities. And we're seeing a lot of the mental health piece as far as learning to cope with different experiences, motivation and positive thinking. But I don't know that it's the magic bullet. I think it's the entire experience of you're doing this activity, but you also have a community that you're building into it. And I think the community aspect is kind of what ends up being the most healing part of that experience.

Eddie Sanchez (32:45):
So it seems to me as if she's actually helping to build a community of, I don't want to necessarily say athletes, but it seems like it's a community built around sports and a community built around athleticism.

Rodney Crouther (32:57):
Like the activity, the recreation part of it, and the sport part of it is kind of the glue that brings the community together.

Eddie Sanchez (33:03):
And that's what the fandom is, right? Also.

Rodney Crouther (33:06):
Yeah, exactly. It's a lot like the other aspects of sports fandom we talked about just without that hardcore competitive adversarial angle.

Shelby Sharpe (33:14):
Yes. When you get more involved with adaptive sports, we host the Larry Turner Classic wheelchair basketball tournament every fall.

Rodney Crouther (33:23):
Oh, right here at Texas State.

Shelby Sharpe (33:24):
Here at Texas State, just across the river in Jowers. We hosted every fall. We just had our 15th year this last year, and we had 20 teams from across the country come in all the way from the littles that are just learning the skills and how to play to very serious competitive groups. The San Antonio Spurs, the Austin Rutgers, they all come and through this annual event, yes, they're competitors when they're on the court, but the comradery when they're off the court is just a very special experience with each other. Reconnecting, seeing how each other's doing, but also connecting with our students and educating our students on their experiences and their skills, and they just kind of adopt you into that community. And it is just a really beautiful thing to witness because then our students, through that experience, volunteering, get their aha moment. And a lot of them really start to develop that passion into rec therapy, which is what I love to do and teach.

Rodney Crouther (34:39):
And just because I'm sure prospective students would be interested, is this a growing field nationally as a career path for students?

Shelby Sharpe (34:45):
It is. It's a young field. It's a small field. Texas State is the only university in Texas that has this program right now, or the full degree. There are some universities that might have a class, an intro class that you could take. But we have our full degree program are very hands-on, but there's universities across the country that have this program and have a lot of these different adaptive and inclusive services in the community and in different hospital settings as well.

Rodney Crouther (35:17):
Is there anything else we need to know about recreational therapy or that you want the public to know about recreational therapy?

Shelby Sharpe (35:23):
Well, I just remembered a story related to adoptive sports and rec therapy, if I could share it. So I used to work with the military with the Warrior Transition Unit in San Antonio. It's now the Soldier Recovery Unit.

Rodney Crouther (35:36):
Oh, is that for combat veterans and active duty soldiers?

Shelby Sharpe (35:39):
Yes. It's for active duty and they're either going to transition out and medically retire or they might transition back to duty. And we had one soldier who was going to end up medically retiring. That was a hemiplegic.

Rodney Crouther (35:53):
What's that mean?

Shelby Sharpe (35:54):
Paraplegic? You have limited mobility or use of your lower body hemiplegic. You have limited use or mobility of one half of your body. So he was a hemiplegic and very recluse after his experience. And I can be a little pushy sometimes, or encouraging is a better word, very encouraging. And so they had a past interest in archery, and that's where we started bringing him out to the archery course and he learned how to shoot a bow with a mouth tab. Well, then it went into, OK, now we're going to do aquatics, and we would get in the pool together. And then as this now veteran gained confidence in being around people and his skills, he tried out for the Warrior Games and was selected to be on the team. And one of the trials that he went to was in Hawaii and there was a group about five soldiers, and we went to Hawaii together.

(36:57):
It's one of the most beautiful moments I've ever seen. This veteran couldn't walk down to the beach, the wheelchair, he couldn't roll it down to the beach. There's a lot of sand. There wasn't an accessible path. And they literally put his arms around their shoulders and walked with him down so he could get into the water and experience being in the ocean in Hawaii. And I think he never would've had that experience had he not started participating in adaptive sports. And I think that emphasizes not only his mental health, his mood change, he started talking more, wanting to go to events more, but he built that community that was there to support him and gave him this once in lifetime experience in Hawaii together.

Eddie Sanchez (38:05):
That was a really inspiring story, very heartwarming because I didn't know so much about recreational therapy. It was just really interesting to hear how positively she affected somebody with her skillset and how much she made a difference in that individual's life. So that was really just cool to hear.

Rodney Crouther (38:20):
Yeah, I wasn't expecting that. I was thinking we're just going to hear some stories about people getting fit and feeling better, but that was really eyeopening and after everything we discussed about how crazy sports fans can get, but how fun it can be. And obviously the new sports culture we have here at Texas State with not just football, but our baseball, softball, basketball teams have done so well over the last couple of years. This is a fun episode for me.

Eddie Sanchez (38:51):
I'm curious, did it change your mind any on how you view sports now?

Rodney Crouther (38:57):
I got to tell every sports fan I know about the whole parallel between us and sociopaths.

Eddie Sanchez (39:02):
I think that's a pretty good story to tell.

Rodney Crouther (39:03):
Yeah, that's my new party trivia for the next few weeks, I think. But it's fun to step back and look at the big picture there.

Eddie Sanchez (39:13):
Those were definitely some really engaging interviews that you had.

Rodney Crouther (39:15):
Yeah, and this is a big sports year. I mean, we had our bowl game to end last year, and I think Texas State softball and baseball have both started off hot, but March Madness is here and we've got Olympics coming this summer. And nod to Dr. Devlin, we've got an election coming up in the fall, so we're going to be seeing all of this play out on the big stage. Well, thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of Enlighten Me. Next month, we've got spring break coming up, but we will be back with a mini episode of Enlighten Me and I'm going to try to find something interesting about Texas State to enlighten Eddie about.

Eddie Sanchez (39:48):
This podcast is a production of the Division of Marketing and Communication at Texas State University. Podcasts appearing on the Texas State Podcast Network represent the views of the host and guest and not of Texas State University.