Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Edifice Complex: Public Stadium Funding and Urban Redevelopment in Baltimore, Maryland(2018) Bucacink, Ian Charles; Freund, David M; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the 1980s, Marylanders engaged in a public debate over the need to replace Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. New stadium proponents, led by an elite coalition of politicians, businesspeople, and the newspapers, argued that Baltimore needed professional sports teams economically, as well as for the positive image they bestowed upon the city. Only a new publically-funded stadium would prevent the baseball Orioles from following the football Colts out of town, these supporters contented. A large segment of the public questioned the need to replace Memorial Stadium and suggested alternative social priorities for state funding, but the state legislature decided to fund the new stadium complex at Camden Yards anyway, despite intense popular opposition. For Baltimore’s elites, the issue was about more than sports. The new stadiums were a defense and continuation of the city’s neoliberal policies of urban redevelopment, along with all that those policies entailed, both good and bad.Item CONTEXTUALIZING THE POLITICS OF “BRAZILIAN” SPORT MEGA EVENTS(2015) Lopes, Victor Brito; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The first two decades of 21st century were times of great social, economic and political changes in Brazil where sport mega events (FIFA WC 2014, Rio 2016) played a key role in how the nation portrayed and promoted itself in a global scale. Despite the undeniable importance of Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in attempt to present the country as global protagonist with more political power and social advancements, this works is intended to discuss and extended the discussion upon mega events as different ways of repeating old traditions and practices, (radically) contextualizing the role of other players and agents (sport officials, local politicians, sponsors and local media), their biases and interests, in accordance to traditional colonial processes and the dominant neo-liberal paradigm.Item COACHES, CLIMATES, “FIELD” GOALS, AND EFFICACY: A “DE-CONSTRUCTION” OF THE MASTERY-APPROACH TO COACHING AND EXAMINATION OF RELATIONSHIPS TO PSYCHOSOCIAL OUTCOMES IN A YOUTH FOOTBALL PLAYER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM.(2015) Goldstein, Jay; Iso-Ahola, Seppo E.; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In support of the achievement goal theory (AGT), empirical research has demonstrated psychosocial benefits of the mastery-oriented learning climate. In this study, we examined the effects of perceived coaching behaviors on various indicators of psychosocial well-being (competitive anxiety, self-esteem, perceived competence, enjoyment, and future intentions for participation), as mediated by perceptions of the coach-initiated motivational climate, achievement goal orientations and perceptions of sport-specific skills efficacy. Using a pre-post test design, 1,464 boys, ages 10-15 (M = 12.84 years, SD = 1.44), who participated in a series of 12 football skills clinics were surveyed from various locations across the United States. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) path analysis and hierarchical regression analysis, the cumulative direct and indirect effects of the perceived coaching behaviors on the psychosocial variables at post-test were parsed out to determine what types of coaching behaviors are more conducive to the positive psychosocial development of youth athletes. The study demonstrated that how coaching behaviors are perceived impacts the athletes’ perceptions of the motivational climate and achievement goal orientations, as well as self-efficacy beliefs. These effects in turn affect the athletes’ self-esteem, general competence, sport-specific competence, competitive anxiety, enjoyment, and intentions to remain involved in the sport. The findings also clarify how young boys internalize and interpret coaches’ messages through modification of achievement goal orientations and sport-specific efficacy beliefs.Item Tuning Into the Gospel: How the Growth of Sports Television Popularized Public Prayer Among Athletes(2012) Goldenbach, Alan M.; Hanson, Christopher; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Whether the game is played among friends in a community park or in front of tens of thousands inside a packed stadium with millions more watching on television worldwide, prayer has become an omnipresent tool for athletes of all ages and skill levels. No longer do players invoke their spirituality in private or among themselves off the field; they do it in front of whoever is watching. While the ties between religion and sports date to ancient times, the public display of their union has become a phenomenon in the current generation. This book proposal will trace how public prayer among athletes has evolved. It will ultimately show that the boon of sports television programming over that span has given athletes a platform to use as a pulpit, while also exposing viewers to content they had not previously received through other mass media.Item Narrating Tragedy: From Kennedy to Katrina, From Sports to National Identities(2007-11-26) Gavin, Michael; Struna, Nancy L.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)On September 11, 2001, Major League Baseball commissioner Allan 'Bud' Selig postponed the baseball season to offer proper respect to that day's terror victims. On September 16, 2001, when the major league season resumed, sports columnists across the nation-state referred to the New York Yankees as 'America's team.' When the Yankees made their run to the World Series, many columnists argued they 'healed the wounds of the nation.' Likewise, as water settled in the French Quarter after Hurricane Katrina, columnists suggested the New Orleans Saints were 'capable of healing the nation' and referred to them as 'America's team.' When the Saints returned to the Superdome in 2006, many columnists suggested the region and nation were both healed. This dissertation uses discourse analysis to reveal the constructions of and contestations for dominant versions of national identity and memory in which sports columnists engaged in the context of tragedies like the John F. Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina. In examining sports columnists' work over five decades, I offer a historical overview of sports columns and their relationship to dominant discourses of race and national identity. In the process, I contend that the voices comprising mainstream sports columnists through the 1960s generally constructed a mythological national identity that privileged whiteness. By the late 1990s, however, the voices comprising mainstream sports columnists included both those who constructed and confronted white hegemony. Interestingly, some of those columnists supporting whiteness were minorities; and some of those confronting whiteness were themselves white. Hence, I argue that whiteness is a standpoint, not a condition of skin color. Likewise, I contend that mainstream sports columnists confronting whiteness work within a system often identified as producing hegemony in order to dismantle it, and potentially exert a great amount of cultural power.