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College athletes in supportive programs coping better with pandemic, study shows
LAWRENCE — Like much of society, college athletics were thrown into disarray by the COVID-19 pandemic. While student athletes were suddenly prevented from competing, training or seeing as much of their teammates and coaches, those who perceived they were part of a positive sporting environment also coped better during the early days of the crisis, a new study from the University of Kansas has found.
Biography reveals untold history of wealthy same-sex couple who lived as father and son
LAWRENCE — Once described as “the richest bachelor in Chicago,” Robert Allerton was a gay man who in 1922 began a romance with a student 26 years his junior named John Gregg. To hide this risky relationship, the adult couple began referring to each other as father and son. A University of Kansas professor explores their story in his new book titled “An Open Secret: The Family Story of Robert and John Gregg Allerton.” He writes that the years of Robert Allerton’s life (1873-1964) span an “almost-century-long arc during which homosexuality in American culture was first discovered, diagnosed, pathologized and persecuted.”
Full stories below.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
College athletes in supportive programs coping better with pandemic, study shows
LAWRENCE — Like much of society, college athletics were thrown into disarray by the COVID-19 pandemic. While student athletes were suddenly prevented from competing, training or seeing as much of their teammates and coaches, those who perceived they were part of a positive sporting environment also coped better during the early days of the crisis, a new study from the University of Kansas has found.
KU researchers have long studied a caring, task-involved sporting climate (LINK), in which young athletes receive support and recognition for their efforts, while mistakes are treated as learning opportunities. But the pandemic provided a unique opportunity to see whether the approach helped collegiate athletes cope with the unique stresses and challenges that came with the disruption of their seasons. A survey of more than 700 NCAA Division I, II and II and NAIA student athletes showed those who had positive support of coaches, teammates and programs were coping with the challenges of the pandemic better than those who were involved in more ego-driven climates, where the primary focus is on performance outcomes.
Athletes took the online survey in early 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic.
“We were thinking about athletes across sports and competitive levels and wondering if they were experiencing the caring climate we study. Were they part of such a climate, and if they were, would that help equip them to come through the pandemic with a more positive perspective?” said Mary Fry, professor of health, sport & exercise science. “For a lot of athletes, this pandemic might be the biggest challenge they’ve faced in life. We found that those athletes who perceived they were part of a strong, caring team environment reported experiencing greater psychological well-being and support and care from coaches and teammates.”
The study, co-written by Chelsi Scott and Troy Wineinger, doctoral candidates at KU, and Susumu Iwasaki of Fort Lewis College, was published in the Journal of Sport Psychology in Action. In addition to sharing survey results, the authors outlined positive responses athletes have experienced and strategies coaches and administrators could use to help athletes and staff cope.
While many respondents reported they had been able to stay in virtual contact with coaches and teammates, others responded that they were on their own. While they faced challenges including family health, financial pressures and disruptions to their academic lives, athletes involved in ego-driven sporting climates said they suffered blows to their personal identities. Losing access to competitions and facilities was exacerbated by losing contact with their coaches and teammates.
“The pandemic is so new to the research literature, but one thing we can compare it to is injury, if someone lost a season that way,” Wineinger said. “It was fun to see how coaches were able to create positive outcomes for their athletes even during a pandemic. Unfortunately, a lot of athletes didn’t get that support in their sport or in life.”
Respondents who had support reported higher levels of mental health, overall well-being, hope, happiness and ability to cope with the stress of the pandemic. Athletes who perceived they were part of a caring environment routinely reported their coaches asked about their health and challenges they faced off the field. Those coaches also encouraged players to stay in contact with teammates. The students also reported that the blow of losing the highly structured life of a collegiate athlete was softened by coaches who offered hope and reassured them their contributions were still valued.
“A lot of the athletes who had this kind of support were able to become their own beacons of hope,” Scott said. “Almost all said, ‘The most important thing is we’re staying healthy.’ We’ve seen a lot of positive things come from the caring, task-involved climate on the field. This highlights the benefits off the field, especially in challenging times, the impact it can have on personal identity and well-being.”
Based on the experiences of survey respondents and previous research, the authors shared several strategies coaches and administrators could use to support athletes throughout the pandemic, including checking in regularly; considering student views while making team decisions; helping them plan for their future and making their health a priority. That included promoting healthy behaviors; providing information on accessing food, medical and financial resources; identifying mental health concerns and promoting psychological well-being; and sustaining motivation and encouraging optimism.
While it is unclear when the pandemic will end or how collegiate athletics will return to normal, the authors said the study shows fostering a positive, caring climate can provide benefits to performance as well as help deal with the stress of a global health crisis.
“This adds to the benefits of coaches being intentional in supporting their athletes,” Fry said. “Research has shown that athletes have more fun, manage stress better and compete harder when they perceive a strong and supportive climate within their teams. The evidence for the benefits within sport have been strong, but the benefits to athletes outside the sport are growing, and we think this information can really help the next generation of coaches and parents.”
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Contact: Jon Niccum, KU News Service, 785-864-7633, [email protected]
Biography reveals untold history of wealthy same-sex couple who lived as father and son
LAWRENCE — Once described as “the richest bachelor in Chicago,” Robert Allerton was a gay man who in 1922 began a romance with a student 26 years his junior named John Gregg. To hide this risky relationship, they began referring to each other as father and son.
In 1960, after nearly four decades together, Allerton legally adopted Gregg.
“They are fascinating because of being so anomalous. It’s not like most people did this,” said Nick Syrett, a professor of women, gender & sexuality studies at the University of Kansas.
“But I like the idea that they complicate our history of what queer couplehood looks like in the past. And they complicate the history of what any kind of couple looks like even today.”
Syrett explores this singularly intriguing tale in his new book titled “An Open Secret: The Family Story of Robert and John Gregg Allerton” (University of Chicago Press). He writes that the years of Allerton’s life (1873-1964) span an “almost-century-long arc during which homosexuality in American culture was first discovered, diagnosed, pathologized and persecuted.”
Part of the challenge the professor faced when assembling this biography is that the Allertons – who first met when Robert was 49 and John was 22 — left no letters or papers of correspondence between the two of them, in part because they were always together.
“Most of us who are in relationships don’t write down notes and pass them across the dinner table that can then survive. We talk to one another,” Syrett said. “So all the substance of their conversation is lost to the historian. It forced me to reconstruct some of what’s going on, based on the sources that do exist.”
Despite being compelled to embrace a covert lifestyle, they were not exactly the poster boys for progressive social reform.
“They were fundamentally quite conservative,” Syrett said.
“They were Republicans. At times they were racist and anti-Semitic. They were products of their time and class for sure. Among their social set, they did not want to have an open conversation about the fact they were a same-sex couple.”
The choice these men made to become father and son is reflective of a moment in which homosexuality had newly come to be considered a problem that existed in the United States. Doctors had diagnosed it. Legislators had sought to criminalize it. Police were arresting couples when they caught them having sex.
“So they meet each other in this era when homosexuality has gained much more widespread attention but in all kinds of bad ways,” he said. “They are certainly capable of understanding who they are, what they are, what their love for each other means, but it’s at exactly the moment when they could never be public.”
Exacerbating this dilemma is the fact that Robert Allerton is already extraordinarily wealthy and renowned. Since he’s reported on regularly by newspapers, it means he has to account for what he does with his time. Thus, the pair required an immediate explanation.
“From that point onward, they just stick with this story,” Syrett said.
“What’s more interesting is that over the course of the 20th century, more and more gay people start to come out, be political, be activists, advocate for themselves … yet Robert and John have no part in that. They never get on board with that project because they’re too deep into their father and son story.”
Syrett first came across this hidden history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while doing research for his first book, “The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities” (University of North Carolina Press). The Allertons donated their lavish home and all their papers to UIUC.
“There have been multiple books published about their property — like big coffee table books with lots of pictures — because the grounds of the estate are beautiful, as is their estate in Hawaii. But no one has written extensively about their relationship, and they rarely enter into a conversation concerning queer history because that’s just not how they’ve ever been considered,” he said.
Now in his fourth year at KU, Syrett has investigated subjects ranging from maturity and masculinity to fraternities and queer history. His books also include “American Child Bride” (University of North Carolina Press) and “Age in America: The Colonial Era to the Present” (New York University Press).
“Many advocates in the marriage equality movement era made these arguments that gay people should be allowed to marry, but the argument was generally because ‘they’re just like straight people.’ I think that’s not true, in part, because straight people aren’t all the same, either,” Syrett said.
“Here, we’ve got a situation where one person is much older than the other. The old one is the rich one in control of the purse strings, but the younger one cares for the older one in ways that really are like a son and father. They show us there are all kinds of ways that people have acted out lifelong partnerships, and they’re not all perfect, egalitarian couples.”
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