Applied Sports Science newsletter – April 30, 2018

Applied Sports Science news articles, blog posts and research papers for April 30, 2018

 

The Great Matt Harvey Mystery: What if he didn’t pitch in the 2015 postseason?

CBSSports.com, Matt Snyder from

Remember when in 2015, then Mets ace Matt Harvey and team management decided to go against the wishes of agent Scott Boras and use him in the playoffs, pushing past a predetermined innings limit? Ever since then, it seems, Harvey’s skyrocketing career has come crashing all the way down — resulting most recently in a move to the bullpen for the “pissed off” now former ace.

Harvey would end up throwing 189 1/3 regular-season innings and 26 2/3 more in the postseason in 2015. I know we’ve been trained over years of tamping down on workloads, but that seems like a lot coming off Tommy John surgery the year before. So what if the team, and an ultra competitive Harvey, decided to play it safe? Would Harvey’s career and the success of the Mets gone a lot different since that fateful season?

Let’s try an exercise of the imagination, shall we?

 

A Clockwork Orange: LeBron Pushes Himself Past His Limits

The Ringer, Rodger Sherman from

James tried to beat the Pacers all by himself. But a historic workload this season finally caught up to him and had him reaching for the orange slices by the end of the Cavs’ Game 7 win.

 

Anatomy of a Swimmer: How does Gold Medallist Abbey Weitzeil generate speed?

Olympics Channel from

Revealing the key physical features that help make the Team USA swimmer so fast.

 

Analysis: Call to Shaquem Griffin gives Seahawks’ draft one indelible moment

The Seattle Times, Bob Condotta from

Tempted to use their first pick Sunday on him but opting instead to take Washington tight end Will Dissly, the Seahawks had to wait out some nerve-wracking moments to pair Shaquem with twin brother Shaquill.

 

You are probably not getting enough sleep, and it is killing you

Business Insider, Hilary Brueck from

… When you haven’t slept enough, it’s harder for the body to fight off illnesses ranging from the common cold to cancer. Sleep deprivation depletes stores of your “natural killer cells,” a type of lymphocyte (white blood cell) that nix tumor and virus cells. A single 4- or 5-hour night of sleep could lower your body’s “natural killer” cell count by around 70%, Walker says.

 

Your brain gets smaller as you sleep (and you forget things)

Sydney Morning Herald, Liam Mannix from

Every day, as we learn new things and make new memories, our brains physically swell.

And at night, as we sleep, those memories are pruned and our brains shrink a little.

“Maybe you had a girlfriend or boyfriend 20 years ago that you rarely think about. Every night, the memory of that distant partner gets a little bit weaker, a little bit fainter, until it fades away to nothing,” says Dr John Lesku, one of the world’s leading experts on sleep evolution.

 

‘Snoozefest’: CMU concert explores music to sleep by

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jeremy Reynolds from

Can music affect our sleep?

The short answer is yes, though the mechanics of “how” remain a mystery.

From 11:59 p.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday, Carnegie Mellon University’s Studio for Creative Inquiry presented a concert of experimental electronic music intended to create a collective audience dreamscape, or, more plainly, to toy with the subliminal effects of music.

 

In Youth Sports, there is no LTAD without STAE

Changing the Game Project, John O'Sullivan from

… I believe nearly every sport governing body in every sport feels the same way. All but two sports in the US are losing more players each year than they are adding (hockey and lacrosse are the exceptions). It’s not just about getting kids in the game; it’s about keeping them.

How can we keep them? Sports across the United States are currently releasing their version of Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) plans, called the Athlete Development Model in the US. These mimic plans in countries such as Canada and Australia, and they provide an important framework for providing athletes with the right type of experience at various ages and stages of their development.

My worry is that the message of LONG Term Athletic Development gets emphasized and marketed, often at the expense of the one thing that actually keeps kids in sports for the long term: S.T.A.E.

 

ASICS opens up applications for start-ups to TENKAN-TEN Growth Catalyst

Endurance Business from

ASICS has announced the official call for applications to its TENKAN-TEN Growth Catalyst – a start- up acceleration program for the sports and wellbeing segment with a focus on sustainable growth.

Applications will remain open until 30 June 2018, and ASICS is looking for initiatives that fit under the scope of the brand’s ‘Anima Sana In Corpore Sano’ philosophy (A Sound Mind in a Sound Body). The company notes that accelerated start-ups will encompass different fields – from digital platforms and wearables, through to sports & wellness and training & health, to new materials and new forms of consumer interaction.

 

Researchers 3D print electronics and cells directly on skin

University of Minnesota from

In a groundbreaking new study, researchers at the University of Minnesota used a customized, low-cost 3D printer to print electronics on a real hand for the first time. The technology could be used by soldiers on the battlefield to print temporary sensors on their bodies to detect chemical or biological agents or solar cells to charge essential electronics.

Researchers also successfully printed biological cells on the skin wound of a mouse. The technique could lead to new medical treatments for wound healing and direct printing of grafts for skin disorders.

 

How latest federal charges underline the biggest issue in fixing college hoops

Yahoo Sports, Dan Wetzel from

In a couple weeks, the NCAA’s “independent” commission, chaired by Condoleezza Rice, is scheduled to offer recommendations on the future of college basketball. While Rice has not revealed any hints at what the committee is thinking, much of the rhetoric from college sports leaders has pushed the blame on other entities: shoe companies, agents, the NBA age minimum.

There’s been, in some quarters, a doubling down on the status quo, a declaration the NCAA isn’t stringent enough in its rules and enforcement. There’s been calls for everything from the need to regulate agents, to making demands to the NBA, to even empowering enforcement like it was a private FBI.

“Consideration should be given for NCAA members to provide consent for subpoena power as part of their membership obligations,” Atlantic 10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade said, which would be, well, completely ridiculous.

 

More Attention on the End Game for Student-Athletes is Needed

CollegeAD, Jonathan Yates from

Growing up playing chess, an appreciation for the “end game” develops quickly.

The end game is so critical as there are fewer assets and fewer moves with the denouement drawing inexorably near with each and every maneuver more critical for winning. There is a complete lack of consideration for this in proposed changes in college sports to allow for student-athletes to seek sponsors, have outside employment, and making it easier to transfer. The main consideration should heavily emphasize academics not athletics to ensure a successful end game for college players of graduating with at least one degree, hopefully, more.

As to why for this focus, simply look to the end game for professional football and basketball players.

 

Are Universities Exploiting Black Male Athletes in Order to Raise Revenues?

Pacific Standard, James McWilliams from

Center delivers some disturbing, if familiar, news about college athletic programs: They exist as mechanisms of exploitation, particularly of African-American men.

The meta-analysis, authored by Shaun Harper, an education professor at USC, concludes that “perhaps nowhere in higher education is the disenfranchisement of black male students more insidious than in college athletics.” The takeaway, according to Harper, is the need for “more outrage and calls for accountability.”

Of the 65 universities studied, black men comprised 2.4 percent of all undergraduates but 55 percent of football team members and 56 percent of basketball team members. Total student-athlete graduation rate was 69.3 percent over six years, and 76.3 percent for all students, but only 55.2 percent for black male student athletes. It’s not as if these numbers are in the process of improving. At 40 percent of the universities black male athlete graduation rates have dropped by 6.5 percent in the last two years.

 

NFL, NCAA will again use undrafted underclassman as scare tactic

ProFootballTalk, Mike Florio from

Every year, college football players who are old enough to vote, smoke, serve in the military, and in many cases legally drink make the adult decision to stop playing football for free and to attempt to play football for money. Even if the NFL and the NCAA would prefer that they continue to play football for no pay and, in many cases, an education they neither want nor take seriously but instead actively work to undermine at the express or implied urging of their coaches in order to devote maximum attention to football.

So when a chunk of those players inevitably aren’t selected in a seven-round draft, the guys who weren’t picked become the cautionary tale for next year’s crop of players who may choose to leave the NFL’s free farm system prematurely.

Here’s the first line from NFL.com’s article regarding the 37 underclassmen who weren’t drafted in 2018: “A record 106 underclassmen who were granted early eligibility for the 2018 NFL Draft entered Thursday hoping to receive the call of a lifetime, but only 69 did.”

 

Talking to your boss about data

MIT Sloan Management Review; Brian Eastwood from

One of the biggest challenges in data analytics is presenting results in a way that’s meaningful to people who aren’t data scientists. As MIT Sloan Master of Business Analytics student Souhail Halaby pointed out, there’s a model that shows that the winner of the Super Bowl can predict the next year’s stock market performance.

While this is interesting, it’s little more than the butterfly effect, Halaby said. “You need human intuition to determine whether the correlation is important,” he said.

Halaby, and more than a dozen other students who enrolled in the new master’s program, learned how to apply a human touch to mathematical models in a five-day class offered during the Sloan Innovation Period last October. The class, taught by organization studies professor Ray Reagans, will be offered to more students and expanded to a half-semester beginning in the fall of 2017.

Here’s what students learned in the first version of the class.

  • ‘Stakeholders have to trust your data’
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