It is true that pressure and stress play a part in an athlete's performance but it is not necessarily a negative influence. Many athletes have been known to gather strength and been helped by the pressure they have felt. "These heightened states of stress and state anxiety may sometimes enhance performance (Velden and Humphrey 1986; 48)." To the average sports observer it should be easy to name at least a couple of athletes who have excelled in times or great pressure and stress. One of my favourite athletes of all time is one of those rare athletes. Michael Jordan is perhaps the greatest basketball player ever and he is known as one of the great "pressure players" in the history of the game. He got this moniker because when the game was on the line he was always one to demand the ball to try to win the game. He has won six National Basketball Associations championships and numerous other individual awards. Is there such a thing as positive pressure? I am under the impression that there is, because some how, athletes get things done and championships are won. And it is a popular opinion within the athletic community that game day jitters and pressures are a natural occurrence in competitive athletics. Jack Nichlaus who is one of the greatest professional golfers of all time, a six time Masters champion was quoted as saying "90 per cent of the rounds I play in major championships, I play with a bit of a shake (Jones and Hardy 1990; 4)." And I remember talking with Johnny Bauer a former Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender and he said to me, son, if you don't have butterflies in your stomach before a big game, there's either something wrong with you, or you're dead. It's unfortunate however that 'negative pressure' seems to get the most attention from the media.

Competitive athletics requires a lot more than just physical readiness. The role of the mind in the performance of an athlete is of utmost importance, and has recently gained wide spread attention. With people becoming more physically fit, becoming bigger and stronger every year, the need to gain every advantage possible is important to success. When it was realized the extent to which the mind becomes involved, coaches, specialist, psychologists began to study it extensively, finding cause and effect. This increase in academic study in the field of sport psychology, the topic has grown and many opinions have been put forth. In almost every opinion that I have read the commonality is the idea of the mind playing a very important role on the athlete. It would seem to be a natural environment where stress would manifest. The idea of the sport atmosphere being based on a goal and reward system, where an event or achievement is rewarded and success is good and failure is bad, stress would naturally find a home here. "The sport environment provides, therefore, many of the ingredients which invariably create stress in those who participate (Jones and Hardy 1990; 4)." And this stress has often been overlooked, as Lee Vander Velden and James H. Humphrey points out, most of the focus of athletes is on biomechanics and physiological factors and "little attention has been given to the mental preparation of athletes for competition (Velden and Humphrey 1986; 47-48)." It is clear that for the successful athlete it should be important to look at physical training but also preparing for the mental battle on and off the field of play, because the athlete who is better prepared will, in most cases be more successful. To the most cautious viewer the factors in determining performance lie solely on athletic ability and practice. Not may people would acknowledge the mind as a significant aspect of performance but it is "not simply the product of physiological (e.g. strength, fitness) and biomechanical (e.g. technique) factors, but that psychological factors also play a crucial role in determining performance (Jones and Hardy 1990; 3)." From here we can start to look

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)