How did the wrestler cross the road?
In the 165 weight class, North Idaho College's Jake Mason (in back) beat Lincoln's Rick Goerke in the NJCAA Wrestling Championship first round.
Who can cross a busy road better, a varsity wrestler or a psychology major? That question, which seems to beg for a punch line, actually provided the motivation for an unusual and rather beguiling new experiment in which student athletes were pitted against regular collegians in a test of traffic-dodging skill. The results were revelatory.
For the study, published last week in The Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recruited 36 male and female students, ages 18 to 22. Half were varsity athletes at the university, a Division I school, and they represented a wide variety of sports...
The rest of the volunteers were healthy young collegians but not athletes, from a variety of academic departments. New York Times, Full Story
...The student athletes completed more successful crossings than the nonathletes, by a significant margin, a result that might be expected of those in peak physical condition. But what was surprising — and thought-provoking — was that their success was not a result of their being quicker or more athletic.
Interesting article especially in light of the rash of car/pedestrian accidents in the Gonzaga area. Do you believe participation in sports is important or adds to the college experience?
