Kevin Ware Case Study

Kevin Ware was a young college basketball player with the Louisville Cardinals who aspired to be the best on the court. During a game against Duke, he suffered a grisly fracture to his right leg; it was one of the most horrifying sports injuries we've ever seen. The break is more common in bad motorcycle accidents. For his injury and to assist him coping with the injury, I would consider starting an individual performance skills training program to help him overcome some setbacks that he is having. I would set him up for some psychological inventories, because his road to recovery will be met with many barriers. The PST program is very important, because "All sport and exercise participants fall victim to mental letdowns and mistakes."
Ware’s main problem is worry of failure, which a cognitively based strategy to change thought patterns is most suitable. I would begin
Ware’s program with a short meeting that will be followed under the three phases of PST: the educational phase, which involves increasing Ware’s awareness of the role that mental skills play in his performance; the acquisition phase, which focuses on strategies and techniques for learning the various psychological skills; the practice phase, which will help during actual competition. During his practice phase Ware will keep a logbook to write down his emotions after every competition. The log will keep the progression and provide needed feedback for the areas of improvement. The ultimate goal for Ware is to achieve self- regulation, the ability to work toward his short and long term goals by effectively monitoring and managing his thoughts, feelings and behaviors. He will obviously be faced with many challenges.

Throughout Ware’s program periodic evaluation will be conducted to assess any feedback for gauging Ware’s program, I will discuss achieved goals, and allow Ware to suggest any changes on how his program is being directed. This way there can be a modification