Sports I Like to Play

Assignment 1

Blake Osier

Dr. D. Harris-Sims

July 28, 2012

The sport that I like is basketball, although it was not my first choice. My first choice was baseball, but you cannot play baseball in a wheelchair.

The subfield I believe that provided the best insight to my preference for basketball would be evolutionary psychology and cognitive psychology. "Evolutionary psychology merely suggests that as humans, we come equipped with many mechanisms designed to help us survive in a complex and challenging world." (Baron, 2008, p. 12) I believe that not being able to walk anymore was going to be challenging in itself because I have to learn things that are going to help me survive. Cognitive psychology "refers to all of our higher mental processes" (Baron, 2008, p.200). Being a paraplegic I realized that things are not going to be the same for me; most of the physical things that involved walking had to be relearned using a wheelchair. I had to unlearn things that were associated with walking, running and learn to use my wheelchair to accomplish the same thing. Being a paraplegic, I realized that if I wanted to play basketball I would have to practice physically until it hurt.

If I wanted to play a sport, I had to choose one that I could physically play. Rugby was to physically challenging. The players were brutal; they would knock the other team's players out of their wheelchairs. I was still not physically ready to play that hard of a game. Basketball was demanding but manageable for me. I had to learn to get in and out of my chair, that was hard to learn but I did it.

The sensation of pain is very important to me. Without pain, I would be unaware that something was wrong, since my perception of pain is not the same as a person who did not have a spinal cord injury.

My biological rhythms would be circadian I am most alert in the afternoon, after my medications have had time to work. My playing basketball achieves my...