Letter from St Louis: The 2008 AASP Conference Review

Glyn C. Roberts, PhD
President-elect

AASP was in St Louis, Missouri this year, the Gateway to the West, as it proclaims itself. The conference was based in the Hyatt Regency that is connected to the historic Union Station. Once the largest and busiest train station in the country, Union Station was renovated in the 1980s and now boasts over 90 specialty shops, restaurants, and even a small lake with paddleboats. It was a great place for a conference, and we had 662 attendees, which was more than last year.


We had the “Parade of Flags” to begin the conference at the opening ceremony, and we had 49 countries represented this year. AASP is truly becoming an international conference. We also had the President’s address, as this has now become a new feature of AASP. Sean McCann gave a terrific speech, a little long but very well received. You may read Sean’s speech in the newsletter. I thought it a little long because I had to follow this address with the Coleman Griffith Lecture! I don’t know about you, but when you have to follow a great talk like that, I always feel intimidated. And when you know that only you separate the audience from the opening reception, it becomes a tough task! Anyway, from where I was standing, my rants about parsimony, elegance, conceptual coherence and practical utility seemed to go down OK!

I thought the keynotes were great this year. First up was Laura Carstensen who gave a fascinating address on the shifting time horizons of human aging! The 20th Century gave us 30 extra years of life, on average, and these shifting dynamics are going to impact the 21st Century dramatically. By 2030, one in four of us will be over 60 years of age. It means that we will have to change our notions about aging, and “old folk” will have to rethink old age by changing their expectancies.

Next up was Nannette Mutrie who gave a well received Health and Exercise psychology lecture and addressed the issue of promoting physical activity for public health. Her research demonstrates that despite widespread understanding of the necessity of physical activity, it is only going up by about 1 percent per year with the public. We need to look at long term implementation programmes into communities. Nannette completed her talk by asserting that we need to promote psychology for effective interventions for the public, and we need to accredit exercise intervention people.

Last, but not least, the performance psychology keynote speaker was Terry Orlick. Terry was Terry! He gave a very interesting philosophy of application talk (and a philosophy of life talk) where he discussed focus, and claimed to be a focus coach. His message was simply that one’s focus should be on the positives, and that focus is the centre of excellence.

Although not a keynote address, this year we also had the Distinguished International Scholar address. This was given by Celia Brackenridge of England, and her talk about sexual discrimination, sexual abuse and plain bullying in sport was fascinating. It is a shame that so few were at this address, because the message is one we should all hear! In particular, the anecdotes she had from abuses she has recorded (over 600 cases now!) was mind blowing, especially in a few cases when some coaches convicted of sexual abuse are rehired right after they get out of jail! Her conclusion was focused on how sport psychologists can be positive agents for change in abuse cases.

There were too many presentations to go to all, so my pick was very personal. But there were some very good presentations, and the “usual suspects” were all there doing their competent thing! My own area of motivation is always well represented, and I enjoy the talks. Of course, it is always the application talks that seem to get the largest audiences (I tried to go to the session where Gloria Balague, Ken Ravizza and colleagues were talking, and I could not even get to the door, there were that many attendees). While I understand why this is the case, there were some very good “researchy” presentations, and some good focused oral sessions. Clearly, the chairs and their respective committees are doing good jobs in organising the talks into thematic sessions.

The poster sessions were very interesting and the posters numerous! I always think poster sessions are the life blood of an organisation. If you have solid poster presentations, then you know that the membership is active and the research and conceptual base of the application of psychology to sport is in good hands. There is good stuff going on out there! It is a very good idea to have the poster sessions later in the day, and have an open bar so that the session becomes a social as well as a scholarly discourse. Some organisations I am associated with have not got the message about posters. So I applaud AASP for doing that, it makes the posters have the same status as oral presentations.   

Because the President-Elect has responsibility for student affairs, I attended the open student meeting chaired by outgoing student reps Todd Gilson and Tucker Readdy and incoming student reps Tanya Prewitt and Nick Galli. I enjoyed the enthusiasm and energy of the student reps, who represent students issues very well on the Executive Board I should say! But I was disappointed that not enough students attended the meeting (nudge nudge, say no more!). That criticism can be levelled for the student awards too.

Other highlights for me were the actual location of the conference at the old Union Station, once the busiest station in the US with 100,000 people going through in any one day! The place oozed history! I enjoyed the informal talks at Houlihans, the hostelry of choice for most of us at the hotel. But most of all, the scholarly and social conversations with colleagues and good friends from across the world are a feature of the conference. And meeting new people, AASP is a friendly social organisation where you can go up to people and simply chat!  Here’s to getting together next year at the conference in Salt Lake City.

Glyn