Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 20, 1993 TAG: 9304200030
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Provided he negotiates the difficult final stages this week, Highlanders coach Ron Bradley will earn a doctorate in sports psychology from the University of Maryland.
Dr. Bradley?
"If I go 15-16 again, you can call me anything you want," Bradley said.
Today, Bradley will be called upon to defend his doctoral dissertation before a panel of five professors. To qualify for the privilege of being grilled by a committee of tweedy academic types, Bradley had to crank out something like 50 double-spaced pages of his thesis since last week.
The work was projected to be 150 to 175 pages long.
The title of the paper is "The Effect of Self-Modeling on Self-Efficacy, Goal Setting and Goal Commitment for the Basketball Free Throw Shot."
Beg your pardon?
"Basically, it's one of those things where if you can see yourself doing well at a task, then you will do well," he said.
Bradley's task started when he was a graduate assistant at the University of Maryland in the early 1980s. Work has been on and off ever since.
"Ideally, if I ever get somewhere where I have the basketball program in good shape, I'd like to go back into the classroom to teach a class a year," he said. "If a coach was ever involved in the academic side, I think it would very beneficial."
If the professors are satisfied, then Bradley will be a member of a small number of the NCAA Division I basketball coaching fraternity with a Ph.D. Tom Davis at Iowa is one who comes to mind.
"When you're in coaching, Ph.D. doesn't mean anything," Bradley said. "The only letter that means anything is `W.' "
by CNB