, 1972, p. 2).
The nature of essential sports perceptions, the speeding up of these perceptions, the abbreviations of cues essential to perception, and the various factors which aid perception, or add to its confusion or delay, form another category of knowledge. Speed and accuracy and the relative order for emphasis on each in teaching skills which necessitate both, the factors which affect each aspect make up another. Finally, the whole area of measurement, evaluation, and prediction of learning levels and of performance is instrumental in guiding sports learners, directing sports performers, and in selecting future high-level performers (Lawther, 1972, p. 2).
Since before the turn of the century, physical education majors, the primary means of formal training for coaches--the first "psychologists" in sports--contained both practical and applied courses. Coaches were taught how to play and teach traditional sports activities on the one hand, and in addition, they undertook various "scientific" courses in which they learned about some basic dimensions of human performance, knowledge of which would purportedly serve them later in good stead. For the most part, these latter courses were based on biomechanics and exercise physiology. Until the late 1950s, courses dealing with the psychology of physical activity and the social factors that influenced human movement in games and sports were largely absent (Cratty, 1973, p. 4).
Since the early 1960s, however, interest in the psychological and social dimensions of human athletic endeavor has increased. This impetus toward gaining information from the behavioral sciences probably occurred for several reasons. The first is that texts, which pointed to how information from psychological research would aid in understanding human motor activity, were published. Although the first text in the United States dealing with the "Psychology of Athletes" was written in 1922 by Colema...