Building Bridges: Examining the Role of University Athletic Departments and Local Congregations in the Holistic Care of Student-Athletes in the United States

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I congratulate the authors of the article submitted to the journal Religions on their research idea. I understand that the Authors wanted to answer the question “how university athletic departments and local churches can cooperate in providing spiritual care for intercollegiate athletes in the United States?". In general, this question has been answered. The metric for this paper states that it is a scholarly article. Instead, the authors state that it is an essay. This should be clarified. If this work is to be published as a scientific article, then something must be written about the methodology of the results obtained. In the manuscript there is not a single sentence on this subject. Unless the editors of the journal Religions classify this manuscript as a review article, then it can remain as it is. The necessary elements of a scientific article are: 1) a clearly stated research problem (preferably expressed by a question), 2) a description of the methodological approach, and 3) the results achieved. Of these three elements, the description of methodology is missing. You can make this addition in the introduction or add a separate section in the manuscript. The reader has the right to know what was analyzed, what source materials were used for this, and what conclusions were reached by the authors of the paper?

 

In addition to the main objection to the methodological side of the manuscript submitted to Religions, I have the following two specific comments:

1) Lines 140-141: "Over the last ten years, greater emphasis has been placed on the holistic care of athletes at the scholastic, intercollegiate, professional, and club levels (Gamble et al. 2013)." The year is 2023 - the authors refer to the last 10 years and cite a 2013 publication as justification for this thought. Which 10 years is this task referring to: 2003-2013, or 2014-2023? The form of this sentence needs to be changed, as it creates confusion.

2) In line 404 there is "St. John XXII" and it should be: "St. John XXIII".

Author Response

Please see the attachment 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article makes a contribution to the field and addresses an interesting a novel questions. The Bibliography is extensive and shows the article is engaging with the important scholarship in the field. 

The question of the role of religion in college athletes' lives is an interesting one since it has relevance to multiple disciplines. The article makes a convincing argument that develops in a coherent way. 

The literature overview and the in-depth research create sometimes a dense text, some sections could use more work to make them clearer. I would suggest looking at section 5 and making it more readable and flush out the ideas in a clearer way. I specifically refer to the benefits, some are mentioned in a word or two while others are discussed in a paragraph. 

Section 7 is not well connected to the other parts of the article. It seems disjointed. 

I think it is a very promising article. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf